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By S. K. Dimitrov

?Ellatzite Med? is one of the biggest mining companies in Bulgaria, processing about 12,000,000 t of ore per year. Waste materials left after extraction of copper concentrate are deposited in tailings dam ?Benkovski 2?. The hydraulic structure is built according to the downstream method, through hydrocyclonization where the downstream batter and the body of the wall are formed by the separated coarse sand particles of the separated tailings. In connection with the prolonged concession of Ellatzite Med and the enlarged capacity of Benkovski 2, the tailings dam has expanded on to the surrounding terrain. To guarantee a normal hydrocyclonization and build up of a tailings wall during waste deposition from the ore mill, the technological scheme of the hydraulic transport system of Benkovski 2 has been changed.

Aug 1, 2013

By C. Dinis da Gama

Because of the growing importance of back analysis for the interpretation of rock slope failures, particularly in open pit mines, it is suggested a methodologic sequence of activities for dealing with those problems. The principal mathematical tools for the interpretation of the most common mechanisms of slope failures are reviewed, including methods of stress and strain analysis, which seem to be more powerful for parametrization studies, and for developing more realistic explanations of slope behaviour, such as the measurement of displacements. An application of those methods is described, using slope failures detected in a Brazilian uranium mine (Cercado), thus providing reliable shearing strength parameters for the rock mass discontinuites, which were used in the final pit design. The concept of using backanalysis results to supply input data for pit design was implemented by means of the excavation of an experimental trench within mine limits, where specific instruments were installed, and several slope failures were monitored and backanalysed, in order to yield information about sliding mechanisms in the future open pit.

Jan 1, 1983

By Dave Weymer

Falling timber in BC has always been a hazardous job. Huge, often rotting trees and steep, rugged terrain combine to create difficult and dangerous conditions. Death and injury rates are among the highest of any occupation in North America. In BC, the men that head out, saw in hand, are called fallers.

Jan 1, 2013

By H. G. Hedlund

Tailings in Mining Industry can be handled in different ways. Today tailings disposal is in focus by projecting new plants as well as treating and handling of old Tailings dams.The trend today is to process minerals, detoxify the Tailings and place them as dry surface Deposition or Underground Backfill. This paper will briefly present five different Mining plants in North and Central America, where Tailings have to be dewatered for dry depositing. The Metso-Sala VPA is a filter especially developed for dewatering and drying of Mineral Concentrate and Mineral Tailings. Keywords: tailings disposal, dewatering, drying, mineral tailings

Sep 1, 2012

By Stella Sigler

This publication contains analyses and related source data for 153 natural gas samples from 16 States. Of the total samples, 149 were collected during calendar year 1993. The remainder were collected earlier, but releases granting permission to publish were not received until 1993. None of the analyses have been previously published in annual reports. All samples were obtained and analyzed as part of U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Bureau of Mines investigations of the occurrences of helium in natural gases of countries with free market economies. This survey has been conducted since 1917. The analyses published herein were made by mass spectrometer and chromatograph.

Jan 1, 1994

By James A. Kiger

We at Colowyo would like to thank you for the opportunity to share with the Society of Mining Engineers of A.I.M.E. the progress of reclamation at Colowyo Coal Company's multiple seam open pit coal mine which is a general partnership of W.R. Grace and Co., and the Hanna Mining Co. First, a brief history of Colowyo Coal Company (Colowyo). The Colowyo operation is located approximately 28 miles southwest of Craig, Colorado, which is in the northwest corner of the state. The Colowyo operation produces coal from a Federal Coal Lease, a portion of which has experienced previous coal mining by underground methods. The underground coal mines were known as the Red Wing Mine and The Streeter Mine, and supplied coal to numerous locations in the Rocky Mountain region.

Jan 1, 1984

By J. C. Irvine

Meramec Mining Company is a joint venture by Bethlehem Steel Corp. and St. Joe Minerals Corp. which mines and pelletizes iron ore at the Pea Ridge Mine. The Pea Ridge property is located near Sullivan, Missouri, about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis. The orebody was delineated in the mid-1950's by St. Joe during a lead exploration program. The first test holes drilled on the Pea Ridge magnetic anomaly revealed the presence of a large magnetite deposit; further drilling in 1956 and 1957 confirmed that the orebody was mineable, Meramec Mining Co. was incorporated in 1957 and shaft sinking began late in the year. Production commenced in April 1964. The orebody is overlain by about 1300 feet of flat-bedded sediments. It is tabular, about 2600 feet long and up to 600 feet thick. It dips about 80° and is of unknown depth. The ore is mainly high grade magnetite with small zones of specular hematite. The wall rock is a Precambrian rhyolite porphyry. The mine was initially started with five major levels on 150 foot intervals. Crosscuts were driven across the orebody on 190 foot centers. Banks of scopes were mined between the crosscuts by a modified shrinkage stoping method. This was done by undercutting a 40 foot wide by 150 foot long block and blasting horizontal "lifts" drilled on 5 foot intervals. A 65 foot still was left between levels which contained the slushing drift, fingers, crown pillar, and adequate thickness for support. By 1971 a ?lattice? of pillars had been left and mining had progressed to the point that an orderly pillar recovery program was necessary.

Jan 1, 1976

By J. Kendall Hales

Jan 1, 2005

By Lee J. Raabe

A specialized loading system for tensile and fatigue testing of wire rope was constructed and installed in the U.S. Bureau of Mine Wire Rope Test Facility in Bruceton, Pennsylvania. The computer-controlled closed-loop servo-hydraulic test system which can apply up to 800,000 pounds of force on the rope while stretching it up to 30 inches will be used in the development and verification of hoist rope retirement criteria for ropes in the 1 to 2 ½ in. diameter range. Characteristics and capabilities of the system are discussed.

Jan 1, 1984

By E. B. Zanelato

The process of casting metals and alloys occurs through the fusion of this metal and its subsequent casting into a mold with the dimensions and geometry close to the final piece. Most foundries use sand casting molds for making you. This work aims to characterize and evaluate the foundry sand to allow its use in segments of Civil Engineering, creating a viable destination for a residue is that discarded. The following characterization tests were performer: particle size, chemical analysis, X-ray Diffraction and Density Real grain. For the execution of the test specimens was used to 1:3 cement and sand, and the incorporation of 10% and 20% of the total mass replacing the sand, and the trace reference. The results show that best results in compression and bending tests were obtained by replacing 10 % of common sand for sand casting.

Jan 1, 2015

By Melvin W. Kraschnewski

In 1966 Central Ohio Coal Company and Bucyrus-Erie signed a contract authorizing Bucyrus-Erie Company to design and build a 220 cubic yard dragline. This dragline would be used for stripping overburden from their coal reserves located near Cumberland, Ohio. The size of the machine was arrived at after a thorough application study of their annual coal output requirement, depth of overburden and type of terrain. The design and construction of this machine which has been designated by BECO as model number 4250-W is the title of this paper. Size wise based on machine weight the 4250-W represents an increase factor of three over our largest current dragline. Probably the easiest way of presenting a machine of this size is to build it from the bottom up.

Jan 1, 1969

By Michael Gauna, Christopher Mark

"For decades, pillar recovery accounted for a quarter of all roof fall fatalities in underground coal mines. Studies showed that a miner on a pillar recovery section was at least three times more likely to be killed by a roof fall than other coal miners. Since 2007, however, there has been just one fatal roof fall on a pillar line. This paper describes the process that resulted in this historic achievement. It covers both the key research findings and the ways in which those insights, beginning in the early 2000s, were implemented in mining practice.One key finding was that safe pillar recovery requires both global and local stability. Global stability is addressed primarily through proper pillar design, and became a major focus after the 2007 Crandall Canyon mine disaster. But the most significant improvements resulted from detailed studies that showed that local stability, defined as roof control in the immediate work area, could be achieved with three interventions:• Leaving an engineered final stump, rather than extracting the entire pillar;• Enhancing roof bolt support, particularly in intersections, and• Increasing the use of Mobile Roof Supports (MRS)A final component was an emphasis on better management of pillar recovery operations. This included a focus on worker positioning, as well as on the pillar and lift sequences, MRS operations, and hazard identification. As retreat mines have incorporated these elements into their Roof Control Plans, it has become clear that pillar recovery is not ""inherently unsafe.""The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges that remain, including the problems of rib falls and coal bursts.INTRODUCTIONPillar recovery has always been an integral part of underground coal mining in the US. When room-and-pillar methods are employed, large blocks of coal in the form of pillars are initially left in place to support the weight of the overburden. Unless these pillars are subsequently recovered, the coal they contain will never be mined."

Jan 1, 2016

By H. D. Outmans

The mechanics of filtration are described by a theoretical-empirical nonlinear diffusion equation which, under certain circumstances, may,be linearized and then solved explicitly. For filtration under static conditions linearization leads to a boundary value problem analogous to a heat flow problem with a known explicit solution. The corresponding solution for static filtration is compared with published experimental data. Under dynamic conditions filtration takes place in three successive stages. During each of these the rate of filtration and/or the thickness of the filter cake are different functions of the filtration time. The proposed mechanism explains the observed high resistance of dynamically deposited filter cakes against erosion and also the connection between filtration rate and viscosity of the drilling fluid. Several of the quantities governing dynamic filtration have no counterpart in the static filtration mechanism. The static filtration rate is, therefore, not a reliable measure for the dynamic rate and vice versa. INTRODUCTION Filtration under simulated borehole conditions, i.e.. either from a static suspension or from a suspension flowing parallel to the filter cake (dynamic filtration), has been the subject of several laboratory studies.1-7 This experimental and theoretical work showed that many aspects of the filtration mechanism cannot be explained by an elementary filtration theory based on the assumption that the filter cake is incompressible. For a more satisfactory theory compressibility should be taken into account. This has been done. at least to some extent, in the filtration theory developed for the chemical industry. Surveying the literature (see Ref. 8 for a bibliography) it becomes apparent that, although several properties of filter cakes deposited from many different suspensions have been measured, including compressibility, the filtration equations are essentially empirical in nature. No attempt has been made, for instance, to develop filtration theory along the lines of consolidation theory.12 This theory, upon which a highly successful development in soil mechanics rests, would appear to be an excellent starting point for a filtration theory since the compressibility concept is an essential part of it. As we will use this theory in the following development it is well to state the four assumptions on which it is based: 1. The fluid flow through a compressible porous medium is governed by Darcy's law. 2. The rate of change in fluid content of an element of the porous medium is proportional to the rate of change of solid pressure between the particles. 3. The solid particles are incompressible within the range of pressures considered. 4. The total pressure on a surface normal to the line of flow is equal to the sum of the fluid pressure and the pressure between the particles (solid pressure) at that surface. To calculate the rate of filtration and other quantities of interest it is necessary to know the filter cake compressibility and the permeability as a function of the solid pressure. It has not been possible to calculate these functions from theoretical considerations and they will therefore be introduced in this paper as empirical expressions. Both are determined in a compression cell where the cake is subjected to a mechanical load. Permeability and compressibility are measured after the solid pressure has stabilized, i.e., after the excess fluid pressure has been dissipated and the uniform pressure is transmitted entirely by the solids. The permeability and compressibility thus determined are not the same as during filtration in the borehole, under either static or dynamic conditions, because then, due to frictional drag, the solid pressure and hence also the permeability and compressibility vary along a line normal to the direction of the mean flow and can only be defined locally. DERIVATION OF THE FILTRATION EQUATION FOR COMPRESSIBLE FILTER CAKES As the filter cake in the borehole is thin compared to the radius of the hole the filtration may be considered as linear. Taking the x-axis normal to the wall, with its origin at the formation, we have, according to Darcy's law,

By Alan Diaz Butron, Eng. Thierry Bernard

"In tunnel blasting the most challenging objective is definitively obtaining the maximum advanceassociated to a minimum overbreak. Achieving 100% of advance with no overbreak is the targetchallenge by Chavimochic Consortium. Chavimochic Special Project is an irrigation system that extends throughout much of the coast of the La Libertad Region, on the north coast of Peru. In 2012, it began management for construction of the third and last stage of CHAVIMOCHIC to irrigate lands of Chicama Valley, North of Trujillo. This project of 13 Km (8 mi) of various tunnels, it's a combination of technology and daily optimization by experienced people, which allow to accomplish the objective. Achieving this advance with no overbreak provide a huge saving on time. This paper describes the method, technology used, and the results obtained on more than 600 blasts done with conventional initiation system on the first 3 km (1.86 mi)."

Jan 1, 2017

By David Atkin

This paper presents methods and results of environmental planning conducted for a proposed coal and iron ore transshipment terminal which would be located on reclaimed land west of Lisbon, Portugal. Oceanographic, navigational, marine, structural, material handling, and financial studies of the terminal were conducted along with the environmental analyses. However, because of the proximity of the terminal to heavily used recreational resources, residential areas, and biologically valuable habitat, anticipating and reducing the environmental effects of the terminal to minimum levels was a very important part of the overall project. The results of the study indicate that even the impacts associated with worst-case conditions would be acceptable because of appropriate pollution control measures and planning.

Jan 1, 1983

During the construction of storage caverns, and during their lifetime if the use to which they are put so requires, it is necessary to provide adequate ventilation to ensure the safety and comfort of the underground workforce. An analysis of likely contaminants during construction has indicated that where a large facility is situated in a rock mass of even moderate temperature climatic conditions are likely to be the limiting factor during most of the mining operation and atmospheric pollution when blasting is undertaken. Possible options for improvement are increased air flow, cooling of intake air and reduction of the heat source by altering the number and type of haulage units employed in the cavern. Local solutions are an alternative approach where heat problems are confined to a few specific locations

Aug 1, 1994

By G. B. Glass

In 1996, 92.5% or 233 Mt (257.4 million st) of coal produced in Wyoming came from the Wyodak coal zone in the eastern Powder River Coal Field. While the mined portions of the zone consist of one to three beds of coal with an aggregate thickness between 15 and 33.5 m (50 and 110 ft), the thickest expression is 61 m (200 ft). The delivered coal from this zone averages 0.33% sulfur, 5.12% ash, and 19.98 MJ/kg (8,590 Btu/lb). This coal zone occurs at or near the top of the Paleocene Fort Union Formation, which is overlain by the Eocene Wasatch Formation. There is also production from two coal beds in the lower portion of the Wasatch at the southern end of the basin. Production of coalbed methane derived from the Wyodak coal zone is currently an estimated 10.2 billion cu ft a year. This production is occurring just west and downdip from the coal mines and is increasing each year.

Jan 1, 1998

By P Minkkinen

"Pierre Gy showed in his early works that the results in estimating the variance of the mean value of continuous lots depends on sampling mode (random, stratified or systematic), except in the theoretical case that the measurand is randomly distributed in the lot. The experimental variance estimate calculated from samples taken from the lot is independent of sampling mode but depends on sample size and the type of the lot heterogeneity. Variography can be used to estimate the variance of the lot mean for different sampling modes.Gy also defined weighting error, which is made if a simple average is calculated from the assays of samples taken from a continuous object (eg from a process stream) where the flow rate varies with time and is correlated with the concentration of the analyte in the stream.The effect on sampling uncertainty of the three sampling modes and their interaction with the following factors in estimating the uncertainty of the mean concentration is studied using simulated lots, and lots having heterogeneity patterns similar to those of real data sets, including the effect of: the type of heterogeneity (random, grading and clustered heterogeneity patterns) increment size and number employing composite sampling weighting error. CITATION:Minkkinen, P, 2017. Dependence of the variance of lot average on the sampling mode and heterogeneity type of the lot, in Proceedings Eighth World Conference on Sampling and Blending, pp 319–330 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

May 9, 2017

By Harold H. Fukubayashi

The effect of various zinc electrowinning solution impurities on the surface morphology of deposited zinc was investigated. Impurities studied included Al, Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ge, Mn, Ni, Sb, Sn, Ti, Pb02, PbSO4, and HC1. Also, the effect of animal glue, gum arabic, and Na2SiO3 additives on the deposited zinc surface structure was studied. Results were compared with deposits from a pure electrolyte consisting of H2SO4 and Zn+2, 200 and 65 gpl, respectively. Zinc was deposited on a Al cathode, 99.9 pct pure, using Pt anodes. Time, temperature, current density, and impurity concentrations were con¬troller The bulk of the tests were conducted at 40° C and 75 A/ft2 (82 mA/cm2). A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to examine the surface morphology. X ray diffraction techniques were used to determine crystal orientation and nondispersive X-ray spectrometer analyses were employed in an attempt to locate impurity concentrations on the zinc deposit when pitting or re-solution occurred. The impurities were categorized by their effect on current efficiency, morphology, and apparent mechanism of H2 evolution from the cathode.

Jan 1, 1974

By M. J. Ackerman

This study was undertaken to make a comparison between the cost of mining coal under roof bolt and under conventional timber methods of roof support. Studies were made at 14 mines in Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and northern and southern West Virginia. At each mine data were obtained for sections of the mine where the physical conditions, mining equipment, and mining systems were similar. Coal, recognized as one of the basic industrial fuels, is very competitive with other fuels, and management, in order to protect and enlarge its market, must be continually alert to find more efficient methods of production. Continuous production of coal is desired by all operators but never obtained. In mechanized mining the performance and production vary with operating time, which can be interrupted by many variable factors, such as condition of the roof, method of roof support, condition of equipment, water, ventilation, power, transportation, efficiency of operating crew, and supervision.

Jan 1, 1961