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The Federation of Societies of Professional Engineers Our Institute is a member of the Federation and, to give members some idea of the work of the latter body, a few notes are submitted from the Federation's annual report for the year ended June 1973.

Jan 2, 1974

By D. J. Adams, R. G. Gürtunca

CONTRIBUTION BYJ.F. CURTlS The paper, which in an exemplary manner records the monitoring of backfill behaviour, falls short in the 'rock engineering' stated in the title. Just what the objective of the rock engineering was is obscure.

Jan 1, 1992

By P. T. Wedepohl

The youngest technical programme committee of The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy- that on Physical Metallurgy - held its second colloquium on 18th September, 1984. The topic of 'Corrosion of Piping and Tubing in the Mining Industry' was very appropriate since the date had been chosen to coincide with that of the Electra Mining Exhibition.

Jan 1, 1985

By S. Z. Shkundin

An evaluation of the accuracy of tachometric and hot-wire anemometers in mine workings and gas-media ducts is given. The acoustic means of gas flow rates measurement is considered with particular reference to the equations of acoustic waves propagation in aerodynamic fields. The paper defines how it is possible to minimize the error of integrating acoustic anemometers.

Sep 1, 2001

By F. Q. P. Leiding

SYNOPSIS A technique is described for measuring the change in volume in a borehole drilled in a rock mass subjected to stress and strain. It is shown that the volumetric strain or change in volume provides a practical estimate of the the stress in the rock.

By R. Morris, W. D. Clough

SYNOPSIS The design of an opencast coal mine over areas previously mined by underground mining methods presents several potential methods of mining the coal. The paper describes some basic methods of mining for the No. 2 seam of the Witbank Coalfield, which had previously been mined by the bord-and-pillar method.

Jan 1, 1985

By G. L. du Plessis

This paper describes the design, installation and operation of an endless rope haulage system recently built for and commissioned at Evander Gold Mines in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The factors which lead to the choice of such a system and the advantages gained over more commonly used winding systems are outlined.

Sep 1, 2001

A General Meeting, followed by a Colloquium on 'Pilot plants and problems of scale-up', was held on 22nd March, 1978, in the Main Hall, Kelvin House, Johannesburg. The President, Mr P. A. von Wielligh, opened the meeting at 09h15. He thanked the authors and contributors for their co-operation, and announced the names of the undermentioned candidates, who had been admitted to membership of the Institute:

Jan 1, 1978

By R. C. More O’Ferrall

The author mentions some of the problems he has encountered, together with their solutions. These include the stoping of isolated pillars, the reduction of the size of shaft pillars, the stoping of a new horizon above or below a horizon that has already been stoped out, and the mining of thick bands of reef left behind in the footwall or hanging wall.

Jan 1, 1981

By M. Splaine, M. A. Field, S. J. Browner

In the field of operational control, Shewhart Control Charts and Cusum Charts have long been available to management. These techniques provide help by detecting rogue values of a control variable and changes in the underlying mean of that variable respectively. This paper describes a new technique for identifying changes in the trend of a control variable, particularly when that variable is subject to large inherent variance.

Jan 1, 1983

By R. D. Agrawal, M. L. Kapoor

Cementation has been used extensively by chemists and metallurgists as an economical process for the purification and recovery of metals from dilute solutions. The paper deals. firstly. with the thermodynamic aspects of cementation. and. secondly, with the effects of various process variables, such as temperature. stirring speed. initial concentrationof copper ions. pH of the solution, atmosphere, and surface area of the precipitant metal. on the kinetics of the process in the light of the rate expressions.

Jan 1, 1982

Today's conservation thinking is becoming increasingly polarised-a widening gap that could eventually be to the overall detriment of mankind, one way or the other. In one corner, stand the disciples of the untainted wilderness, moral protectors of the natural world who subscribe to the doctrine that the fragile balance of nature is threatened by man's very existence. On the opposite side of the ring, stands the relentless developer, with the megalomaniac notion that nature is purely there to serve humanity and civilisation, under the auspices of 'progress',

Jan 1, 1996

For many of us, formal academic education slows abruptly when we leave a tertiary institute of learning. We start applying and connecting newly acquired knowledge with the practicalities of a career, and begin to think in a manner that is technology-oriented. Subsequent vocational advancement is offered by the .many mining and professional journals that circulate through departments, and by conferences and schools that are organized in-house and via the SAIMM and other professional institutions. The importance of these schools cannot be overstated: they combine people and developing technology to the benefit of the industry as a whole.

Jan 1, 1992

By C. F. Hews

Trackless mining at the International Nickel Company of Canada, Limited by C. F. HEWS* (Visitor) An account is given of the evolution and advantages of trackless equipment in the underground operations of International Nickel's Ontario Division, with special reference to fill-method mining, development practice, sublevel caving, and induced block caving. Details of maintenance, environmental control, and operator training are also given.

By A. C. Lawrence, B. Econ, D. Com

The importance of human factors in mining productivity by A. C. Lawrence, D. Corn., B. Econ. (Member) The paper outlines some of the views on the relationship between work attitudes and performance, and examines evidence derived from relevant research done in the mining industry. It is suggested that higher productivity within any given system of mining can be attained if attention is paid to the four factors that represent the CORE of human work performance: Competence, Opportunity (or Organisation), Recognition (or Rewards), and Expectations (or Enrichment).

Jan 7, 1974

By John Austin, Graham Pingram

The idea of GOLD 100, an international conference on gold, was first conceived by Mr Les Haughton of Mintek in mid 1984. By the beginning of 1985, plans were well advanced to hold what was to be the most comprehensive conference on gold ever organized. Appropriately, GOLD 100 was timed to coincide with the celebration of Johannesburg's centenary. Leaching The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy will hold a two-day colloquium on the topic of leaching on 8th and 9th November, 1988, with the objective of bringing the latest developments in leaching technology to the attention of the mineral-processing industry.

Jan 1, 1988

By D. G. Wymer, A. G. du Plessis, N. C. Joughin

The use of a dense hangingwal-support configuration extending right up to the face would enable greater levels of safety and productivity to be achieved in stopes, and becomes a practical proposition if water jets are used for stope cleaning. Such an arrangement opens the way for extending the use of water hydraulic power to the whole stoping operation. This, in turn, can provide further productivity benefits and significant savings in working costs. With al the necessary equipment being available, such a system could be introduced immediately, although the designs of props and rockdrills are not yet ideal.

Jan 1, 1989

By H. A. D. Kirsten

The paper reports on loading tests conducted on shotcrete reinforced with mesh and various types of steel fibre, and compares the results with the energy absorbing capabilities of 16 mm rebar shepherd's crooks. It is concluded that mesh-reit1forced shotcrete has sufficient energy-absorbing capabilities to contain rockbursts of significant magnitude, having greater energy absorbing capabilities, even at a thickness of 50 mm, than 16 mm rebar shepherd's crooks. Fibre-reinforced shotcrete has energy absorbing capabilities of the same order as, or better than, those of 16 mm rebar shepherd's crooks, but its performance is erratic.

Jan 1, 1995

Four engineering products and three consumer products have received awards in the 1978 Shell Design Awards competition organized by the Design Institute of the South African Bureau of Standards. Norman Hanson Visiting Fellowship The Norman Hanson Visiting Fellowship, supported jointly by the National Development Fund for the Building Industry (inaugurated by the Building Industries Federation (8.A.)), the Institute of S.A. Architects, the Association of S.A. Quantity Surveyors, and the National Building Research Institute of the CSIR exists to finance fully or wholly visits by eminent authorities from overseas to South Africa for the purposes of seminars, informed discussions, consultation, and possible active participation in scientific, technological, and development projects of importance to the building industry.

Jan 1, 1979

By R. P. King

An Analytical Solution to the Batch comminution Equation R. P. King, Pr. Eng., B.Sc. (Eng.), M. Se. (Eng.), Ph.D. (Visitor). An analytical solution to the batch-grinding equation is presented in terms of the generalized hypergeometric series and the confluent hypergeometnc function. This solution is valid for selection functions that are describe~ piece-wise by functional forms of the type KOXB and by normalized breakage functions of the type B(x,x') = (x/x')x. These functional forms are sufficiently general to Include most practical cases. In particular, they can be used to describe selection functions that have a maximum.