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By D. Marinakis

Gas hydrates (GH) are crystalline compounds consisting of a water molecule lattice, in the cages of which suitably sized molecules, such as methane or other light hydrocarbons, are confined. Although this solid phase looks similar to common ice, it contains substantial amounts of natural gas. The necessary conditions for natural gas hydrate formation exist in some deep-sea marine environments and in permafrost regions. Despite the extensive research, which has been conducted in the fields of exploration and exploitation of natural gas hydrate deposits over the last decades, there is still great uncertainty over the estimated amount of hydrates that these reserves bear. The present work examines some key features of sediments which affect their capacity to host gas hydrates. The hydrate content of a natural hydrate formation is correlated qualitatively with factors such as temperature, effective porosity, mineralogical composition, bio-surfactants, pore pressure and compaction pressure.

Jan 1, 2006

"There’s no fast way to add more than four miles of track, most of it underground, to the Sound Transit Link Light Rail system in the Seattle area. But increasingly busy traffic through a number of neighborhoods made it necessary. That’s the challenge a joint venture of several tunneling contractors faced when starting its portion of the $1.9 billion Northgate Link Extension in 2013, and the project is still keeping them busy three years later. Completion will mean just a 14-minute ride from Northgate to downtown for an extra 60,000 passengers by 2030. The transit lines will join 58 km (36 miles) of new and under-construction light rail lines running north, east and south from Seattle.Voters, tired of long commute times, approved the project, a key part of Seattle’s regional mass transit system, in 2008. The extension is part of a plan adopted by the Sound Transit board in 1996 to connect the region’s major activity centers. The Northgate project is meant to relieve one of the area’s most congested traffic areas by connecting the Northgate, Roosevelt and University District neighborhoods to existing routes including downtown Seattle and SeaTac airport.Sound Transit dedicated more than a quarter of the project’s estimated expense — $440 million -— to general contractor JCM Northlink LLC to handle the tunnel segment. JCM is a joint venture formed in 2013 between Jay Dee Contractors of Livonia, MI, Frank Coluccio Construction of Seattle, WA and Michels Corp. of Brownsville, WI. The contractors regularly collaborate on large-scale projects and brought experience working on a different section of the extension they completed in 2013.JCM project leaders knew immediately that the schedule would be demanding. They had to work around the clock, six days a week to meet deadlines. The extension runs through highly populated areas, meaning contractors had to follow strict city noise restrictions between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Plus, supervisors needed to manage the scheduling of nearly 250 employees to keep work running smoothly.“We had eight different operations and four different subcontractors trying to work in one tunnel,” said Chris Wood, JCM site project superintendent. “It’s important that we keep work linear. That’s the biggest challenge: keeping a path in and out so you can pour concrete, keep electricians and carpenters going, and accomplish everything else.”"

Jan 6, 2018

By A. Dave Mackintosh

The Current demand for potash has pushed world prices to record levels and allowed Saskatchewan producers to operate at maximum capacity. Several years of strong demand has resulted in a permitting rush not seen since the 1960?s. Even though Saskatchewan has a huge potash resource, mining and processing constraints will limit the areas of economic development. Introduction In 1969 M. E. Holter prepared a report ?The Middle Devonian Prairie Evaporite of Saskatchewan?, published by the then Dept. of Mineral Resources. Holter?s report has remained the bible of geologists working in potash ever since. It is astounding that a report written before there was really much potash mining history in the province, is as valid today as when it was first published. This paper re-iterates much of Holter?s report and adds a little mining experience to essentially confirm the importance of his work.

May 1, 2008

By Laffin N. W

Invariably when a new plant is cammissioned operations personnel on takeover look at ways and means of reducing certain restrictions and improving process conditions. These improvements are generally of a mechanical/engineering nature with minor metallurgical alterations to fine tune and maximise recovery. Most operations are continually reviewing and updating existing equipment and equipment spares to gain the maximum performance hereby reducing operating costs. Design of current carbon-in-pulp/carbon- in-leach (CIP/CIL) plants has evolved to such a high degree that many of the medium sized plants can have a "blue printed" design from one to the next if the same engineering designer is used.

Jan 1, 1989

By D. K. Storer, W. Lee, S. Tkach

"A microcomputer-controlled multi-probe K-40 monitoring system was developed internally for the Phase II mill at the Lanigan potash mine. The K-40 probes were mounted in a variety of positions in several process streams, ranging from dry ore on a conveyor belt to brines and slurries. A description will be presented of the objectives, the equipment and the difficulties encountered in correlating results.IntroductionThe successful control and optimization of most metallurgical processes involves monitoring not only physical parameters such as flow rate and temperature, but also the chemical compositions of critical streams. Composition has proven difficult to measure on -line in industrial scale processes. However, in potash processing there is a convenient chemical parameter that has long been utilized to measure in situ the concentration of potassium chloride (KCl). Potassium has a long-lived isotope which is slightly radioactive. K40 decays by beta elimination to Ca40, ultimately radiating a characteristic gamma-ray photon. This gamma emission when detected by scintillation counter can be used to estimate the concentration of potassium in a process stream."

Jan 1, 1990

By Kenneth P. Katen

Though the use of continuous mining machines consolidated the operations of cutting, drilling, blasting, and loading in one machine that would theoretically provide uninterrupted production, it was soon realized that the face haulage and roof support operations remained as major impediments to continuous production. The ability to provide not only continuous cutting and loading, but also continuous haulage and roof support (see Fig. I), was the basis for the introduction of mechanized longwall systems in this country from Europe in 1951. The early systems employed friction props for roof support, but were to become obsolete shortly after introduction of the first hydraulically powered, self-advancing supports in 1960. Since then, use of the longwall technique has grown to the point where it is currently providing more than 5% of the annual output of underground coal mines in the United States. The shortwall system had its origin in Australia, but was first introduced into this country in 1962 following the development of powered roof supports. It, too, provides for continuous cutting, loading, and roof support (see Fig. 2), but has not experienced the widespread popularity of longwall due to its inherent inability to easily provide for continuous haulage. While there are in the neighborhood of 100 longwall systems currently in operation in this country, there are only a handful of short- wall operations providing production of slightly more than 907 184.7 t/a (1,000,000 stpy) Both of these systems provide uninterrupted roof support for face operations by means of hydraulically powered steel roof supports. In each case, the coal removal consists of open-end cuts made from the narrow end of a large rectangular pillar (panel) which has been blocked out by continuous miners developing entries around its perimeter. However, this is the extent of the similarities between the two systems. It is hoped [ ] that the information presented in this chapter will enable the reader to better understand the two mechanical systems and the mining concepts involved in their employment.

Jan 1, 1981

By Lester F. Engle

Books have been written, complex charts drawn, great batches of punched cards handled by ever increasing numbers of computers, and innumerable meetings held-all for the purpose of making effective the ultimate objective of new, revised or improved process facilities. It is to the credit of management, engineers, and others that in the vast majority of cases, the outcome of their work has been technically sound and economically rewarding. There is a way, however, to insure even better results.

Jan 5, 1966

By S. Terry, J. G. Munro

A unique feature of the recently dedicated pelletizing complex of Hamersley Iron Pty. Ltd. is the dry grinding circuit for the iron ore fines. This facility, located at Dampier, some 800 miles north of Perth, Western Australia, has a rated annual capacity of 2 million tpy of iron ore pellets. The Mt. Tom Price orebody, which supplies the pelletizing plant, is a massive deposit of high-grade hematite containing an estimated 500 million tons of ore averaging 64% iron. The main impurities are ferruginous shales that occur in bands of varying widths in the orebody. An average analysis shows 4.4% SiO2, 2.0% A12O3, 0.05% P and 1.8% LOI.

Jan 5, 1968

By F. Seymour

A modified three-dimensional Lerches-Grossmann (LG) graph tree algorithm that generates the complete set of nested maximum valued pits in a single run is presented. This modified LG algorithm looks at the relative strength (average value) of the branches (groups of blocks). Pointers are allocated and pruned until there are no members of weaker (lower average value) branches overlying members of stronger (higher average value) branches. The final set of strong branches arc listed in order of decreasing strength. The pits they represent form the maximum valued convex hull for a single-variable pit-limit parameterization. A description of the algorithm is given along with examples of lion it has been applied at Newmont.

Jan 1, 1996

By Bayard Morrow

THE copper-bearing ores concentrated at the Anaconda plant of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. are principally a mixture of copper and iron sulfides associated in a gangue consisting of quartz, lightly altered granite and feldspars, with sphalerite and galena and more rarely barite and hubnerite as accessory minerals. The predominant sulfide is pyrite. The copper minerals present are: chalcocite, bornite (Erubescite), enargite, chalcopyrite, covellite, tetrahedrite and some tennantite. Normal concentrator practice removes a slime prior to ball-mill grinding. The deslimed ore is ground to approximately 10 per cent plus 65 mesh for flotation. Two selective flotation circuits are used, one for deslimed ore and one for slime. The metallurgical results obtained are shown in Table 1.

Jan 1, 1933

By D. R. Hack, N. M. Sirakov, M. L. Feves, M. Iwanowski

This paper presents a new approach capable of volume calculation of 3D reconstructed geological objects. The method is based on a well-known concept that states the volume of an object can be computed as the limit of the sum of the area of infinite number of sections, which cut the 3Dobject. Since shortage of input data about the geological objects usually exists, Mathematical Morphology and polynomial interpolation are employed to generate a set of intermediate sections between the set of initial sections. A Mathematical Morphology tool is applied to compute the area of the two of sets initial and generated 2D sections. Regularities together with Delaunay Triangulation are employed to perform 3D reconstruction. A formula is developed on purpose of volume calculation of the reconstructed objects. A set of ten theoretical, electrical resistivity cross-sections were generated and used to perform an experiment to show the capability of our approach to estimate the volume of complex 3D geological object in case of sparse 2D sections. The volume determined using the morphological approach presented in this paper show good correlation with the volume of the original input object. Advantages and disadvantages of our volume calculation approach are discussed in the conclusion of this paper. Keywords: electrical resistivity, sparse 2D sections, geological objects, smooth 3D visualization and volume calculation.

Jan 1, 2003

By D. Moffat

Rio Algom Limited has mined uranium at Elliot Lake, Ontario for 20 years. The production of this energy-generating element results in the need to dispose of low-level radioactive solid wastes and liquid effluents. Because of the wet-temperate climate at Elliot Lake, the liquid effluents are of particular importance. Radium-226 is the isotope which requires most attention, and the current practice for its control is by addition of barium chloride and retention of the resultant precipitates in large settling ponds. Analyses of typical effluents and waste streams are discussed and typical levels of radium-226, thorium-230, thorium-232, thorium-228, lead-2iO, polonium-2iO, and uranium isotopes are presented.

Jan 1, 1979

By P. W. A Severin

"The Sturgeon Lake deposit, a partly eroded lens of massive sulphides with an underlying sulphide stringer zone, is one of five orebodies that occur in the Sturgeon Lake area of northwestern Ontario within volcaniclastic rocks of the Archean Wabigoon Subprovince in the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield.The Sturgeon Lake Cu-Zn-Pb-A g-Au deposit was discovered in October 1970 as a result of an I.P. survey. Production from this open-pit mine began in March 1974 and continued until the ore was exhausted in March 1980.The Sturgeon Lake property is underlain by basaltic volcanics, minor amounts of mafic lapilli tuff and rhyolite volcaniclastics. A quartz crystal-bearing rhyolite occurs at the top of the felsic volcaniclastics and is ""capped"" by the Sturgeon Lake massive sulphide deposit. The felsic volcanics have been intruded by a crudely layered sill-like, carbonatized mafic intrusion. Recent work suggests that the felsic rocks that underlie the Sturgeon Lake deposit are lateral equivalents of those in the vicinity of the Mattabi Mine and are not correlative with the dacitic volcaniclastics that underlie the Lyon Lake and Creek Zone deposits. Hydrothermal processes that resulted in the formation of the Sturgeon Lake orebody have resulted in a depletion of Na2O, CaO and FeO and an increase in MgO, K2O, copper and zinc. In the vicinity of the sulphide stringer zone, the rhyolites are ""bleached"" due to silicification and sericitization. The rocks lying immediately below the massive sulphides are locally strongly chloritic.The Sturgeon Lake deposit may have formed on a top ographic high which prevented mafic flows and dacitic volcaniclastics that underlie the Lyon Lake and Creek Zone deposits from inundating the Sturgeon Lake fumarolic vent from the west. Continued or resurgent activity from the Sturgeon Lake fumarole may have resulted in the formation of the Lyon Lake and Creek Zones as more ""distal "" deposits in topographic lows. The Sturgeon Lake, Lyon Lake and Creek Zone deposits were subsequently overlain by mafic tuffs and flows."

Jan 1, 1982

By W. W. Gerberich, P. L. Hemmings, V. F. Zackay

ThE strain-induced martensitic transformation may be used to attain desirable combinations of strength, ductility, and fracture toughness. One of the parameters is the relative stability of the austenite. For example, it has been shown by Zackay et al.1 that the volume percent of strain-induced martensite is related to the combination of strength and elongation obtained. It has also been shown that the degree of transformation is an important factor in the crack propagation resistance of metastable austenitic steels.2 Considering both tensile and crack-propagation tests, it was of interest to see if there was any functional relationship between the amount of strain and the volume of strain-induced martensite. Previously,9 it had been shown that at room temperature, there was a relationship between uniaxial tensile strain and the volume percent of resulting martensite given by The data were obtained by plastically elongating tensile samples to a certain strain and then measuring the field strength to determine the strain-induced ferromagnetic volume. This was accomplished for two conditions having yield strengths of 229 and 233 ksi. The nominal composition of this material was 9Cr-8 Ni-3 Mo-2 Mn-2 Si-0.25 C-0.09 N. In evaluation of the strain-induced martensite at a crack tip: the question arose as to whether Eq. [1] would also be valid under triaxial stress conditions. Tests were conducted on 1/2-in. thick plate material having a composition of 9 Cr-8 Ni-4 Mo-2 Mn-2 Si-0.27 C. It was found that sectioning, polishing, and etching of fractured specimens could reveal the strain-induced martensite occurring at a crack tip. Care had to be taken to minimize the final polishing steps so as to avoid a smeared layer of strain-induced martensite. The method for taking metallo-graphic samples from fractured crack-line loaded type samples is shown in Fig. 1. Observations of the strain-induced martensite occurring at room tem-

Jan 1, 1970

By B. D. Cullity, J. T. Norton, M. Telkes

THIS investigation of antimony-selenium alloys was undertaken in an attempt to find a suitable material for use in power-generating thermocouples. The chief requirements for such a material are high thermoelectric power, low electrical resistivity and low thermal conductivity. Measurements of the first two properties mentioned are usually sufficient to determine whether or not a material is suitable for use in a thermoelectric generator. As a first approximation the requirements are: 1. Thermoelectric power greater than 200 microvolts per °C. 2. Electrical resistivity less than 0.002 ohm-cm. 3. Thermal conductivity less than 0.015 watt per cm per "C. These quantities are averages for the Operating temperature range. Previous Work Experimental investigations of equilibrium in the antimony - selenium system have been summarized by Han-sen². These investigations extended from 1906 to 1921. In Hansen's judgment, the most accurate phase diagram is that determined by Parravano, in 1913 and this is reproduced in the upper part of fig. 1. The most notable parts of this diagram are the liquid miscilibility gap, extending from about 12 to 36 wt pct selenium, and the intermediate phase Sb2Se3 containing 49.3 wt pct selenium. The crystal structure of Sb2Se3 has not been determined. Pelabon3,4 made measurements of the electrical resistivity of a few antimony-selenium alloys but his investigation was not very complete. He found that the resistivity increased with the selenium content and became very large as the composition of Sb2Se3 was approached. For alloys containing less than 50 at. pct (39.3 wt pet) selenium, he found that the resistivity increased regularly with temperature. For alloys containing larger amounts of selenium, he found various results: in some cases, the resistivity decreased with increas-

Jan 1, 1951

By D. W. Fuerstenau

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the stability of the mass flow rates and average pellet size in the different streams of an industrial-scale balling circuit. The variables in this study include water content, drum speed, and fresh feed rate. It was found that both the mass flow rates and pellet diameter are greatly disturbed when a change, positive or negative, in any of the variables takes place. For most of these disturbances to be damped down, a period of 1 hr or so is required. When a disturbance in the feed rate was made, the transient period extended to more than 1% hr (the duration of the experiment). It was observed that there is an interaction between the drum speed and moisture needed for producing an acceptable green ball product. The moisture content of the product pellets was found to be a function of the pellet size, with the larger pellets retaining a higher moisture content

Jan 1, 1983

By J. S. Seawright

Haulage is a costly feature in the operation of an open pit mine, whether it be iron, copper, or limestone. The National Iron Co. has adapted an old underground method to the open pit inclined skip haulage to bring the ore from the pit bottom to the crusher or beneficiation plant. The Rockover skip has been placed in operation where limited areas have retarded or eliminated use of long rail or road slopes. Deep and narrow orebodies subject to rapid increase in depth that discourage use of conveyor belts and necessary crushing plants are ideal for this system. The skip haulage method was developed to combine the desirable features of conveyor, truck, and rail haulage and at the same time avoid the draw- backs. The skip was designed to follow the natural angle of repose of the pit wall and can vary from 25° to 45°. Open-pit skips now in operation show that the installation is successful and provide the

Jun 1, 1955

By Bruce Hebblewhite

An ACARP-funded industry research project in Australia recently investigated the problem of premature rock bolt failures in underground coal mines. The project carried out limited sampling from 9 different collieries in NSW and Queensland, followed by a more comprehensive, controlled sampling from one colliery. Over 50 broken bolts were collected and subjected to metallurgical analysis at UNSW to determine both the steel composition and to analyse the fracture surfaces. Prior to this study, there had been anecdotal evidence of similar bolt failures from a number of sites within the industry. The sampling and analysis conducted by this project - whilst being below a statistically representative sample of the entire industry bolt population - highlighted the fact that bolt failures were continuing to occur at a number of sites, in both older and recently installed bolts. The failures were almost entirely attributable to stress corrosion cracking (SCC). It appears that a combination of factors - including steel composition, bolt manufacturing process, loading environment, geological and hydrological environment, bacterial corrosion - can all contribute to this problem. There is no simple solution, however, as with similar research findings from the UK, it appears that steels with higher values of fracture toughness, or Charpy Index, are less susceptible to SCC. Testing to date has been limited to bolt failures below the resin encapsulation horizon. A real concern is the potential extent of the problem at higher horizons, within the encapsulation. These may require some form of non-destructive testing (NDT) for detection. Initial trials in Australia of the ultrasonic device developed by DMT in Germany have proved encouraging. Further testing using this device is anticipated in future research. This paper describes the outcomes of the project, completed in 2002.

Jan 1, 2003

By Hiroshi Kato, Shin’ichi Nagashima, Hiroshi Takechi

The preferred orientations detleloped during cold rolling, annealing, and hot rolling of low-carbon steel sheets have been investigated by means of an inverse pole figure technique. And X-ray line profile meas-urerrlents were made for the study of the factor which causes the textural changes between cold-rolled and recrystallized sheets. From ND (sheet normal divection) and RD (rolling direction) inverse Pole figures tlze axis detisity change with increasing cold reduction was measured and the Preferred orientations were analyzed. These results can be explained by crystal rotation due to slip during rolling deformation. The ND axis density change during annealing of cold-rollitig sheets is contrary to the change observed in the case of rolling. It was found that the orientation dependency of stored strain energy resulting from cold rolling apparently corresponds to the textural changes during recrystallization. The texture in hot-rolled sheets was found to be influenced by finishing tenlperatltre. In a sheet kol-rolled below the Ar, temperature a significant differernce in texture between the surface and central layers was obtained, the former having {hkl}(111} and {110 )(uvw) orientations and the latter having {pqr}( 110) orientation. A large number of investigations1 6 have been made on the textures of iron and low-carbon steel sheets, and, since it was shown7 13 that preferred orientations are closely related to deep drawability of steel sheets, studies14" 7 on the influence of production processes upon textures have been made from the standpoint of industrial interest. Generally, the textures in low-carbon steel sheets have several components of preferred orientations, but the overlapping of poles makes it difficult to analyze texture quantitatively from pole figures. On the other hand, an inverse pole figure directly expresses quantitative values of components of preferred orientations as the density of a certain sample axis with respect to the crystallite coordinates. Such a texture representation is desirable for a study of deep drawability. The purpose of the present work is to use both inverse and conventional pole figures, with emphasis on the former, to clar~fy the textural changes ~n low-carbon steel sheets by the production processes of hot rolling, cold rolling, and annealing. And the factor causing the textural changes during annealing is studied using an X-ray diffraction line profile technique. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Sheet specimens for study of cold rolling and annealing textures were taken from a hot-rolled strip of rimmed steel 2.7 mm thick. The chemical composition is shown in Table I. Although the study of cold-rolling textures requires a suitable material with random orientation, it is difficult to produce a perfect random one. But the used specimens, obtained from the hot-rolled strip with a finishing temperature higher than Ar3, were nearly random, such as shown in Fig. 15. These were cold-rolled to various reductions by a 4-high rolling mill with 150-mm-diam work rolls and 300-mm-diam backup rolls. The influence of hot-rolling conditions such as finishing and coiling temperatures on textures of hot-rolled strips was studied. The chemical compositions of these hot coils are given in Table I1 and the hot-rolling conditions are given in Table 111. inverse Pole ~i~ure -~easurement. Two methods for determining inverse pole figures with high precision have been proposed. The first, by Jetter et a1.,18 consists of obtaining mean densities of divided regions in a unit stereographic triangle by solving simultaneous linear equations to approximate the integral relation between conventional and inverse pole figures. The second, proposed by ~oe'~-'~ and Bunge,22'23 consists of determining an expanded series of spherical surface harmonics which express axis densities from several sets of pole distribution data. Both methods require laborious numerical calculations which make them unsuitable for practical use. However, the axis densities of the locations corresponding to low Miller indices in a unit stereographic triangle can be obtained

Jan 1, 1969

By V. I. Lakshmanan, R. Roy

"TiO2 is used in paints, plastics, rubber, paper, inks, textiles and other miscellaneous applications. The demand for the pigment grade Ti02 is growing at 3.0%/year on average and this invites the development of innovative and cost effective processes. The current processes are not designed to recycle the reagents and thereby discharge the effluents into the environment, causing an environmental concern.During this study, synthesis of TiO2 from an ilmenite concentrate was investigated using an innovative atmospheric mixed-chloride leach process. The solution purification was carried out using solvent extraction in two stages. In the first stage iron removal was carried out and in the second stage titanium was extracted. The strip solution obtained from the second stage solvent extraction contained the purified titanium and from this stream pigment grade Ti02 was recovered. The barren solution was used for reagent recovery and the regenerated leach liquor was recycled."

Jan 1, 2011