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By W. A. Mathews

We report on the progress of an automated mineralogical deportment of fluorine (F) in two portions of the Grasberg District for the development of metallurgical amelioration protocols for Cu sulfide concentrates. Fluorine detection limits in automated SEM technologies range from 1% (TIMA) to about 9% (QEMSCAN), however substitution in hydrophobic minerals or those reporting to concentrate is typically much lower (

Mar 2, 2022

By Dean S. Rogers

The conventional role of exploration, development and grade control is examined in this paper within the context of the many and varied types of gold occurrences which are found at the Dome Mine. The account endeavours to trace the development of the total ore evaluation process, from diamond drilling through the exploration and drifting stage, to the stope development and planning phase of the operation, with an emphasis on sampling techniques and assaying procedure. The concept of ore reserve calculations is developed and the practice of grade control is described. In summary, the role of the geological, the engineering and the mining department is presented in relation to the contribution each has to make in the evaluation and exploitation of ore from one of the world's classic Archean gold deposits.

Jan 1, 1985

By David C. Cook

The milling complex, situated just east of the Cassiar townsite, receives raw ore from the tramline and processes it into 105,000 tons per year of milled asbestos fibre. The ore is passed through a concentrator, where a barren rock fraction is removed. The concentrated ore, representing 70% of the feed, is dried, stored and then milled into nine separate fibre classifications. The finished product is packaged into 100-lb bags and loaded into trucks in one-ton units. New air-handling facilities were added in 1977to provide additional air for environmental control.

Jan 1, 1978

By George W. Doffing

Numerous contradictory statements have been made in the past regarding the importance of the seasonal influence of demand for motor fuel on prices of oil securities. It has often been said that the time to buy oil securities is in the spring, or just prior to the heavy consuming season for gasoline. The fallacy of this argument is brought out in the following paragraphs. Seasonality of Oil-security Prices The indexes used in this paper as indicators of prices of oil securities and general industrials are those compiled by Standard Statistics Co. The oil producing and refining stock index includes 14 representative petroleum companies, while the all-industrials index is made up of 347 issues. All figures are stated as relatives, with 1926 = 100. The primary basis of the index, and one that gives a good weighting of the relative importance of the company within the industry, is the total market value of the stock issue outstanding; i.e., the market price times the number of shares outstanding. Adjustments are made for the addition or elimination of issues from the group index, for stock dividends, split-ups, stock rights, et cetera. At the present time the oil producing and refining index includes the following companies: Atlantic Refining Co., Consolidated Oil Corporation, Continental Oil Co., Gulf Oil Corporation, Humble Oil & Refining Co., Ohio Oil Co., Royal Dutch Co., Shell Union Oil Corporation, Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., Standard Oil Company of California, Standard Oil Co. (Indiana), Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey), Texas Corporation, Union Oil Company of California. In calculating the seasonal for oil-security prices several periods have been selected as indicat,ive of major changes in the industry, as follows: 1. 1918 through 1936. This gives an over-all picture of the industry during the motor-vehicle, motor-fuel era. 2. 1927 through 1936. This period includes the control stages, both voluntary and coercive. 3. 1927 to September, 1933. This is the pre-code period of control.

Jan 1, 1937

By Pat McLaughlin

Environmental constraints are pushing many operators to change from large rotary blastholes to the smaller diameter holes drilled with down-hole or top-hammer rigs. Productivity improvements over the years with these two drilling techniques has taken some of the bite out of the transition, while improved fragmentation and more uniform muck due to the tighter patterns can help offset increased explosives costs.

Jan 1, 1995

By W. P. Shinn

In a paper contributed by W. A. Goodyear, M.E., on "Water Gas as Fuel," read at the Boston Meeting, February, 1883,* the following statenlent was made: "The latest experiments on a scale of some magnitude in our citier, in the way of heating buildings and furnishing power for manufacturing purposes, have been by the distribution of high-presslire steam through pipes laid in the streets. Hilt these experiments (1) have not hitherto been very successful; and when we consider the high cost and (2) the great and unavoidable loss of heat and power, which always accompany the conveyance of high-pressnre steam to any considerable distance in pipes, to say nothing of (3) certain practical difficulties in the management of the pipes themselves, (4) it is evident that all such methods must eventually disappear before a system which can furnish a cheap gas of great heating power, easily distributed wherever wanted, without requiring pipes to stand pressures of 50 to 75 pounds per square inch, and (5) without keeping the whole mass of ground in the streets through which it passes hot, gratis, for a distance of ten or fifteen feet, in all directions around the pipes!' For the purpose of controverting Mr. Goodyear's statements in regard to steam-distribution in cities, I hare numbered the points made in his indictment, my principal object being, not a professional discussion of the technical and theoretical merits of steam vs. watergas, but a simple statement of facts, in regard to the present state of the street system of steam distribntion. Taking Mr. Goodyear's points in their order: 1. Concerning what he terms " These experiments," saying that they " have not hitherto been very successful," I propose to show, that the problem of stearn-distribution has passed beyond the experimental stage, and that its practical solution is highly successful. This will be shown by the facts hereinafter fully set forth. 2. "The great and unavoidable loss of heat and power whicn always accompany the conveyance of high-pressure steam to any con-

Jan 1, 1884

By J. H. Waxweiler, L. C. Ikenberry, R. J. Bendure

Carbon which is present as insoluble carbides in austenitic stainless steels can be measured quantitatively by dissolving the steel in iodine-methanol and analyzing the residue for carbon. Severe sen-sitization was observed in Type 302 due to precipitation of only 0.003 pet carbon. Both cold work and the presence of delta ferrite caused a marked acceleration in rate of carbide precipitation. Carbide precipitation rates in 17-7 PH were stzulied for the austenite conditioning and also the aging heat treatment. CARBON and its compounds exercise a major influence on the properties of stainless steels and their response to thermal treatment. Sensitization in 18-8 type stainless steels has been the subject of numerous investigations throughout the years. Bain, Aborn, and utherford," and Binder, Brown, Frankss all studied the effects of heating austenitic stainless steels in the temperature range of 1000° to 1500°F. The primary purpose of most of these studies was the investigation of susceptibility to in-tergranular attack in acids due to these sensitizing heat treatments. Intergranular precipitation of carbides was always associated with intergranular attack but it was recognized2 that severe attack could occur with but minute quantities of precipitated carbide. Mahla and ielsen utilized the electron microscope to make a significant contribution in illustrating the appearance and method of growth of chromium carbides during sensitizing heat treatments. However, as they stated, their studies of residues could not be used to obtain a quantitative measurement of the amount of carbon which was actually precipitated. The aim of the present investigation was to devise a relatively fast, simple method for the quantitative measurement of carbides in stainless steel. EXPERIMENTAL WORK The initial investigations were made to determine the best means of separating carbides from the matrix. A number of dissolving media were tried using both chemical and electrolytic attack. Qualitative examination of the extracted residues by X-ray diffraction indicated that solution in iodine-methanol would furnish a good means of separation. Consequently, further work was pursued along this line. The method is quite simple. The sample in the form of millings or nibblings is dissolved in iodine-methanol solution at room temperature (6-g iodine, 25-ml methanol per g of sample). The insoluble residue containing the carbides is separated by suction filtration through an ultra-fine glass filter disc. This is a very fine filter medium that will retain particles as small as 0.1 to 0.2 p in diameter. After washing with methanol and drying, the filter disc and residue are placed in a conventional combustion carbon-tube furnace and the carbon determined gravimetrically. Using this technique it was found that reproducible insoluble carbon values were obtained. However, since such small amounts of insoluble carbon were obtained on Type 302 after sensitizatipn at 1250°F and 1500°F, the values were confirmed by a second method. In the second method the sample was dissolved with copper potassium chloride and filtered through a millipore paper. This treatment dissolves the matrix but leaves undissolved practically all of the carbon irrespective of how it is present in the steel. The amount of insoluble carbon present as chromium carbide is determined by calculation from the analysis of the residue for chromium and iron. The derivation of the formula used for this calculation is discussed later. The values obtained by the indirect copper-potassium-chloride method were in agreement with those obtained by the iodine-methano1 method. See Table I. It should be pointed out that the sensitivity of the direct combustion method is not too high when the amount of carbide present is small. This is due primarily to inherent blanks and to analytical errors such as weighing. For this reason it cannot be stated with any degree of certainty that there is a significant difference between values of 0.002 and 0.005 pct. Having confirmed that the iodine-methanol extraction gave a quantitative measurement of the precipitated carbides in Type 302, exploratory tests were conducted on Armco 17-7 PH stainless steel. Samples from commercial Heat 54807 were solution annealed at 2000°F, water quenched and heated at 1250" and 1500°F, and water quenched. The analysis of Heat 54808 is as follows:

Jan 1, 1962

By E. Scheepers

Within a phosphorus producing submerged arc furnace it was found that the continuous fluctuation of the furnace between a flowrate-driven state (high throughput) and a thermodynamic-driven state (low throughput) caused both techniques to have similar overall, predictive abilities and resulted in a linear, ARX-type, adaptive prediction model as the model of choice. Secondly, this pre-diction model was developed, tested and then shown to have a reasonable, 8-hour-ahead predictive accuracy (R2, coefficient of determination) of 30% (±6%) on future Pslag values. This inherent relationship exists because, at the precise moment of a Pslag prediction, the furnace already contains the metallurgical memory (input variables to the linear model) needed to ensure that some predictive possibilities will always exists - all as a result of the long residence times in the furnace. Residence time, however, is not a directly adjustable variable but rather a fully dependent variable and a function of an array of interconnected and interactive variables. In fact, this applies to virtually all input variables, reemphasising the importance of innate metallurgical memory. Thirdly, predictive control possibilities were explored by simulating the set-points of two fully independent variables used by operators to control the process: the ratio of fixed carbon-to-P2O5 and the ratio of silica gravel-to-pellets. This linear, predictive control model showed only a slight improvement with an 8-hour-ahead predictive accuracy of 35% (±7%). This highlights how ineffective current adjustments are in optimally steering the process and how difficult even incremental improvements in feed-forward and predictive control can be. Finally, it is shown that fundamental design-, sampling- and process restrictions currently associated with the process will always limit the predictive and especially control accuracy or meaningfulness of any dynamic model. These restrictions include the size of the furnace resulting in long residence times, 8-hours sampling intervals, an extremely complex and interactive process and a 16% spatial analyses variation on the Pslag values ? the very value that the model is to predict. The point is made that, given the current status quo, even the perfect dynamic prediction model can not improve on an 8-hour-ahead prediction of 30% (±6%). This barrier can only be pierced with e.g. tidier and more frequent sampling regimes and other upfront capital investments, a decision that becomes a cost accounting exercise and that can only be taken by the management structure. An investment demanding ever-increasing attention is CFD software and it?s potential to shed more light on the complex interactions within the furnace.

Jan 1, 2014

By E. P. Youngman

The Siamese mining lew, which is cited as "The Sian Mining Act, 2461 (1919)," was enacted February 14, B. E. 2461 (A. D. 1919), corresponding to the ninth year of His Majesty's reign. This act replaces the Sian Mining Act of 1901 and repeals all edicts, decrees, laws, rules, and local customs relating to mining the terms of which are inconsistent with the new law. It shall in- clude all subsequent alterations or additions, as well as all rules issued by the Minister (of Land and Agriculture) already in force or to be brought into force publication in the Government Gazette to be deemed sufficient notice of any modifications or alterations. (Art. 1, 2, 5, 83, and 85.) Legislation passed recently amending certain provisions of the mining law for the purpose of controlling the sale of minerals is the mining amendment act, B. E. 2474, given August 21, 1931 (7th year of the present reign), which repeals provisions of the mining act, B. 3. 2461, and also all rules and regula- tions relating to mining that are inconsistent with the amending ect. Under article 25 of the mining amendment act, B. E. 2474, ministeriel regulations (of the Minister of Agriculture) were issued August 21, 1931. Further recent legislation, brought about by the agreement of the Siamese Government to become a party to the international tin restriction scheme (inter- national tin pool), is the tin and tin ore restriction act (Siam), B. E. 2474, which came into force on September 1, 1921, its purpose being to suspend the

Mar 1, 1933

By Zachary D. Jones

"Construction projects involve a great many risks. The risk that material prices will increase during construction or that the work under construction will be destroyed by fire, storm or some other act of God are just a few examples. In tunneling or other underground projects, one of the most significant risks is that the subsurface conditions encountered during construction will differ from what is expected. Each of these risks must be accounted for, managed and, ultimately, the duty of one party or the other to bear. The primary tool used to allocate the risks among the parties is the construction contract.How construction contracts allocate the risk that subsurface conditions will differ have changed substantially over the past century. Today, construction contracts typically allocate the risk through a series of provisions. The first is the differing site condition or changed condition clause. That clause, when included, typically provides that the owner bears the risk that the subsurface conditions will differ from what is indicated in the contract documents or what is reasonably expected. The second clause is one that provides that the contractor must conduct a reasonable site investigation and bear the risk of any conditions that such an investigation would reveal. The third provision includes disclaimers that are often included in geotechnical data provided by the owner (or the owner’s engineer) to the contractor which attempts to limit the information on which the contractor can rely. Because these risk-allocating devices seem to be somewhat conflicting, a brief discussion of each provides critical insight in understanding how the modern construction contract allocates the risk of differing site conditions.At the start of the 20th century, construction contracts looked substantially different than they do today. For example, one contract for the construction of a public water tunnel in Chicago, IL, drafted around 1895 contained the following clause:The contractor must take the work entirely at his own risk. No extra allowance will be made for quicksand, hardpan or boulders."

Jan 1, 2014

By John C. Feeley

The methods used and the funds available for the development and oper- ation of shall mines and the reopening of small abandoned mines frequently present problems that tax the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the mining engineer far beyond that required in the mass production from large deposits. The objective of this paper is to describe in considerable detail the means whereby engineers have solved local problems in reopening an abandoned mine at which equipment, facilities, and funds were limited... The Etowah Coal & Iron Co. Gadsden red-iron-ore mine at Gadsden, Ala., 18 of interest in this category since it is the only independent red-ore mine under active development in the State. All other red-ore mines in Alabama are owned or controlled by the large iron or steel companies. The The mine, located on the southwest end of Shinbone Ridge in the outskirts of Gadsden lies in an ares once productive. but now idle, for many years. ore is relatively highgrade compared with that in the Birmingham area, but the bed is thin and somewhat lenticular. The presence of a large blast furnace at Alabama City, 3 miles from Gadsden, and the growing scarcity of red-iron ore supplies for it offered inducements for reopening the mine in 1946. Up to the time this circular was prepared (1947) only a small quantity of ore (about 1,500 tons) has been produced and shipped to the furnace. A force of 14 men was employed in sinking the main slope and developing a third "lift" (a local term for level) 100 feet below the old mine workings.

May 1, 1949

By K. Mayhew, K. Murray

The CESL Copper Process was developed as a hydrometallurgical alternative to smelting and refining for copper sulphide concentrates. As the majority of such concentrates contain appreciable gold and silver values, effective recovery of these metals is essential to the economics of this technology. Unfortunately, conventional cyanide processing cannot be used on the residue from the copper process, clue to its unusual characteristics when compared with naturally occurring gold and silver ores. An abundance of elemental sulphur, as well as the presence of cyanide soluble copper, leads to the formation of both thiocyanate and copper cyanide which is detrimental to process economics clue to excessive cyanide consumption. This, however, can be reduced to acceptable levels by process innovations such as pressure cyanidation and cyanide recovery. This paper outlines the successful application of the CESL Gold Process to various gold-bearing copper concentrates from bench to demonstration scale.

Jan 1, 2011

By Liane L. M. Kacinuck

This U.S. Bureau of Mines publication is intended to provide mining industry representatives and regulatory authorities with a reference package dealing with studies on hydrology and underground mine subsidence. An annotated bibliography and a list of additional sources are given and represent references published prior to June 1993. Ninety-two references ware identified and 72 obtained for assessment. Annotating the references included evaluating the study methodology and summarizing the basic results. The references are also compiled based on geographic location to aid the user in identifying articles of particular interest.

Jan 1, 1994

By D. Earley

High metal prices and new world trade standards and accounting for environmental liability in financial disclosures are creating markets for metals commodities that are produced using ?green technologies?. A promising "green" gold leaching system uses a polysulfide based lixiviant which is non-toxic and non-polluting. Laboratory testing has demonstrated selective gold extraction rates comparable to those of cyanide. The polysulfide lixiviant is a dilute aqueous solution which can be inexpensively produced from readily available chemical reagents and even mining wastes. The reagent system is self-buffering and maintains the optimal chemical environment for leaching. Treatment of residual leach solutions is not necessary because the lixiviant itself is not toxic, and breaks down as the system equilibrates. Simple closed system boiling is used to recover gold from process solutions. The polysulfide lixiviant can then be readily renewed and recycled back into the system, forming a closed loop system that conserves reagents and energy which minimizes operating costs. Economic projections have shown that the system can be used profitably for standard ore types and grades.

Jan 1, 2009

By Robert M. Dreyer

In an industrialized nation, as the process of industrialization continues, the ratio of the value of production of non-metallic to metallic minerals normally increases gradually over a period of years. For example, in the United States, the ratio of the value of production of non-metals to metals now is approximately two-to-one. Those of us who come from California like to think that we inherit the mantle of the old hard-rock miner, but the truth of the matter is that, in California, of the total value of mineral production exclusive of fuels, 97% comes from non-metallic - industrial - minerals. Since the industrial minerals furnish a principal source of raw materials for the construction and chemical processing industries and since these two industries, in industrialized nations, generally increase directly with increasing population, the future of industrial mineral production both in the United States and throughout the world is indeed bright. Because of the importance of industrial mineral production, it often surprises those of us in the industrial mineral industry to find that industrial minerals are poorly understood by many of our colleagues in the mining industry. I think that one reason for this comprehension of the industrial mineral industry is that the education of both geologists and mining engineers still markedly emphasizes exploitation of the metals.

Jan 1, 1964

Keywords: Pyrometallurgy, Wits University, research Wits Metallurgy celebrated its centenary in 2004. The department has been at the forefront of education and research and has contributed greatly to the metals and minerals industry, both in South Africa and abroad, in terms of human resources and knowledge generation. A significant number of industry and academic leaders worldwide are Wits Metallurgy graduates. Since its early beginnings, pyrometallurgy has always been part of the curricula and research offered by the department. Pyrometallurgical activities started to expand tremendously from the middle of the 1960s, especially by the formation - together with Mintek - of the Pyrometallurgy Research Group, which continues its internationally recognised research activities today. The research efforts have been concentrated on problems associated particularly with ferroalloy, steel, stainless steel production, and PGM/Cu-Ni sulphide smelting. In recent years, research has been further expanded to physical modelling of pyrometallurgical reactors. Almost all of the specific research projects were handled from a fundamental point of view, and hence a large number of MSc(Eng) and PhD degrees were achieved by candidates under the supervision of the Pyrometallurgy Research Leaders. Moreover, a significant portion of the research results were published in internationally recognized journals and conference proceedings. Among these, Infacon and the Molten Slags, Fluxes and Salts Conference series are worth mentioning. The studies from a fundamental point of view include thermodynamics, phase equilibria, transport phenomena, kinetics, and process dynamic aspects of high temperature processes and systems, both in the solid and liquid states.

Jan 1, 2006

By Eugene McAuliffe

THE last obtainable figures of the value of the coal mining investment are those contained in the U. S. Census Reports, from data gathered in 1919. The values shown therein and set forth below cover lands and equipment and do not include distribution and marketing facilities. The working capital necessary to meet pay rolls to purchase material and supplies and workmen's compensation insurance are likewise excluded.

Jan 1, 1926

By John S. Wakeman

The initial step in the pelletizing of iron ores is the production of green balls. The importance of this step cannot be overemphasized as the physical quality of the green balls has a very significant effect on the subsequent induration process, regardless of the type of the indurating equipment employed. The ability of the green balls to withstand the rigors of handling, distribution, compaction and drying will have an effect on the degree of success of any pelletizing operation. Many factors affect the physical quality of the green balls including the prior processing of the iron ore, the characteristics of the balling feed and the type and quality of the binder used (if any). When working on the development of a new project or studying an existing operation, it is often desirable to determine what effect variations in these factors will have on green ball quality. It is generally impractical to make these determinations on a commercial, or even pilot plant scale, especially when the number of variables to be studied is large. Because of this, many organizations have developed batch techniques for producing green balls to enable them to perform such investigations with a minimum of time and expense. The batch balling method is at best, only an approximation of commercial balling systems. Many practitioners employ the use of pre-formed seed pellets to initiate a batch run. Thus, the growth mechanism encountered in any experiment is essentially snowballing. Unless an instability is introduced into a balling test (such as an excessive initial feed rate or an unusual feed material characteristic) the growth mechanism of coalescence is not present to a significant extent nor is it desirable. In a continuous operation, both mechanisms are present and necessary to sustaining the system. The batch balling technique thus produces pellets in an idealized manner and cannot be used to directly predict commercial green ball qualities. A general relationship does exist however, and the procedure is fairly sensitive to variations in test parameters. Although many refinements to this technique have been introduced over the years, batch balling is still essentially an art and subject to "operator effect". Therefore, to assure consistant and reliable results, skilled technicians who carefully adhere to established practice must be utilized.

Jan 1, 1971

By L. Valentik

Many attempts have been made during the last forty years to evaluate the performance of gravity separation equipment, that is, the effectiveness with which light and heavy particles are separated. The most comprehensive treatment of the subject was made at the 1st International Conference on Coal Preparation held in Paris (1950) by Cerchar. The methods suggested by the Conference were accepted and very widely used in the last 25 years. This paper discusses an improved method of evaluation in the light of the now accepted standard presentation. The float and sink analysis of the product is presented on a Gaussian distribution curve, resulting in an easier visualization of the inherent difficulties of separation. The ogives of the distribution curve are then plotted, giving a quantitative measure of the deviation from perfect separation as an error distance instead of an error area. Illustrations of the new method are given both for gravel and for coal preparation, but the concept is valid and applicable to other types of minerals which are separated by gravity methods.

Jan 1, 1968

By D J. Robinson, L L. Kuhar

"Regardless of orebody value, at some stage, the pit will reach a depth where the reward for mining wider and/or deeper is not justified by the anticipated returns. ‘Last-blast’ strategies may help to some degree in recovering additional quantities of the resource but when a pit remains, there is often significant value left in the ground. In addition, in many cases, one or many good reasons may dictate why going underground and pursuing the orebody below the pit is also not justifiable. Whereas the company can hopefully move on to other more prospective parts of the orebody, the remaining options for the pit are usually very limited. Typically the pit is either held for potentially more favourable future pit expansion opportunities or it could be used for an alternative purpose, such as tailings or waste storage. This paper will present an alternative option that involves the direct extraction of values using in situ recovery (ISR) methods to recover additional value metals from the walls and/or floor of the pit. ISR involves circulating a fluid through the remaining orebody, solubilising the target metal and subsequently returning the solution to the surface for metal recovery. ISR is not the panacea to all but it has been employed selectively in the minerals industry for some time and the production of metals, such as uranium, rely heavily on this approach. ISR is not yet considered by many operators as an approach to compete with open pit or underground mining, largely because of the perceived limitations of this approach and the perceptions of risk. Rapid recent development of tools and enabling technologies relevant to ISR have made us reconsider the most economic approach to extracting many other metals from known mineral systems, even those currently listed as subeconomic. We suggest that ISR has the potential to make mine operators rethink the end of the pit life and adopt an innovative ISR approach to work toward a more complete recovery of value metals from existing pits.Citation:Kuhar, L L and Robinson, D J, 2016. In-pit In Situ Recovery - a New Approach That May Allow for Increased Value Extraction before Pit Closure, in Proceedings Ninth AusIMM Open Pit Operators' Conference 2016, pp 275–283 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Nov 15, 2016