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By F. C. Houghten, R. R. Sayers, C. P. Yalaglou

"Introduction.Atmospheric conditions relative to high temperature and humidity are of great importance in mining, as well as in such allied fields as railroad and vehicular tunnels. An extended investigation into the effect of these factors on men has been in progress for some time, both in the field under actual working conditions, and at the Pittsburgh experiment station of the bureau in cooperation with the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers and the U. S. Public Health Service.For several years one of the writers (Dr. Sayers) and L. Harrington, supervising mining engineer of the bureau, have been studying the effects of hot humid atmosphere in metal mines on the comfort and efficiency of the workers. Some of the reactions experienced in still and in moving saturated mine air at temperatures of 90 to 100°F., with men at rest are presented in a recent paper.****The present paper is based on experiments made under carefully controlled conditions to determine the relative feeling of warmth experienced by men in atmospheres of various degrees of temperature and humidity. The work was conducted by the research laboratory of the American society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, at the Pittsburgh experiment station of the Bureau of Mines, in special physchrometric chambers built for this purpose. It was carried on under the direction of F. Paul Anderson, director of the laboratory, Dr. R. R. Sayers and A. C. Fieldner of the Bureau of Mines. The results given in this paper are for still air only. Investigations of the effects of moving air are being continued, and will be reported later."

Jan 1, 1924

The effects of additives, sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, sodium oleate, oleic acid and polyacrylic acid, on stirred media milling of limestone have been investigated. The results are evaluated in terms of specific surface area, specific energy and energy efficiency as a function of additive dosage, polymer molecular weight, solids concentration and relevant operating variables. Use of additives generally results in changes in specific surface area and energy efficiency, while under certain conditions a more than 100% increase in these parameters can occur. Relevant interfacial properties have been measured and milling mechanisms involved are explored particularly in terms of the effect of additives on the flow patterns at higher solids concentration.

Jan 1, 1996

By Fabiola Espinoza Carmona, Elena Chiriotti, Edoardo Misano

"INTRODUCTION Ganntas Tunnel is part of the modernization project of the railway between Alger and Oran, in Algeria. In order to double and rectify the existing line between El Affroun and Khémis Miliana, the alignment foresees the excavation of a 7 km-long twin tunnel. The excavation works started in June 2011 with the contractor CCECC, under the supervision of SYSTRA. Excavation is driven in conventional method by hydraulic hammer simultaneously on 8 different faces since excavation was started also from a junction window towards the middle of the tunnel. The minimum longitudinal distance to be respected between two contiguous tunnel faces has been set to 30 m. The tunnel cross-section is a 70 m² oval shaped profile, temporary support consists of shotcrete, bolts and steel ribs. A 30 to 50 cm thick cast in situ concrete final lining has been provided as well. When the tunnel reached a fault zone in soft clayey marls extreme squeezing occurred, works were stopped and re-profiling operations were carried out along more than 100 m. To date, works proceed at slow rate since high convergences are still monitored and completion of works is not expected before December 2016.GEOLOGY The project is located within the Tellian Atlas mountain area, including in particular the Djebel Ganntas massif in between Mitidja and Chleff plains. Djebel Ganntas is characterized by an extensive massif aligned in East-West direction with smooth slopes made of soft clays that emerge in multiple cliffs and ravines. On the top of it, along the edge, a more recent sandstone formation is found. The existing data on the geology did not allow to establish an accurate geological model at tender stage. In-situ investigations allowed at design stage to identify a Quaternary alluvial cover of clays and gravel, followed by a Miocene stratum divided in a sandy top layer and a lower clayey layer. From a structural point of view, geological maps suggest a north direction dip of layers, but the in situ surveys showed that layers were highly folded. The lack of information at tender stage on the structure of the geological series should have triggered an extensive investigation campaign at detailed design stage which did not take place causing serious consequences on costs and time at construction stage."

Jan 1, 2016

By William P. Shinn

Jan 1, 1881

By J. R. Stack, H. H. Alexander

Prior to 1915, numerous attempts were made to treat tin concentrates in the United States, but for various reasons they were unsuccessful. Tin ore is said to have been found in nearly every state, but none of the deposits has proved to be of commercial importance. An annual output of a few hundred tons in Alaska is the only domestic production; hence any considerable production of tin in the United States must be from foreign ores. The most promising occurrence of tin was found in the Black Hills, S. Dak.; in the early development stage, it was called the Cornwall of America. Associated with the tin is tungsten The story is told that an exceedingly fine specimen of the Black Hills ore was sent to England to encourage stock promotion; the desired effect was produced until a skeptic chipped off a small piece, which the analysis showed to be wolframite. First Attempts at Smelting One of the first promising attempts at tin smelting in the United States was made by R. T. White at Bayonne, N. J., in 1903. Mr. White, after spending some time in England studying the methods of tin smelting, organized a company called the International Tin Co., and erected a plant to treat tin concentrates from the Straits of Malacca. About the time the plant was completed, the English Government placed an export duty of 40 per cent. ad valorem on tin concentrates exported to other than British smelters, which duty made it impossible to operate this plant so the enterprise was abandoned, As this export duty is still effective, the only source of tin-ore supply for the United States is the Bolivian concentrates. Bolivian Tin Concentrates Unlike the alluvial placer deposits, nearly all Bolivian tin occurs in lode deposits and some of the highest grade ores contain only a small

Jan 1, 1924

By L. M. Sun

Baotou Baiyunerbo Mines Location in Inner Mongolia is a famous deposit of iron mineral and rare earth mineral accreting. The iron ore has very complicated ingredients and minerals composing. In the mine, there is not only magnetite ore but also hematite ore, so that it is impossible for high grade iron concentrate to adopt single wet low-intensity magnetic separation or high-intensity magnetic separation to concentrate iron mineral. Because of mixing the magnetite with hematite mineral in feed ore, recovery of iron of magnetite production system in the mineral processing plant is less than other mineral processing plants. Therefore, the research for increasing recovery of iron of the magnetite production system in the plant was undertaken. The paper presented the research for using dry magnetic separation to increase recovery of iron concentrate of the magnetite production system in the plant. It mainly includes dry magnetic separation test and wet magnetic separation and reverse flotation test. The test results indicated that dry magnetic separation is a important way to improve the feature of feed ore of the magnetite production system and to increase the recovery of iron. The recovery of iron may increase from about 70% to over 80%. The research also presented optimum operation parameters of the dry magnetic separator and the separation flowsheet. In conclusion, using dry magnetic separation to treat with feed ore of the magnetite production system in the plant to increase the recovery of iron is a feasible technique. The research present a new way for the mineral processing plant to made technology innovate to increase the recovery of iron concentrate of the plant in future.

Jan 1, 2014

By S. Kelebek, Gerhard W. Heinrich, Peter F. Wells

"The review and optimization of process stages is an integral part of the program to improve the metallurgical performance of the Strathcona Mill. Improved primary grind size distributions, streamlining of rougher-scavenger circuits and increased platinum recoveries were the target of plant and laboratory scale tests. The results can be summarized as follows:• Decreasing the primary grinding cyclone vortex finder diameter for nickel/copper ore gave significant increases in overall copper recovery and improved rougher flotation selectivity.• The scavenger flotation stage in the circuit treating copper ore was found to contribute little to this circuit's copper recoveries -yet to be essential for acceptable recoveries of nickel, platinum and gold. The elimination of this stage by re-routing the tailings from the copper ore rougher into the nickel/copper ore rougher feed has lead to lower gangue recoveries to the nickel concentrate and to improved copper-nickel separation, while reducing equipment operating costs.• Surface aging effects such as oxidation are known to decrease flotation recoveries of platinum minerals such as sperrylite. The conditioning of an intermediate non-magnetic process stream with copper sulphate prior to thickening increased the platinum recoveries in the subsequent flotation stage by approximately 10%."

Jan 1, 1996

By W. L. Freyberger

In a study of the kinetics of flotation of coal, employing a single-cell continuous flotation system, Jowett and Safvi1 pointed out that it was experimentally impossible to float all of the coal which could be floated in a batch tests. On the other hand, deBruyn and Modi, in a discussion of their paper, suggested that under certain conditions the recovery of floatable material from a similar one-cell continuous system would have been 100%.2 Both of these pairs of authors make the assumption that a state of perfect mixing exist in the flotation cell. This assumption, usually made by investigators studying flotation kinetics in a continuous system, has been confirmed experimentally on several occasions. The work is summarized by Arbiter and Harris.3 It is the purpose of this note to demonstrate that, for conditions of perfect mixing, one of two conditions exist: 1) the recovery of floatable material is 100%, and the flotation is infinitely fast, or 2) the recovery of floatable material must be less than 100%. This theorem can be proved simply in the following manner: 1) If recovery, R, of the floatable material is 100%, the concentration in the tailing must be zero. This follows from the definition of recovery as

Jan 1, 1964

By A. J. Russell

"This paper investigates why it is critical for a mine to accurately determine thermal rock properties and virgin rock temperatures. Theoretical simulations of deep mining production zones have demonstrated that thermal conductivity (k), virgin rock temperatures and specific heat (cp) significantly impact rock heat predictions which can be the dominant component of a mine’s heat load. Natural variability in these factors showed that realistic errors can have a significant effect on mine heat loads. This can ultimately affect miner safety and introduces risk to the viability and sustainability of a project. INTRODUCTION Accurate heat load determinations are critical to ensure that underground working conditions are maintained within legislated and mine specific parameters to safeguard the safety and productivity of employees. Underpredicting mine heat loads will result in hot underground conditions, which risk the health and safety of employees, reduce the productivity of employees or stop production if legislated temperatures in working areas are exceeded. Overestimating mine heat loads will result in increased capital and operating costs reducing the viability of the project. Over- or under- predicting the heat load for a project will increase the project risk. Heat sources in a mine can broadly be broken into two categories. These two categories are defined by Hemp and Rawlins (2014) as natural and artificial heat sources. Those sources which depend on the size, location and depth of the mining areas are defined as natural heat sources, whereas those heat sources which are a result of the actual mining activities are defined as artificial heat sources. Autocompression, or the conversion of potential energy, to enthalpy is an important consideration when determining the air temperature in the mine and its interaction with natural and artificial heat sources. It is documented by Jones (1985) and Hemp and Rawlins (2014), that the heat flow from rock in deep mines can dominate other heat sources; information from BBE’s archives show that this is between 40% and 60% of the total heat load. They also point out the importance of accurately measuring both the thermal rock properties and virgin rock temperatures (VRTs) for determining and planning the ventilation and refrigeration requirements for a mine. Both of these texts cite multiple methods for calculating the heat-flux and ultimately the heat load for the different working areas in a mine. All of these methods demonstrate that the heat flux and heat load will increase proportionally with increased thermal conductivity (k), specific heat (cp) of the rock or mineral, and VRT depending the area of the mine or mining method."

Jan 1, 2019

By Gordon E. Fletcher

This Bureau of Mines report outlines the atomic absorption analysis of oilfield brines for barium, calcium, copper, iron, lead lithium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium, and zinc, using the method of additions. The advantages of using atomic absorption are discussed. The method of additions was chosen to overcome large matrix interferences usually found in brines; techniques of overcoming chemical, ionization, and background interferences are also described. The method was used to analyze several hundred oilfield brines and found to be rapid and reasonably accurate. A solvent extraction method was used to concentrate lead, copper, zinc, and iron in low-level samples.

Jan 1, 1974

By Stewart, J. B.

THE property at which this work was done consists of a large deposit of potash salts occurring in massive beds of rock salt, overlain by 600 ft. of salt-impregnated shales and marls. It is in the Province of Cataluiia, Spain, about 45 miles from the railway station of Mauresa and about a mile south of Suria. In addition to sinking the shaft, the program of construction work laid out by the European owners (not Spaniards) included a single-track narrow-gage railroad from Mauresa to the mine; one large office building and several large shop buildings, all of brick and concrete with steel truss roofs; two extensive benches for the future recovery plant; and a large village of stone dwellings for employees. The pay-roll showed approximately 1200 to 1500 men employed. After two years' operation, ending early in the autumn of 1920, the shaft had been sunk 325 ft. and still had an equal distance to go to reach the potash; all tunnels for the railroad were done and the road-bed $0 per cent completed; only a little more than the foundations were completed for all the large buildings, and the excavations of the benches were about 75 per cent done-while only a fair start had been made upon the employees' village. This was the state of affairs when the European owners decided to offer this property under a one-year option to an American syndicate, providing that they agreed to carry on the entire building program and to sink the shaft as fast as was consistent with the quality of work which they demanded, for they wished the shaft to endure at least 200 years.

Jan 1, 1926

By Andrew Fletcher

AS good health is the most important asset in life, the development of healthful conditions should be the one common meeting ground of agreement between management and labor. Health should not be a subject to be pulled apart, shoved around, or bargained about. Differences of opinion may exist in the procedure and techniques employed in approaching the goal of maintaining the health of workmen, and in the method of increasing the ultimate profit of the employer by improved working and living conditions. Such matters are doubtless appropriate subjects for discussions between the interested parties, but techniques are only tools. If an employer fails to remedy a hazard or a menace which contributes to poor working condlions, this constitutes a legitimate grievance. It should not be necessary, however, nor is it desirable that fundamentals of health maintenance become matters of collective bargaining, any more than should the principles of management and engineering. I have been especially concerned during the last few months with the propaganda in collective bargaining negotiations throughout the country for including in union contracts a given number of days of sick leave with pay. We all

Jan 1, 1946

By Vaughan R. Voller

"The wide range of length and time scales found in solidification processes are outlined and discussed. Methods for Direct Microstructure Simulation (DMS) are introduced. Key features in sharp interface and phase field models are presented. Concepts in micro-macro solidification modeling are covered. Basic details of microstructure and segregation models are provided. A description of a recent segregation micro-macro model is presented in detail.IntroductionA solidification process involves the containment of a liquid region, which, due to cooling, transforms over time to form a fully solid product. The development of the solid microstructure and the segregation of solute components during this transformation are controlled by phenomena that occur across a wide range of length and time scales. A ""successful"" model of a given solidification process needs to account for these phenomena. Standard models of solidification employ a discrete grid of node points and associated volume elements in the special domain, with a discrete time step to track the transient changes of nodal values, describing the composition and microstructure. Through the use of such models significant progress has been made towards a complete understanding of solidification process and phenomena (see the conference proceedings in Refs [1-9]). As solidification models become more sophisticated, however, they all run into the problem of resolving the full range of disparate space and time scales.Two approaches can deal with this problem1. Direct Microstructure Simulation (DMS) where the grid size and time step are chosen to scale with the smallest length and time scales of the given problem.2. Micro-macro modeling where the grid size and time step scale with the macroscopic process scale and phenomena at smaller scales are accounted for via sub-grid modeling and volume averaging.Currently full DMS of solidification is beyond the reach of available computer power and the application and development of micro-macro models is an important and critical research area."

Jan 1, 2001

By J Bryant

In recent years the mining industry has suffered from skill shortages in a range of disciplines including mine geology. As a consequence, many businesses operate with incompletely filled organisation charts and technical professionals are frequently thrust into roles earlier than previous generations of geologists, engineers and metallurgists. Exacerbating the difficulties managers face with recruiting suitably experienced professionals is the churn of people through roles. Churn may be caused by internal pressures related to the rapid increase in projects and opportunities within a company or by external factors including the high workforce mobility resulting from the advent of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO). Historically, new entrants into the mine geology profession often received on-the-job training from their more experienced colleagues. This training, supplemented with targeted skills and knowledge enhancement through dedicated short courses, ensured the wide range of skills, knowledge and abilities required in the complex role of mine geology were continually renewed. Faced with an influx of new graduates and a dearth of mine geology professionals in the critical ten to 15 year experience range, the industry needs to develop new paradigms to ensure that the full business benefit of the mine geology function is delivered. This is increasingly important as the complexity of business planning built on geologically-based variables grows. Mine geologists are now faced with the potential incorporation of geometallurgy and waste characterisation along with energy efficiency, carbon-economy and other environmental issues into their roles. Providing baseline data, models, operational control and reconciliation for a wider range of variables further stretches the already limited geological resources available to the industry and exposes personnel with relatively low levels of experience to potentially business transforming decision processes. This paper outlines a successful approach to mentoring at the individual and team level. It discusses what went well and what could have been done differently from both the mentor and menteeÆs perspective with examples from case studies and offers insights into a new approach to dealing with gaps in organisation charts and high turnover of personnel.

Jan 1, 2009

By L. Roux

This review was initially motivated by the author’s own experience in attempting to reconcile run-of mine production tons with the Coal Resource and Reserve estimation of mineable, in-situ tonnages. The primary scientific measurements and observations that are collected during exploration at the beginning of the value chain will have a profound effect on the future of the mining operation. Due diligence must be exercised during the planning of a new mine and during the life of an existing mine. The comments provided by the technical and economic assessment group of Venmyn Deloitte confirmed the need for this critical review. They found the reporting of Coal Resources in South Africa to be inconsistent. This was particularly problematic in the Waterberg Coalfield in Limpopo Province. In this coalfield there are two types of coal deposit present. The first is comprised of the thick intercalated, cyclic coal and shale/mudstone sequences of the Volksrust Formation. This overlies multiple coal seams within the Vryheid Formation, each of which is thick enough to be extracted as an individual raw coal unit. On the other hand, the interbedded coal and shale seams of the Volksrust Formation require beneficiation to separate the coal from the shale. The review examines practices and methods, investigates alternatives, provides checks and balances, and tests these against actual production reconciliations. In conclusion, the best estimates of the mineable, in-situ tonnage will be obtained from the air-dry raw material density. These estimates should be adjusted afterwards to allow for free moisture content. The adjustments are derived from reconciliation data. The greatest contributing factor to the over-estimation of Reserve tonnages is the moisture content of the raw material. This fluctuates significantly under varying conditions in situ, as well as upon exposure to the natural environment. The air-dried density of the raw material includes inherent (structurally bound) moisture within the matrix. It provides credible tonnage estimations of raw material available while also providing an indication of voids within the volume of material being assessed. The calculated solids percentage can be used to adjust the specific gravity, which is determined via the Archimedes principle. This will supply a representative estimate of the material to be mined.

Nov 1, 2021

By Thomas Oberndorfer

INTRODUCTION Since several years the author is engaged in research activities in the field of mining method modelling (Oberndorfer, 1993 and 1994). The initial goal was to improve and assist the selection of the most appropriate mining method. However during investigations it became obvious that the most beneficial application of computer support is the fast calculation of numerical assessment rather than the consideration of all, i.e. also qualitative, criterions necessary for final decision. Numerical results serve - together with qualitative considerations based on the experience of the mining engineer - as a basis for decision. The emphasis is on "fast" calculation, as only this property makes it possible to calculate and compare many distinct variations. As long as no procedure exists, which optimizes all involved parameters, calculating many variations is of great important, because it is the only way to increase the chance to pick a alternative "close to optimum", but also to learn about the sensitivity the result will react on changes of input parameters, which are rarely known exactly. Generally speaking many trials give a better basis for final decision. It is no secrete that the most important obstacle towards quick calculations of a series of alternatives is not the processing time of the computer, but the time required for setting the input data in way that the computer can start processing, which is usually inter- active man work on the screen. Furthermore usually several distinct programs are required to cover the whole range of involved problems, with corresponding problems in automatic data transfer. The research work's goal was to overcome these problems. The approach developed was to describe a mining method more in a theoretical way (i.e. to give the computer some degree of "consciousness" on mining methods), which then can be applied under any specific conditions. E.g. a cut-and-fill operation will be "generally" the same in narrow or thick deposit areas, but the resulting keyfigures, e.g. total tonnage, productivity, dilution and loss, or finally costs per ton, will differ significantly. The approach (MMM = mining method modelling) presented reflects a deduction from the general case to a specific one (rather than the other way round). The developed model is general enough to be applicable to any mining method, and also to any degree of precision the mining method should be described, contrary to programs designed for specific mining method layouts which can be adjusted in a more or less wide range. PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT The principle correctness and feasibility of the approach was proved by a prototype program. However this program was more on a research level and far away from application for "real world" problems. The reason for this was, that it was regarded wasted time to re-invent certain tools, e.g. geometry intersection, deposit modelling or visualization. Hence it was tried to attract several software producers to invest in finalizing the model. Unfortunately this endeavor was not successful. Despite this defeat - and after some months of resignation - a final start on the project was decided. he reason for this decision was not at last the research activity in respect of low-cost underground mining methods for bulk- material as a substitute of typical quarry operations due to environmental restriction. This research work - which is in particular important for Austrian mining activities in beautiful and touristically used landscape - requires a lot of calculations in the way described. Both are still in state of progress, but - regarding mining method modelling - preliminary results can be presented. A complete re-programming of the program was required. Most obvious are the changes of programming language and operating system environment. Instead of Pascal under DOS C++ under MS-WindowsNT is now used. Several problems could be solved by this, in particular memory management, device drivers for input/output, and user friendlyness by up-to-date windows technology. However also more basic structures were changed. The idea was to utilize as many existing commercially available programs as possible to minimize programming efforts. WindowsNT helps already a lot by MFC technology, but also due to its multi-task facilities. This feature allows to run simultaneously several pro-

Jan 1, 1996

By G. S. Rice

[This paper describes preliminary tests at the Bureau's Experimental Mine to determine, under conditions that may prevail ira bituminous coal-mine heading, how small a quantity of fire damp may bring coal-dust into suspension and ignite to it. The results show that the explosion of as little as 150 cubic feet of an explosive mixture of gas and air containing 9 per cent natural gas may start a disastrous explosion Of coal-dust. This is a very small volume, of gas, to cause such a result. Let us suppose that this amount of exclusive mixture, was at the face of an entry which was 10 feet wide and the face was overcut to a depth of 6 foot and an upper layer of coal 2 1/2 feet thick had been removed, the recess so made would save a volume of 150 cubic feet. Furthermore, only 13 cubic feet of pure methane is needed in this volume to produce this 9 per cent explosive mixture.]

Jan 1, 1930

By M. Q. Xu

During the flowsheet development for a potential commercial Cu/Ni separation plant at the In-co?s Sudbury operation, extensive laboratory and miniplant studies were carried out. There are two potential feed streams for Cu/Ni separation at the existing operation. It is shown that Cu/Ni separation from the rougher concentrate is relatively simple without need of regrind. However, Cu/Ni separation can be difficult from the bulk concentrate because of the presence of excess flotation reagents in the bulk concentrate slurry and locked particles. Excess flotation reagents created excess froth increasing entrainment. By replacing the slurry water with tap water and with addition of some hydrogen peroxide, entrainment is minimized and good Cu/Ni separation is achieved on the bulk concentrate. Fine regrind is required to increase liberation of the locked particles for ultimately high copper recovery at the minimal nickel content.

Jan 1, 2014

By B. Manoj

Coal is a mineral and is extensively used as a solid fuel in developing nationsand hasa sizeable share inthe global fossil fuel reserve. Utilization of this resource generates excess spoil and large volume of low grade waste to the environment. In recent years there have been serious research on enhancing its value and exploring the utility of this carbonaceous material to novel carbon materials.

Mar 1, 2018

By Francois Clerf

IRON ORE fields are situated in both the East and West of France (see maps). The eastern deposit is by far the most important from a tonnage point of view, not only in France, but in all Europe. The ores of this region are known as minette, and are situated in the Lorraine ore fields and the Briey plateau. The iron ores of the West are those of Normandy, Anjou and Brittany. Before the war, a large number of important German companies had acquired considerable interests in these western fields and a heavy trade with Westphalia had begun. Recently, however, conditions have changed and some of the mines of Brittany and Anjou are now idle. From a geological point of view, in Anjou and Brittany, a series of synclines extends from the northwest to the southeast, containing a number of seams of varying thickness and generally intercalated in Silurian and sometimes in Devonian formations. The ore is generally a hematite or a magnetite. The composition varies from 48 to 52 per cent of iron and from 8 to 12 per cent of silica. Con¬servative estimates indicate a con¬siderable tonnage of workable ores (150,000,000 metric tons).

Jan 1, 1936