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By M Haest, O Dominguez, D Mittrup

Technological innovations and emerging analytical capabilities are transforming the way drill samples are analysed, with real-time mineralogical analysis made possible. In addition, new business/technical requirements are challenging long standing processes to incorporate more sources of information during planning in order to improve compliance to plan during mining and processing. Unfortunately, the new sources of information that are added do not always have adequate protocols in place to ensure quality data is collected.Spectral data covering the visible – near – short wave – midwave – longwave range are routinely collected by the Geoscience and Exploration department at BHP Billiton Iron Ore for accurate mineralogical identification. These data are used for geological interpretations (logging and modelling) and prediction of physical variables (metallurgical and geotechnical properties).This paper introduces how sampling and quality assurance / quality control concepts have been applied in the spectral data process. The described routine for sampling, data collection/management and reconciliation has been developed to track system precision and accurately and consistently ensure the data is of high quality before it is used across the mining chain.CITATION:Mittrup, D, Dominguez, O and Haest, M, 2017. A new approach to implement quality assurance and quality control to technological innovations – quality of spectral data capture and processes in the minerals industry, in Proceedings Eighth World Conference on Sampling and Blending , pp 265–270 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 9, 2017

By Franziska Wolf, Rainer Ellmies, Helmut Mischo

"Mining is an important part of the economy of Namibia. In 2016, 11.1 percent of the GDP was the result of mining activities with 22 active mines (The Chamber of Mines of Namibia, 2016). Only one of them consists of an underground mining operation.The global annual production of fluorspar is approximately 5.4 to 6.3 Mt (6 to 7 million st) (U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center, 2017). Okorusu has produced on average about 45 kt/a (50,000 stpy) in recent years (U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center, 2015).The Okorusu Mine is Namibia’s only fluorspar mine. Fluorspar was mined in an openpit mine with four individual pits (A-D) since 1980. In 2014, the mine closed due to the increased stripping ratio and beneficiation problems. The mine assets were bought by Gecko Namibia. Currently, Gecko uses parts of the processing plant for beneficiation of graphite from a neighboring mine. Figure 1 shows a panoramic view with the four pits and the mine village.The intent is to develop a concept for the further underground development of the mine. There are still about 6.3 Mt (7 million st) of measured resources left in the deposit, with an average grade of 27.5 percent CaF2. This study focuses on the underground mine design. The above-ground plant and facilities are considered as remaining unchanged.For solving the task to design the mine, a site visit for data collecting was conducted. Resource estimations were calculated based on existing drill data, and consequently, block models were created. The development of the mine design included the selection of the most suitable mining method, mining technology and mine organization. Moreover, some economic considerations are pointed out, followed by a profitability assessment."

Jan 2, 2018

By J. A. de Carvalho Junior

This paper analyses the impact of the uncertainty associated with the input parameters in a mine planning optimization model. A real example was considered to aid in the building of a mathematical model that represents the coal production process with reference to the mining, processing, and marketing of coal. This model was optimized using the linear programming concept whereby the best solution was perturbed by the stochastic behaviuor of one of the main parameters involved in the production process. The analysis of the results obtained permitted an evaluation of the risk associated with the best solution due to the uncertainty in the input parameters.

Jan 1, 2012

By J. A. de Carvalho Junior

This paper analyses the impact of the uncertainty associated with the input parameters in a mine planning optimization model. A real example was considered to aid in the building of a mathematical model that represents the coal production process with reference to the mining, processing, and marketing of coal. This model was optimized using the linear programming concept whereby the best solution was perturbed by the stochastic behaviuor of one of the main parameters involved in the production process. The analysis of the results obtained permitted an evaluation of the risk associated with the best solution due to the uncertainty in the input parameters.

Jan 1, 2012

By N. Verbaan, E. Bourricaudy, M. Dry

"Starfield Resources is developing a novel circuit for the recovery of nickel, copper, cobalt, iron oxide, sulphuric acid and precious metals from the Ferguson Lake deposit in Nunavut, Canada. In this deposit, pentlandite is too finely disseminated in pyrrhotite for the production of a smelter-grade nickel concentrate at an acceptable nickel recovery, so established technology is not applicable and a novel chloride-based circuit is under development. The enabling aspect of this circuit is the hydrolysis of ferric chloride to hematite, releasing gaseous hydrochloric acid that is recycled. Conventional steps are used for separating and recovering the valuable metals from the chloride solution generated. This paper briefly outlines the circuit and presents the results of experimental work on the enabling steps, viz. the oxidation and hydrolysis of iron chloride to hematite and gaseous hydrochloric acid.IntroductionThe Ferguson Lake bulk sulphide ore body in Nunavut, Canada, owned by Starfield Resources Inc., contains significant amounts of base and precious metals but its mineralogy is such that it is not amenable to conventional processing. Pentlandite, for example, is too finely disseminated in pyrhhotite for even modem techniques such as fine grinding and improved flotation reagents to be effective [ 1] and extracting the value requires processing the entire bulk sulphide, including the pyrrhotite. To give the project a total green footprint, in terms of both carbon emissions and acid rock drainage, Starfield imposed the following requirements:• No reactive tailings to generate acid rock drainage.• No gaseous emissions other than normal atmospheric constituents.• No liquid effluents.• No regular consumption of fossil fuel.• High recoveries of all the valuable metals."

Jan 1, 2011

By Yuanbo Zhang, Bingbing Liu, Zhuyin Chen, Xiao Kang, Chen Liu

Composite agglomeration process (CAP) is an effective method to utilize the iron-bearing dusts generated in the ironmaking plants, by which the dust percentage in the sinter feed can be increased up to 20 wt %. In the current study, a comparison on behavior of iron-bearing dust in the conventional sintering process (CSP) and CAP was characterized. The results showed, in the CSP products, the scattered iron-bearing dust in the mixture was disadvantageous for the sintering indexes and consolidation of the finished sinters. In the CAP products, the main phase in the iron-bearing dust pellets was well-crystallized Fe2O3 grain particles. In the matrix parts, there were more Fe3O4 particles generated, which caused to high RDI+3.15 and low RI of the finished products. The pellets and the matrix parts were bonded by iron oxides and acicular calcium ferrite.

Jan 1, 2016

By Lynn I. Kelley

Potash is the primary industrial mineral produced in Saskatchewan, followed, in terms of gross value, by aggregate, sodium sulphate, salt, potassium sulphate, peat, clays, silica sand, calcium chloride brine and "clinker." Potentially economic deposits of kaolin, diamond and building stone are under evaluation.

Jan 1, 2001

By LUIS ALBERTO TORRES-CRUZ

The Plewes method is relatively well known among geotechnical engineers interested in assessing the liquefaction potential of soil deposits. Furthermore, it was one of the four methods considered in the post-failure investigation report of the Feijao Dam I, also known as the Brumadinho Dam, in Brazil. The inclusion of the method in that report is likely to increase its visibility among geotechnical practitioners tasked with assessing the liquefaction potential of tailings. While the authors of the method duly presented it as a screening method, more recent technical literature contains conflicting views on its reliability. Considering the popularity of the method and that the safety record of tailings dams is a cause of great concern, this study assessed the uncertainty of results from the Plewes method. The study concludes that, even under optimistic assumptions, the results of the method are too uncertain for detailed characterization of tailings deposits.

By G Ryan, Yu Nazimova

"An EXTENDED ABSTRACT is available for download. A full-length paper was not prepared for this presentation. This paper aims to highlight the global exploration opportunities that exist in connection with Ural-Alaskan (UA)-type intrusions. The key economic importance of UA intrusions is the existence of metallic platinum (mainly iron-platinum alloys) associated generally with chromite mineralisation and located within a dunite core, especially its coarse-grained part. Being very dense and resistant to erosion, platinum can form rich placers as the intrusion erodes. Big multimillion ounce placer platinum deposits of this type have historically been successfully mined for many years (eg Russia, Colombia and Alaska).However, large-scale exploration and mining of platinum placers currently occurs only in the Russian Far East. Outside of Russia, there is now little or no understanding of this type of deposit and its economic importance. Using successful operations in Russia as examples, it is demonstrated that there are many opportunities for similar discoveries all around the world, especially around the Pacific Rim, where such intrusions tend to be concentrated. Examples of highly prospective areas in eastern Australia and New Zealand are given. There is also excellent potential in British Columbia (BC) Canada, South-East Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia) and South America (Colombia and Ecuador).CITATION:Nazimova, Y and Ryan, G, 2015. Platinum potential of the pacific rim of Ural-Alaskan-type intrusions, in Proceedings PACRIM 2015 Congress, pp 665–670 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Mar 18, 2015

By T. A. Penzov

As a result of recent scientific and experimental studies new technical devices have been developed for monitoring and control the process of grinding. The description of microprocessor module MILLCONT 1 for control of the loading of the mill and microprocessor density control module DENSIMETER is given in the paper. The improved variant of the automatic system for ore grinding control in single-stage ball mill working in close cycle with a classifier with above mentioned technical means is shown in the paper. The loops for measuring and stabilization of the basic technological parameters (density of the ready pulp ? and fineness of grinding of the pulp ß) are described in the paper. The nowadays economic results in ore grinding process automation are given as well.

Jan 1, 2014

By C. R. Mambote

One of the processes developed for vanadium recovery from the fly ash of crude oil is through acid leaching. In the process, iron is one of the impurities that should be removed before vanadium precipitation, due to the fact that iron tends to co-precipitate with vanadium. The mechanism of iron precipitation is understood in terms of ferric hydrolysis, followed by the dimerization and subsequent polymerization of the crystalline iron compound. In order to develop a new approach for the fly ash processing, in the present paper the precipitation of iron from the liquor after the leaching process was studied with addition of NaOH or NH4OH in the presence of H2O2 or Na2C2O4 at 80°C. The objective was to investigate the feasibility of the selective precipitation which could be applied to vanadium and nickel recovery from the fly ash. The experimental results show the difficulties of removing iron by precipitation without co-precipitating nickel and vanadium.

Jan 1, 2014

By A. Mainza, I. Govender, Elbasher M. E. Ahmed

A mechanistic description of axial segregation in rotating drum flows remains an open question. Consequently, optimal mixing of grinding balls and rocks for efficient breakage, maximum production of fines, and slurry transport is seldom achieved. Experimental and numerical studies of granular mixtures in rotating drums identify alternating axial bands that eventually coarsen in the long-term limit. Most models of axial segregation are limited to binary mixtures and cannot always predict the logarithmic coarsening effects observed experimentally. A key missing factor is a robust description of the axial free surface profile that is valid across a wide range of flow regimes. We present a practical model of the axial free surface profile by linking it to readily-derived geometric features of the cross-sectional S-shaped free surface profile. A parametric study shows good agreement with experimental measurements reported in the literature and heuristically valid trends.

May 1, 2021

By George L. Atwood

The Monsanto Company's Henry Mine is located 17 miles northeast of Soda Springs, in the southeast corner of Idaho. Ore being mined is phosphate rock which lies in the Permian Phosphoria formation. The ore is the raw material for Monsanto's three furnace elemental "P" plant near Soda Springs. The finished product from the furnaces is elemental phosphorus which is subsequently used in the manufacture of detergents, food preservatives, fire retardants and other consumer items. Mining is by open pit methods using 0-9 crawler tractors to rip and push-load rubber tired scrapers in stripping and mining operations. The equipment spread consists of six D-9G crawler tractors, four Caterpillar 6578 scrapers, eight Euclid S-24 scrapers, one Reich T750 drill and one Caterpillar No. 16 patrol plus various support equipment. Stripping is performed on a 12-month basis, two shifts per day. Mining is performed mainly in the summer months on a one shift basis. The hauling season begins May 15 and ends November 1 due to freezing weather and snow conditions. Annual production is 1,000,000 tons of phosphate rock and 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 yards of stripping. Stripping, mining and hauling is performed for Monsanto by Dravo-Soda Springs, a mining contractor. Dravo-Soda Springs owns, operates and maintains all equipment used in stripping, mining and hauling. The contractor is paid for stripping by the bank yard and for ore mined and hauled on a tonnage basis. The Monsanto elemental phosphorus plant began production in 1952 with ore being trucked to the plant from the Ballard Mine. Haulage was over public roads in 15, 24-ton semitrucks. A private haul road was constructed from the Ballard Mine to the Monsanto Plant in 1958 and 1959 to accommodate trucks with two twenty-yard trailers. This 11/ mile road was first used in the 1959 hauling season. In 1965, five new Kenworth tractors with two, 'forty yard trailers were introduced into the haulage system. These units carried 120 ton payloads and were used until

Jan 1, 1972

By Toshiro Kuji, Masakazu Fujita, Tetsuji Saito

"The magnetic properties of the magnetic materials were deeply dependent on the microstructures. In this study, the novel technique to produce the desired microstructures in a controlled manner was proposed. The technique consisted of the production of the amorphous alloys and the control of the crystallization process. The technique was applied to improve the magnetic properties of Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets. The microstructural control of the magnets exhibited the excellently high energy-products of higher than 430 kJm-1. The relationship between the magnetic properties and the microstructures of the Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets was discussed.IntroductionThe intrinsic properties of the materials are basically determined by the properties of the constituent elements or the compounds. However, it is often noticed the difference between the observed properties and the theoretical values expected from the intrinsic properties of the materials. This indicates that the observed properties of the materials are determined not only by the properties of the constituent elements. In other words, the observed properties of the materials are also strongly dependent on the morphology of materials. This means that the microstructural control may creates a great improvement of the properties of materials.In Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets, the superiority arises from the uniaxial intermetallic Nd2Fe14B compound which has a large saturation magnetization and a high anisotropy field [1,2]. The magnetic properties of the Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets are dependent on the microstructure, that is, the size, shape and degree of the crystallographic alignment of the Nd2Fe14B phase. Currently, the Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets have been produced by either sintering or melt-spinning [3,4]. In the sintered magnets, alignment of the Nd2Fe14B phase is achieved by the prior green compaction of the crushed ingot powders in an applied magnetic field [3]. In the melt-spinning approach, alignment of the Nd2Fe14B phase is achieved by hot deformation [5]. Amorphous melt-spun ribbons are comminuted and then are consolidated into bulk form by hot pressing before hot deformation. As-hot-pressed magnets have randomly oriented Nd2Fe1~ grains [6]. Subsequent die upsetting of as-hot-pressed magnets gives rise to the crystallographic alignment of the Nd2Fe14B phase."

Jan 1, 1998

By John R. Bartels

This report discusses an improved method for rerailing underground railcars devised in a joint effort by the Bureau of Mines and Hoesch MFD. This improved method utilizes a lightweight hydraulic ram with hand-pump activation to move a bridge-mounted roller carriage in conjunction with steel-reinforced air-lift bags. This method provides a lightweight portable system in which only two workers are required to perform the mine car rerailing operation. Because of the very narrow confines in underground mines, use of overhead cranes and other surface rail techniques is not possible. This new system is designed for very low profile work, and provides the necessary lifting force from light- weight compressed-air bottles.

Jan 1, 1985

By Lifeng Zhang, Zineb Benouahmane, Yaqiong Li

The wettability behavior of graphite with silicon is a key factor for its application as a crucible in silicon making industry. A previous study was carried out to determine the correlation between the physico-chemical behaviors of different types of graphite and the final contact angle for the graphite/silicon system. In this study, experimental vacuum annealing treatment by varying the exposure time at high temperature of 1000 °C processed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and SEM analyses enabled to found a correlation between the oxygen content in the graphite and the final contact angle for the graphite/silicon system. Finally, the experimental results with and without vacuum annealing treatment have shown that a deep infiltration of silicon inside the graphite occurs in case of high level of oxygen content inside the graphite’s pores.

Mar 1, 2017

By S. Moussa

The formation of boron-doped nickel aluminides Ni3AI, (76 at. % Ni) from elemental powders by reaction synthesis using reactive sintering was studied. The process involves the mixing of elemental powders of nickel and aluminium with various wt % of boron up to 1 wt % boron. Nickel and Aluminium powders were mixed in the correct proportion to form the intended boron-doped nickel aluminide intermetallic. XRD, SEMI EDS, Image analysis and Archimedes principle; were used to study the effect of Boron addition on the final microstructure, bulk density, average grain size of as reactively-sintered nickel aluminides (boron-doped), compared with no boron addition. The results showed that at greater boron content than 0.3 wt %, a two-phase non-equilibrium microstructure of consisting of NiAI phase in NiJAI matrix was formed that have been primarily retained even after heat treatment for 5 hours at 1000 °C. Boron was present in solid-solution within both the NiAI and the Ni3AI (in greater amounts) phases.

Jan 1, 2001

By M. H. Kline

The Scarlet mine, in Randolph County, N. C., was operated on a small scale at intervals from 1899 to 1915, but no records of the quantity of ore produced are available. J. I. Moore unwatered the mine in March 1948, and Bureau of Mines' engineers examined the underground workings. Several assays checked previous sampling of the mine and indicated a small but comparatively high-grade copper-zinc deposit. The high metal content of the veins and the possibility of developing additional reserves prompted the Bureau of-Mines to drill three holes, totaling 530 feet, at the deposit during March and April 1948. Drilling disclosed that the mineralized vein did not extend over 300 feet along the strike and is probably limited in depth to the contact with the granite mylonite.

Jan 1, 1949

By Leonidio Stegmiller

Since the petroleum crisis in 1973, charcoal1 is being considered one of the most important fuel for the Brazilian consumers, mainly for pellet's producers. In replacing fuel by charcoal mixed up with ore, obviously one of the first thing to be investigated is its influence in the product's quality. Special attention has been given to the metallurgical characteristics. This paper infocus the effect of increasing dosings of charcoal to the pellet's porosity and how other physical and metallurgical characteristics will be affected accordingly. This work was carried out using two different finesses of charcoal and dosing varied from 0.5 to 2.0%.

Jan 1, 1982

By M. M. Fine

One of the most persistent topics at technical gatherings and in the recent scientific press has been the reduction of iron ore. To cite some of them, in May 1960, a symposium on the subject was sponsored by the Electrochemical Society. The proceedings, comprising two dozen papers, were later published.3/ More recently, November 1966, a similar gathering took place at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Mich. The latest meeting was the International Congress on Production and Utilization of Reduced Materials, Evian, France, May 1967. If the volume of literature, symposia and conferences is a measure of industry concern, then current interest must be at a high level. To the casual observer of the metallurgical scene, the abiding and recurring attention to iron ore reduction outside the blast furnace must be somewhat puzzling in that so much research endeavor has resulted in so little commercial activity.

Jan 1, 1968