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By W. G. Lawrence

The rapid development of science and technology in Russia has been the result of well laid plans since 1918. At that time the Institute of Silicates was established is Moscow and later the establishment of similar more specialized institutes for the study of cement, glass, refractories, construction ceramics, electrical ceramics, building materials and asbestos provided the necessary research facilities for studies related to all types of ceramic inorganic materials. The' Institute of Ceramics and the Institute of Silicate Chemistry, Academy of Sciences, USSR, were founded in Leningrad. The work now going on in these various research' institutes covers every branch of silicate science and ceramics The impetus behind such establishment of special¬ized laboratories is no doubt due to the 5-year plans and the necessity of improving the scientific knowledge regarding the materials being used and the products being manufactured.

Jan 1, 1960

By Rudolf Voigt

Lignite reserves occur all over the world in different climatic regions. This means, that the impact of the hydrologic regime upon mining activities and, vice versa, of the mining activities upon ground and surface water conditions will be different between any two mines. On the other hand, most economically important lignite deposits can be grouped according to principal depositional and structural features described briefly in the following section. These features do allow a preliminary assessments of the nature of ground water problems which may face the mine. The cost of protection against water which threatens a mine, the environmental impact of the appropriate measures to achieve this end and the restraints of population density which both might exclude the most cost-effective approach will govern the project expenditure for drainage work. Whether or not this expenditure can be borne by the project must be established during the feasi¬bility phases of mine planning. So, the somewhat provoking title of this paper does not mean that its question can be answered once for ever. It should rather serve to bring to the attention of the audience the major features of mine water control.

Jan 1, 1985

By D. Noon

Mine production crews and drill-and-blast crews may be exposed to unexpected movement of ground when working under pit slopes. Without specialist geotechnical advice and appropriate measurement systems, mine crews are faced with conducting risk assessments and relying on subsequent controls that may or may not be adequate to ensure their safety. Mine crews need an ?early warning? monitoring system to give them the confidence that they will have time to walk out of the danger zone if the pit slope begins to move. Slope stability radar technology is used by mine geotechnical engineers to assess overall slope stability over an extended period, typically days or weeks, and to critically monitor slopes that are actively moving and may become unsafe. The complexity of slope stability radar allows for geotechnical engineers to assess movement types and movement rates across multiple work areas of a mine from long ranges, with alarm capability to a central location. However there are many mine work areas where production and drill-and blast crews are not adequately covered or alarmed by slope stability radar systems. What is required is an easy-to-use, short-range, fast-scanning tool that can be operated directly by a work crew and can provide a local alarm with sufficient warning when a wall movement occurs within the work area. The Work Area Monitor (WAM) concept has been developed specifically to be operated by a mine production crew. The system comprises a sensitive, fast-scanning radar coupled with a high-resolution camera, built into a mine-standard light vehicle. The system has been designed specifically for ease of use with the output being a local area alarm to warn workers of slope movement in their vicinity, as opposed to the broader pit monitoring and long-term deformation measurements of the known slope stability radar systems.

Jan 1, 2012

By Barrie A. Wigmore

There are two aspects of financing western coal development -- whether there is going to be enough money to finance the prospective large development of the industry, and the specific techniques of raising money for that development. To take the first question of whether there is going to be enough money around to finance your industry, I think it is quite clear that the restrictions on the development of western coal are going to be non- financial. Environmental impact problems are creating the greatest delay in coal mine development, at the moment; but getting enough personnel, mining equipment, railroad equipment, and failure of the Department of Interior to act on leasing federal coal lands all appear likely to create significant bottle- necks in the development of western coal -- larger bottlenecks than financing. Financing appears straightforward for the industry. There are many projections of the financing required to meet Project Independence goals. The National Academy of Engineers estimated that development of 500 million tons per annum of western coal would be necessary by 1985 to meet the Project Independence goals which might require $20 billion of capital spending. It is generally agreed that 500 million tons a year is not a realistic possibility. Carl Bagge?s estimate of production of 250 million tons a year by 1983 appears a more reasonable projection. Development

Jan 1, 1976

By R. E. Cook

"Mineral deposits require substantial amounts of energy to transport and be processed into useable form, and as such present a real processing challenge in that the deposits are never homogeneous and ore body compositional characteristics are all over the map! Extracting the desired mineral(s) from the deposit at sufficient profit margin, despite severe fluctuations in market price, requires process automation architecture capable of supporting an integrated enterprise solution. Such an architecture will encompasses the activities of individuals, process units, process areas, plant level activities, mine management and business planning and accounting systems. Key to the automation process is the aspect of value generation. This paper brings together the various requirements for the automation of a mining enterprise and presents the different aspects of how to obtain value across the entire mining operation.INTRODUCTIONMinerals’ processing sites are historically long lived, 20 year life of mine is not uncommon and 75 years is not unheard of. Considering that hardware technology advancements are introduced every six months, or less, it is prudent to select process automation systems that adhere to “open” industrial standards versus proprietary based systems. In the minerals processing industry, the key to survival is driving the cost of production per unit volume to the lowest possible level and provide enough profit to sustain operations. Control system architecture and Business information technology are rapidly becoming important tools in the quest for productivity. Getting key dynamic business performance information at the right time to the right person or process unit is crucial to successfully achieving corporate goals. The process automation architecture selected must therefore be able to integrate to the various networking enterprises and business systems.The mining industry is generally known as an “extractive” industry that is very physically-oriented with respect to operations and the activities in which workers engage. Large numbers of people performing manual tasks in difficult surroundings, produce very variable outputs. But, times are changing – and so are industry best practices. While the nature of work still consists of activities such as ore extraction, ore movement, ore concentration, refinement and logistics, automation innovations are starting to change the nature of many of the production steps. The industry has transitioned from requiring more physical activities by workers, to more information management, automated control and collaboration within the operation. Humans are good at situational intervention and non-linear reasoning and do best when empowered with an overall production perspective. Machines and automation are good at repetitive functions, steady state operation, and managing transitions. Thus, a combination of advanced technology solutions, reliable and useful information and full human contribution are necessary to mining operations for value generation."

Jan 1, 2015

By J. M. Link

A technique is presented for the economic selection of a slurry pipeline with the aid of a computer. Mathematical models for the flows of homogeneous slurries are utilized. Only the pipeline and its prime movers are considered. Slurry flow properties are first obtained from rheology and/or pipeline data measurements. A rheological model is then selected for the slurry. It must be emphasized that the accuracy of the method is greatly affected by the accuracy of the slurry flow-property data. Approximate cost parameters may be selected from data for plain and lined pipes, centrifugal and positive displacement pumps, motors and engines. Cost data for the purchase, operation and maintenance of slurry pipelines are also described. A total cost equation for the ownership and operation of a slurry pipeline system is then established. The complexity of the equation is a function of the rheological model selected to describe the slurry. The equation is solved with the aid of a computer for several combinations of pipeline diameters and throughputs to yield minimum total annual cost for the system. A mean velocity is then computed to give the required throughput. The velocity is constrained by an upper and lower bound. A high velocity is undesirable from an energy consumption viewpoint and if pipeline wear is possible. On the other hand, the velocity must exceed the deposition velocity for a heterogeneous suspension or the critical velocity for a homogeneous suspension. There is no guarantee that the velocity developed by this method will lie within the constraints applied, nor that the constraints are even known. This is particularly true for heterogeneous slurries. An important feature of the method is the ease with which the variables can be adjusted to measure the sensitivity of the total cost to the variables. The purpose of the sensitivity analysis is to identify those critical variables that. if changed, can considerably affect the total cost. Mathematically, individual variables are changed and the effect of such a change on the annual total cost is computed. But from a designer's point of view, individual components in the system are changed to study their effect on the annual total cost. A change in one component of the system may involve a change in one or more variables. For example, the replacement of a steel pipe by a smooth-lined pipe will change the pipewall roughness and wall thickness as well as purchase, operating, and maintenance costs.

Jan 1, 1974

By F. Maciosek, D. Denton, J. Johnson

Researchers from the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and personnel from Coeur Silver Valley, Wallace, ID, conducted tests using rock strain strips and Split-Set rock bolts instrumented with strain gauges to monitor wall rock strain at the Galena Mine, Osburn, ID. The objective of the test was to identify whether strain on the rock bolts increased prior to a rock burst. Although results were inconclusive, researchers learned that the Split-Set rock bolts yielded in stick-slip fashion in the highly jointed walls of the stope. The bolts were also bent as stress was redistributed following blasting and subsequent movement along joints in the wall rocks.

Jan 1, 2004

By William G. Freeman

In comparison to many mineral commodities, barite has a low unit value. It is mined and sold in low volumes in high-grade (90-98% BaSO4) forms to basically one industry that uses approximately 75% of the free world production. Based upon the above criteria, all factors must be considered in determining if a barite deposit is economical; such as, the type of deposit, mining and milling methods required, transportation to the markets, tariffs, local political conditions, etc. In other words, barite mines are made--not found. The length of this paper precludes any indepth discussion of geology, mining and metallurgy of barite. Most of this information can be found in data already published, such as D. A. Brobst's bulletin1 on the Barite Resources of the United States.

Jan 1, 1971

The primary use of coal in the US is for electric generation. The problems associated with the use of this vast amount of coal is the central theme of these sessions. The problems discussed include: production capacity, mining problems, coal cleaning, transportation, combustion, and various environmental problems, such as health effects of coal combustion, water and air pollution, and solid waste disposal.

Jan 1, 1979

By R. L. Grayson

Evidence has accumulated indicating that cultural change toward safer workplace behaviors is beginning to occur systematically in the coal industry. Through a range of programmatic mining company successes, enforcement and litigative actions, economic responses to competition, and integrated efforts by federal and state agencies, a broader participation of safety and training professionals is being achieved to address prioritized workplace problems at mines. Small steps in workplace-related improvements have been realized already, but the trends in industry safety statistics, coupled with focused programmatic initiatives, indicate that more definitive and systematic steps are occurring to improve safe behavior in the workplace routinely.

Jan 1, 1996

By Alton G. Woody

Like so many installations of its type approaching middle age, the ore processing and shipping facilities in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, have taken a lot of twists and turns in their lifetime. The object of this paper is to lead you through these twists and turns and some of the reasoning for them. The need for additional sources of iron are in the United States became evident during the time of the second world war. An exploration team from U. S. Steel located further high quality direct shipping iron are in commercial quantities near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela in 1947. Basic decisions were made to develop these reserves for export via the Orinoco River through a new shipping port to be built at the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroni Rivers. The basic concept was for the ore to be loaded directly to ocean going vessels. This was something of a gamble since the basic economics depended upon successfully opening up the main channel of the Orinoco River to deepwater vessels, and the Bethlehem Steel mine in the same area was already working with shallow draft river boats and a transfer station on the coast. Always, the basic philosophy has tended to be to plan with expansion in mind. The original conveyor systems were 1.52 m (60 inches) wide with 200 idlers, whereas 1.07 m (42 inches) or 1.22 m (48 inches) wide conveyors could have carried any production foreseen at the time of installation. Stockpiles have been located and designed with room for expansion. Basic designs have had dotted line future expansion blocked in.

Jan 1, 1978

By Jake Gibson

"As one of the most pressing and important political debates of this century, climate change has captured global attention and is forcing governments to take action toward decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) and carbon emission levels below what was previously thought to be necessary. With the ever-increasing price of diesel fuel, accompanied by the popular topic of carbon taxes and greenhouse gas emissions, the mining industry is looking to industry specialists for assistance. The benefits of a no-idle policy reach far beyond carbon reduction and fuel savings, ranging from decreased maintenance to increased engine life. With products like battery-powered ac systems and diesel-fired heaters, going noidle is easier today than ever before. With both systems being manufactured to withstand the harsh environments of the mining industry, the end user will see a seamless change from conventional, inefficient belt-driven systems to future, standalone mobile equipment HVAC.The history of GHGs and climate changeIn 1896, Svante Arrhenius first claimed that the combustion of fossil fuels may eventually result in enhanced global warming, but not until 1955 did Gilbert Plass draw global attention to global warming by summarizing that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would intercept infrared radiation and thus warm the earth. Then in the early 1960s, Charles Keeling developed modern technology to produce concentration curves for atmospheric CO2 (Fig.1).In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded by the United Nations after acknowledgment of a rising global annual temperature. The IPCC consists of more than 2,500 scientific and technical experts from more than 60 countries. Because climate change could not be solved by a single country, the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1998, requiring all participating countries to reduce their GHG emissions by at least 5 percent from the 1990 levels. The Protocol was signed by 186 countries in 2001 (since then several countries have retreated from the agreement, including the United States). In 2002, the Bush administration announced a policy for climate change relying on domestic, voluntary actions to reduce the "greenhouse gas intensity" of the United States economy by 18 percent by 2012. The U.S. still attends the Kyoto conference of parties (COPs) but does not participate in negotiations, as it is not bound by its terms."

Jan 1, 2014

By J. Ludden

By Sims Some two years ago we began investigating low coke button bituminous coal for use at our Bound Brook, New Jersey plant as a replacement for anthracite. Since August, 1957 the plant has been operating continously on this coal with the exception of a new 200,000#/hr, cyclone boiler. This study was motivated not from our desire to conduct combustion research, but for the sole purpose of reducing our steam costs, The indications were that the economics were greatly in favor of the use of the bituminous coal. The attempts to reduce the costs have developed some knowledge that has enabled this program to succeed reasonably well as will be discussed later by Mr. Ludden. The production of steam size anthracite is dependent upon either the reclamation of old culm banks or the breakage in the production of the domestic sizes. The anthracite industry has not as yet been able to cut, its mining costs to the point where the production of steam sizes has become a profitable business. This has resulted in two basic problems: (1) A constantly rising price in an attempt to have those sizes carry their share of the cost and, (2) Periodic shortages of supply when the demand is good but the market price prohibits the mining of anthracite to produce those sizes only, These conditions have made the long range forecast appear as though the price would go even higher and/or the supply at times be critically short.

Jan 1, 1958

By C. L. Lin

The image-based On-line Particle Size Analyzer (OPSA) system has been developed at the University of Utah to measure particle size distributions under plant conditions where overlapped and segregated particles are being transported on a moving belt conveyor. Evaluation of the OPSA system at several plant sites has been completed. The results show a consistent agreement between the particle size distributions obtained from the OPSA system and those obtained from laboratory screen analysis of belt samples. These results and the stable performance of the OPSA system during the field tests suggest that continuous quality control of crushed products is possible using the OPSA system.

Jan 1, 1999

By Evan Just

?We are certain there is need for research in every phase of mining." This statement by R. M. Crump of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company (047) paraphrases opinion widespread among mining people. It is undoubtedly true. In preparation for this presentation, 193 organizations were asked to describe their mining research efforts. 60% responded, The meaning of "research" was taken in several different ways. The continual efforts of progressive companies to improve themselves were reported as research. We will call this and any effort to solve specific and immediate problems "practical research". The continuing investigation of subjects of long range interest will be called "basic research".

Jan 1, 1961

By K. Anim, C. Calderon-Arteaga

Located in Mojave, CA, The Soledad Mountain mine is an Open pit Heap-Leach gold Mine, which is operated by Golden Queen Mining Company LLC. under private capital. Open pit mining began in 2015 while full production was reached in 2016. The open pit mine feed a processing plant that can process more than 13K tons per day of ore which is sent to a heap leach pad. The Soledad Mountain project is a poly metallic deposit with Au and AG being recovered as payable metals. As the mine became bigger after moving to the east pit phases, Golden Queen was facing new challenges to control the production and accurately determine KPIs to improve/increase the production. To maximize returns and asset value, a new fleet management system (FMS) was adopted and implemented. The new FMS has enabled the mine to interconnect the different stages of the mining, as well as to recognize issues and implement the necessary corrections. With the associated increase in complexity in the process, the requirement of the ore control system to accurately predict ore feed characteristics is critical to maximizing metal recovery. Implementation of new daily and weekly plans were needed to ensure the ore delivery and meeting the tonnage goals, while allowed the equipment operators to better geolocate and to maximize the equipment production. These conditions alongside with Golden Queen’s drive to increase profitability and maximize net asset value has created challenges. These challenges are numerous and multifaceted. However, the ability to accurately route the material from the mine, is critical to site success and some of these challenges have been overcome by the adoption of the new FMS, the implementation of daily and weekly plans and upgrades in the ore control workflow. Examples of how the integration of the new systems allowed golden Queen to improve production strategy, are discussed in this article.

Mar 2, 2022

By II Browne

After a decade of high copper prices, major mining companies are renewing their interest in purchasing operating properties and/or development of ore bodies. An existing operation carries with it a history that can present unique opportunities, while a greenfield operation allows for the establishment of a defined culture. Capital investments are distinctly different. A comparison of BHP Copper Robinson Operation, a greenfield property, and BHP Copper Tintaya Operation, a government owned Peruvian property, will provide insights into mining, concentrating and cultural differences between North and South American Operations.

Jan 1, 1997

By Andrew J. Petruska, Austin F. Oltmanns

This work proposes a capacitive load cell for conical picks to enable underground continuous mining machine operators to perform their roles away from known hazardous regions near the machine. The load cell is embedded in commercially available flexible printed circuit board, integrates with the target tooling, and demonstrates in situ force sensing of vibration signatures for continuous mining cutting tools. Changes in material constitution, tool mass, and tool geometry cause modal variations in vibrational response measurable with force sensors at the cutting interface. Time-series measurements are captured during rock cutting tests using a linear cutting machine. These measurements are segmented into small windows, less than 0.25 s, and are preprocessed using the fast Fourier transform, which highlights the modal variations. The transformed measurements are then classified into different material and wear categories using support-vector machines with the radial basis function kernel. Different normalization schemes and Fourier transform methods are tested for signal preprocessing. Results show that the power spectral density measurements with normally distributed coefficients give good results for material classification, while the normalized time-domain measurements give better results for wear classification. Under laboratory conditions, this technique is shown to classify material and wear categories with F1 score above 0.85 out of 1.0 for our experiment. This technology could be used to assist operators in assessing material and wear conditions from a safer distance. It has applications in the coal mining industry as well as other applications which use conical picks such as road milling.

Mar 25, 2023

By Steve Karl

"The global underground construction and tunneling industry is in pretty good shape. Billions are being spent in shoring up aging infrastructure in the United States and other places, and new underground projects are being put out for bid.With each new project, comes new equipment, technology and tunneling methods. So it is incumbent on tunneling professionals to constantly improve their knowledge of the profession. This is where spending a few days with other underground construction professionals can assist the tunneler in keeping up.Every two years, tunnelers and underground construction engineers, contractors, suppliers, designers and owners from around the world gather for the Rapid Excavation Tunneling Congress (RETC). The 2017 conference was held in June in San Diego, CA. The UCA of SME puts on the conference.This years’ RETC attracted 1,400 attendees. The accompanying sold-out exhibit totaled 188 service and equipment suppliers. In addition, the conference had the UCA of SME bookstore, where the new History of Tunneling in the United States book was introduced. And a short course on tunnel rehabilitation was featured.Technical programmingRETC 2017 featured nearly 100 technical presentations. Topics covered the breadth of the global underground construction industry. Here is a sampling of a few. The proceedings from the conference is available from SME, 303-948-4200, www.smenet.org.Accomplishing extraordinary tasks as a machine supplier for Metro Doha: The construction of the Metro Doha in the State of Qatar established a modern, safe, efficient and integrated public transportation network. Upon final completion of multiple phases, the network will comprise four metro lines with a length of 216 km (83 miles) and 100 stations. Phase one comprises 112 km (43 miles of underground tunnels (56 km or 22 miles of twin-tube tunnels). Twenty-one earth pressure balance tunnel boring machines (TBM) were deployed by the four different joint ventures. The project was initiated, managed and supervised by the owner, Transport Authority Qatar Rail.Phase two of the Doha Metro will start upon the completion of Phase One in 2019 (Qatar Vision 2030). The owner placed full faith in the manufacturer’s abilities to deliver equipment of high quality, state of the art standards within the given time frame. This paper focused on the manufacturer’s scope of delivery and on the supplier’s high standards of quality in production, logistics and services."

Jan 9, 2017

By Gordon B. French, Donald E. Garrett

INTRODUCTION Crude oil reserves in the United States are still very large, even though for many years they have not been sufficient to supply our entire domestic requirements. They are continuously being depleted as oil is pumped from the ground, but new discoveries and improved secondary and tertiary recovery methods are helping to reduce the rate of depletion. It is thus a slowly diminishing resource, but even as it is being consumed, immense reserves of oil are left behind as the so called "un-recoverable" portion of petroleum formations. Most oil fields can only obtain a 15 to 40% recovery of the original reservoir, and it is widely quoted that there are still about 300 billion barrels of this un-recoverable oil still in place (Mauch, 1980, etc.). With the present comparatively high oil prices, and the possibility of even higher future prices and short supply, this oil becomes an interesting potential reserve. Mining the petroleum formation would be one means of recovering at least a portion of this oil. The concept of oil mining is neither new nor limited to conventional oil fields, since the procedure could be equally employed with the otherwise difficult to produce heavy oil deposits, and the solid or semi-solid tar sands and diatomaceous hydrocarbon formations. Estimates place the U.S. tar sand resource at about 30 billion barrels, and heavy oil at 5-10 billion barrels (Unitar, 1982). Figure 1 graphically summarizes the heavy oil reserves based upon formation depth and characteristics, while Figure 2 shows their location. It is apparent that the preponderance of reserves are in California and Texas, but that they also occur in many other states. The major companies engaged in oil recovery from the heavy

Jan 1, 1983