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(Under this heading will be published notes sent to the Secretary of the Institute by members or other persons introduced by members.) No. 488.-Mining engineer, member, technical graduate, married, age 38, desires position of superintendent or assistant superintendent. Has had 15 years' practical experience as miner, millman, machinist, surveyor, engineer, foreman, and superintendent in the West, Southwest, and Mexico. Speaks Spanish. Now employed as superintendent of copper property in Southwest. Can give the best of references. Minimum salary $250. Available after Sept. 1. No. 495.-Member, age 36, married, technical, 10 years'. all round

Jan 12, 1918

By M. E. Fine

THE electrical conductivity (a) and the thermal conductivity (K) of metallic conductors, as demonstrated by Smith and Palmer1 and Hume-Rothery,2 are to a good approximation related by an empirical equation, K = A s T + B, in which T is the absolute temperature, and A and B are constants, the Lorenz constant and the lattice con- ductivity. Strictly speaking, the lattice conductivity is not a constant, but to some extent depends upon the electronic conductivity.3 By plotting K as a function of sT, this equation has been proved to a

Jan 1, 1951

By J. W. Lewis

This review covers that portion of the area between the Llano mountains and the Red River which lies between Fort Worth and Abilene. The counties and fields included are listed in Tables 1 and 2. During 1929 there was a marked lull in both prospecting and development in this part of Texas. Archer, Coleman, Cooke, Wilbarger and Young were the counties most active. The total gross production of the year was 52,611,000 bbl., 3 per cent. more than for 1928. The production of the Coleman, Cooke-

Jan 1, 1930

By A. J. Erickson, W. W. Atkinson

Concepts developed in a geologic data recording system at the Victoria, Nevada breccia pipe-skarn copper mine, are not fundamentally new, but represents expansion of earlier ideas. The basic philosophy is that a high quality geologic data base is necessary and should be complete, clear, standardized, neat, quantitative, and readily useable. It may be multi-colored or simply black and white. Graphic, descriptive and quantitative recording of data is essential. A format for core logging is presented and discussed, as well as a mu1tiple overlay system for recording data gathered in surface mapping.

Jan 1, 1984

By Freeman Bishop

Mercury is the latest ecological disaster. It was believed to be no pollution problem because it is heavier than water and expected to fall to the bottom of streams. But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that mercury in a dozen states and several Canadian provinces was being ingested by fish. A Deadly Dose First to sound the alarm was Canada when a graduate student's research revealed that mercury contamination in Lake St. Clair had reached 1.4 pmm. which is almost three times the 0.5 ppm the FDA's allowable maximum.

Jan 1, 1970

By F. C. Blake

The apparatus which I shall describe in this paper has been in ase for some time at the laboratory of the Pennsylvania Lead Company's works, and has been found to give good results, and to be simple and convenient. Steam Bath.—This steam bath is shown by Figs. 1, 2,3 and 4. It is made of sheet copper, about one-twelfth of an inch thick, the joints being brazed, and is used for heating the bottles in which the silver samples are dissolved,-previous to the fineness determina-

Jan 1, 1882

The 116th (New York) Meeting of the Institute will be held in the third week of February, 1918. The Committee on Papers and Publications has set Dec. 1, 1917, as the closing date for the receipt of .manuscripts intended for this meeting. Manuscripts must be received by the Secretary on or before this date. If they are sent through members of the technical committees they must be sent to those committees enough in advance of the time to be forwarded and in the. hands of the Secretary by the time specified.

Jan 11, 1917

By J. C. Van de Water

THE original trucks at Castle Dome were 30-ton Knuckeys with 150 hp, H-series Cummins engines and 15-ton Euclids with the same engines. The Euclids were used early in the operation, working with 2 1/2-yd Diesel shovels on stripping and later in opening new benches where the lack of room favored the smaller trucks because of their shorter turning radius. They have also been used on road building and similar jobs. On regular production, where the 30-ton trucks can be used, they are not economical.

Jan 11, 1951

The surface area that mining requires is a minuscule fraction of the total land mass of the United States, according to the US Bureau of Mines' latest report "Land Utilization and Reclamation in the Mining Industry, 1930-71." During the 42-year period from 1930 to 1971, the mining industry utilized 3.65 million acres-only 0.16% of a total 2.27 billion acres of land-and reclaimed 1.46 mil- lion acres, or 40% of what it used. Which leaves, as still unreclaimed, 0.096% of the nation's total land mass.

Jan 10, 1974

The necessary funds have been provided for the award in 1915 of three prizes, respectively of $50, $30, and $20, for the best essays, or other papers, submitted in competition by Junior Members and Members of Affiliated Student Societies. The following rules for the competition are therefore established in accordance with the instructions of the Board of Directors May 22, 1914: (1) A competitor for the President's Prizes must be, at the time of submitting his essay, either a Junior Member or a Member of an Affiliated Student Society of this Institute.

Jan 1, 1917

By Hugh Tiemann

(San Francisco Meeting, September, 1915) THE desirability of employing the centigrade scale for the measurement of temperatures is becoming more and more recognized in this country, particularly in view of the fact that this scale is used almost exclusively in technical papers and publications-exclusively in those published in French or German. There are, however, a large number of factories and laboratories which still employ the Fahrenheit scale. It therefore frequently becomes necessary to convert one into the other and the accompanying chart (Fig. 1) has been found very convenient for this purpose.

Jan 6, 1915

Oct. 8-13, 1917 The St. Louis Meeting of the Institute will be held Oct. 8-13, 1.917. Various committees are being organized to perfect the arrangements for the meeting. A number of excellent technical papers have already been secured end an attractive series of excursions has been outlined. The following is the outline plan for the meeting. More detailed announcements will be made as the plans mature. MONDAY, OCT. 8 Morning: Registration and Technical Session. Afternoon: Boat ride to Herculaneum, Mo., to visit smelter. and Evening: Dinner on boat and social evening.

Jan 4, 1917

By Charles L. Elliot

Data for mining applications of geophysical activity in the Free World in 1963 has been collected by the Committee for Geophysical Activity of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. This information has been made available to the AIME and is published here in abstract form with the kind permission of the SEG. The data is based or1 244 responses (51%) to the questionnaires circulated among 475 worldwide organizations engaged in mining geophysical operations and or research. It is believed that the data is a realistic appraisal of actual world geophysical activity.

Jan 8, 1964

By C. Laird, C. E. Feltner

An investigation into the effect of a material's slip character on its high strain fatigue properties has been carried out using copper and Cu-7.5 wt pct A1 as representative wavy and planar slip mode materials, respectively. In copper, the constant term and exponent in the Coffin-Manson equation, ?EpNf1/2 = const, are unaffected by the temperature of testing or the history of the metal. On the other hand, in Cu-7.5 wl pcl Al, while the exponent is invariant, the constant is increased with respect to copper and increased further with decrease in temperature. The life in Cu-7.5 wt pct A1 is double that of copper at room temperature and about four times at 78°K. Fractoflaphic studies indicate that these diffevences in life are associated with the early stages of cracking. In copper, severe surface rumpling provides crack nuclei at pain boundaries independent of' testing temperature or the history of the metal. In Cu-7.5 wt pct Al, the planar slip mode of deformation prevents grain boundary folding; crack nucleation is therefore mainly transgranular and the increase in life with respect to copper is associated with a prolonged linking-up stage of such transgranulay cracks. At the lower temperature the increased difficulty of cross slip inhibits multiplication of trans-granular cracks and retards the linking-up process, giving a further enhaancement in life. It is expected that such behavior will be found general in materials of wavy and planar slip mode, respectively. STAGE II crack propagation in high strain fatigue takes place by a repetitive process of crack tip blunting in the tension part of a fatigue cycle followed by resharpening of the crack in the compression part.1-3 This mechanism has come to be called the "plastic relaxation process".3 At very high strains (lives to failure less than 103 cycles), most of the life of a specimen is spent in crack propagation by the plastic relaxation process.4,5 Since the differences in the cyclic strain hardening behavior of metals and alloys are comparatively small in this strain range,6,7 the amount of blunting at a crack tip depends primarily on the applied strain amplitude. The rate of crack propagation in this life range is therefore nearly constant with respect to material and temperature of testing. In the longer life portion of the high strain fatigue range (l03 to 103 cycles to failure), a considerable fraction of the lives is spent in crack initiation and Stage I growth. Grain boundaries have frequently4,5,8 been found to be the sites for this growth which is also associated with a surface folding process.4'5 Such folding behavior may also be general in any material having a grain structure and capable of plastic deformation. It has therefore been suggested475 that the universality of the Coff in-Manson law,9'10 constant,* where ?Ep is the plastic strain range and Nf the number of cycles to failure, is reflected in the approximate invariance of both the crack initiation and propagation behavior. It happens that, in most investigations of the phenomena associated with failure,4,5,8 materials with a wavy slip mode have been used as vehicles for the studies, or else "normally" planar slip mode materials have been tested under conditions giving rise to wavy glide deformation, e.g., stainless steels cycled at high temperature.'' The purpose of the present investigation was to determine whether or not different cracking phenomena would occur when the slip mode of a material is planar and if the associated life to failure would be different than that of a wavy slip

Jan 1, 1968

By Keith R. Bock, Norman Parlee, Albert M. Barloga

Coils of pure iron and iron-carbon alloy wire (0.05 to 0.80 pct C) and sufficient sulfur to saturate the solid phase were equilibrated in evacuated or argon filled tubes. After rapid cooling, and removal of the outside nonmetallic layer, the wires were analyzed for carbon and sulfur and the data used to construct an Fe-S binary and isotherms of the Fe-C-S ternary in the range 1149° to 1427°C. THE solid solubility of sulfur in steel is of interest in connection with such phenomena as hot shortness, burning, and so forth. "Burning," the more or less permanent damage that some steels suffer when heated for forging or rolling, has been shown to be related closely to the behavior of sulfur and less closely to carbon and oxygen.' Attempts to interpret burning phenomena in steels fail because of lack of data on the Fe-C-S and the more complex systems in this family. Rosenqvist and Dunicz 2 and Turkdogan, Ignatowicz, and pearson3 have largely elucidated the Fe-S diagram in the region of interest but no information on the Fe-C-S diagram in this region appears to be available in the literature. This paper deals with the elucidation of the Fe-C-S diagram in these interesting ranges. The method employed is different from those used by previous workers2'3 on the Fe-S system. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD Pure iron wires (Ferrovac E) or iron carbon alloy wires of 1 mm in diam were cleaned with acid and acetone, coiled, and placed in silica tubes (7 mm OD and 5 mm ID) previously closed at one end. Enough sulfur was added to assure saturation of the solid iron phase. The filled tubes were either simply evacuated and sealed, or filled with argon at a reduced pressure and sealed. The argon was required at the higher temperatures to prevent collapse of the tubes. The filled and sealed tubes were placed in the middle uniform temperature zone of a Globar tube furnace and equilibrated at temperatures ranging from 2100°F (1149°C) to 2720°F (1493°C). After equilibration the tubes were removed from the furnace and quenched in air or water, the form of quenching being found to have no effect on the results. The tubes were broken open and the coils were placed in a 1 : 1 HC1 solution to remove the sulfide-rich layer. The coils were then cut into small pieces and analyzed for sulfur and carbon. In the early stages of the investigation different equilibration times ranging up to 17 hr were tried and the cores of the wires were analyzed to test for saturation. One hour appeared to be sufficient to reach maximum sulfur content at 1454°C and 2 hr sufficient at 1149°C. The practice adopted was to use at least 3 hr at the higher temperatures and at least 5 hr at the lower temperatures. The iron-carbon alloy wires used were made by carburizing pure iron wire with carbon monoxide gas in a one inch diameter ceramic tube at about 1204°C. Differing carbon contents were obtained by allowing fairly large coils to react with the gas for varying lengths of time at a flow rate of 800 cc per min. The reacting times ranged from 15 min to 4 hr depending upon the amount of carbon desired. The furnaces used were controlled by means of Leeds and Northrup Speedomax Type H instruments with D.A.T. Control attachment. Thermocouples were calibrated against the melting points of gold and copper. The temperatures recorded appear to be accurate within i2.7OC. Starting with run No. 85 and continuing with the

Jan 1, 1962

By C. E. Taylor, L. V. Fegan

With on-stream electrical-resistance measurement as a basis, Bethlehem Steel developed a system for the completely automatic control of moisture in the feed to pelletizing. This system was later successfully adapted to the sintering process, with automatic control of moisture serving to maintain the air permeability required for effective burnthrough. Control of moisture content is an important factor in the agglomeration processes by which iron ores are converted into either pellets or sinter for use in blast furnace burdens. In both pelletizing and sintering the iron ore feed must be mixed with the proper amount of water so that capillary attraction and surface tension forces can be utilized to cause the ore particles to coalesce and form larger agglomerates. The success or failure of the entire pelletizing or sintering process depends on maintaining the proper moisture. Therefore, continuous automatic control of moisture is one of the conditions for the automation and optimum use of both pelletizing and sintering processes. In pelletizing, variation in moisture can cause ball size to change and is a common cause of cycling which results in a fluctuating feed to induration. Excessive moisture can cause lumps to form at the cutter bar and contributes to the formation of buildup on the green pellet screens. Green pellets with excess moisture deform and reduce bed permeability. In sintering, accurate control of moisture is also important because moisture must be within the limits that give the bed the required permeability for good burnthrough. In response to these problems, a moisture meter, based on the principle of electrical resistance measurement, was developed. This moisture meter has been a key factor in the development of systems for providing uniform feed of concentrates in most of Bethlehem's pelletizing and sintering plants. The automatic moisture control system for pelletizing was successfully plant-tested and resulted in the following: (1) Control of moisture in the green pellets to +0.2%. (2) Up to 50% reduction of bentonite consumption. (3) Control of unscreened green pellets so that 85% of the furnace product at Cornwall was within the size range of -5/8 +3/8 in. (4) Improved quality of product with a tumble test of 94 and a "Q" index of 90 as the result of feeding a consistently uniform feed to a shaft furnace. In sintering, where sinter-mix temperature change and variable feed could cause errors in moisture measurement, the system was designed to maintain the correct moisture under virtually all plant operating conditions. It was successfully plant-tested and is now in use in most of Bethlehem's sintering plants. The system achieves: (1) Control of moisture within the desired limits for optimum production. (2) Continuous measurement and control of moisture even with intermittent feeding of mix, so that attention by the operator is seldom required. The two automatic control systems provide smoother startup, minimize upsets and contribute to the consistent control of process variables in pelletizing and sintering. MOISTURE-CONTROL SYSTEM FOR PELLETIZING Fig. 1 shows the general arrangement of the system for automatic control of moisture in pelletizing.1 In this system a bin level controller, using a single probe which regulates filter speed, maintains a uniform low concentrate level in the bin.' The moisture meter, comprised of an analyzer and control components, continuously measures the moisture in the bed and adds water to adjust to the desired level. The meter is placed in an open-loop (feed-forward) control, i.e., water addition occurs downstream from the probes. Filter vacuum must be set so as to produce a filtercake moisture which is below the optimum for pelletizing. Bentonite is added after the

Jan 1, 1969

By A. E. Jenkins, L. A. Baker, N. A. Warner

The electromagnetic levitation technique has been successfully applied to rate studies of the de-carburization of liquid Fe-C alloys from 5.5 to zero pct C at 1660°C using gas mixtures containing 1 to 100 pct CO2 with CO or helium as diluents. The rate was shown to be independent of carbon concen -tration in the melt and only slightly affected by total pressure. The results were shown to be consistent with control either wholly or predominantly by gaseous diffusion. As well as avoiding side reactions with the crucible, levitation allowed precise calculation of reaction rates since the geometry of the system was accurately known. It also enabled interpretation using the established mass-transfer correlations for a gas flowing past a single sphere, The existence of gaseous-diffusion control and the extremely high rates of reaction reported for gas flowing past small spheres are of great practical significance in relation to current investigations into the use of spray-refining techniques in continzcous steelmaking. PREVIOUS work on the kinetics of carbon removal from liquid iron has generally involved the use of oxygen as the gaseous oxidant. Investigations have been made on commercial steelmaking furnaces and in addition laboratory-scale experiments have been attempted with a slag phase present. The general lack of agreement and the obvious difficulty in interpreting the results is at least partly due to the complexity of the systems used. This work has been reviewed by carter1 and more recently by Bods-worth2 and ward.3 The gas-liquid metal reactions have also been studied with slag-free melts by the conventional technique of blowing oxygen onto the melt contained in a crucible. The reaction between the oxidant and carbon could be followed by sampling either the melt or the gas phase. Side reactions with the crucible material have precluded direct interpretation of the results. Fujii, 5-7 using O-A mixtures, attempted to correct for the crucible reaction and reported that the reaction between carban and oxygen occurred at the melt surface and was controlled by gaseous diffusion for carbon contents greater than a critical value and by carbon-diffusion control in the metal for carbon contents less than the critical. The critical value was given as approximately 0.15 pct C. However, whereas this was the case for oxygen contents in the gas stream up to 10 pct, between 10 and 20 pct the rate was found to be approximately independent of oxygen content, and Fujii attempted to explain this observation by postulating the presence of an oxide "film".7 Turkdogan et a1.' have studied iron fuming during decarburizing and suggested gaseous-diffusion control of the reaction above a critical carbon concentration, given as approximately 2 pct C. Filippov9-12 reports in a similar manner to Fujii but makes no mention of the crucible reaction with the carbon in the melt, even though this would be expected with the temperature, crucible material (MgO), and carbon contents used. Both CO2 and O2 were used as oxidant gases. In the present work the decarburization of liquid Fe-C alloys was studied using an adaptation of the electromagnetic levitation technique, and thus the complexities introduced by crucible side reactions were eliminated. In this technique a single sphere of the Fe-C alloy is freely suspended and heated by electromagnetic induction in a flowing stream containing the oxidant gas. The full range of carbon levels up to saturation was studied, the temperature of the melts in this instance being held constant at 1660°C. The oxidant was CO2 which was used either pure or in association with a diluent gas, the total gas pressure being maintained either at 1 atm or at a reduced pressure. Thus the reaction under study was:

Jan 1, 1964

By A. R. Marder

Fe-C alloys have been investigated at temperatures below the eutectoid transformation to determine whether the superplasticity phenomenon exists for these materials. As a result of void formation at the carbide-ferrite interfaces that led to void coalescence and premature failure, the large elongations characteristic of superplustic matem'als did not develop. It had generally been assumed that the conditions for obtaining superplasticity include: a) T/Tm =0.5, b) a strain rate sensitivity of the flow stress that results in m s 0.3, and c) fine-grain structure. Although superphsticity was not observed in the alloys studied, stress-strain rate measurements indicated that an additional condition for the existence of superplasticitv in Fe-C allovs is that the fine-wain structure be equiaxed in agveement with previous results on Zn-Al al1oys. MANY investigations have been made on the hot deformation of iron-base alloys in order to obtain an understanding of the variables that may affect high-temperature strength and ductility.'-6 However, only a few papers have studied the effect of carbon content on the high-temperature properties of iron-base alloys. Peretayat'ko and Zaikov and Wallquist and carlen4 studied the effect of carbon on strength in the y temperature range, and recently Robbins, Shepard, and sherby6 studied the influence of carbon on the torsional behavior of iron in the a and cu-plus-cemen-tite temperature ranges. In addition to studying hot deformation behavior, current investigations have also been concerned with the phenomenon of superplasticity in nonferrous materials, and, in particular, ferrous alloys. Superplasticity is identified by the increased resistance to necking that results from a high strain rate sensitivity of the flow tress. ackofenr proposed the strain rate hardening coefficient m = d log a/d log e as a measure of strain rate sensitivity and showed that m must be "-0.3 for superplasticity to exist. In addition, a fine-grained microstrcture,- a eutectic or eutectoid ornosition,- and a test temperature in the creep range (TITm > 0.5)" have also been advanced as necessary conditions for superplasticity. Although many workers""23 investigated superplasticity associated with the allotropic transformation in iron and the eutectoid transformation in steel, and recently chadler " and orrison have studied superplasticity in the a - y phase region, no one has measured the superplastic effect in the a + cementite temperature region. Therefore, the purpose of this investiga- tion was to determine the effect of carbon content, microstructure, and test temperature on the strain rate sensitivity of Fe-C alloys at temperatures below the eulectoid transformation. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Fe-C alloys with carbon contents of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 wt pct were prepared as 100 lb 54 in. ingots by vacuum-induction melting. The compositions are listed in Table I. All the ingots were soaked at 2100°F for 2 hr prior to rolling to 4 in. plate. The minimum finishing temperature for rolling was 1800°F. The plate was sheared in 10-in. lengths and tensile bars were rough-machined prior to heat treatment. The samples were heat-treated according to the schedule in Table I1 in order to obtain a fine-grained microstructure consisting of finely dispersed carbides in a matrix of small ferrite grains. All the tensile specimens were heat-treated prior to finish machining, and tensile testing was accomplished on an Instron machine in conjunction with a clamshell furnace. The buttonhead specimen configuration is shown in Fig. 1. An inert atmosphere, helium, was maintained during testing with a steel tube shroud in a bell jar arrangement. Predried helium was continually purged over the buttonhead specimens and exhausted through ceramic fiber at the bottom of the tube to keep oxidation at a minimum and to prevent

Jan 1, 1970

By R. G. Garlick, H. B. Probst

Tungsten single-crystal specimens of various orientations were deformed in tension at room temperature. Slip traces indicated both (112)(111) and (110) (111) slip; however, about 10 pct plastic dejormation was required bejore these traces could he seen. Resolzled shear-stress considerations indicated that at least some of the particular systems observed were not those on which slip initiated hut were secondary systems. This is highly probable, considering the high plastic strains involved. Analysis of the stress data with respect to possible slip systems indicated that slip must have been initiated at stresses below the proportional-limit stresses measured. ALTHOUGH there is general agreement that slip deformation in fcc and hep metals takes place on the plane of close packing and in the direction of close packing, there is no such agreement for slip in bcc metals. It is generally agreed that the close-packed direction (111) is the slip direction, but investigations have led to conflicting descriptions of the slip plane. As Hoke and Maddin1 point out, there are essentially four points of view. 1) Deformation in bcc metals is composite shear on (112) and (110) planes or on nonparallel (110) planes, and any apparent slip on other planes can be accounted for completely by slip on these planes. Chen and Maddin have reported this to be the possible case for molybdenum." 2) Slip occurs in the (111) direction and is limited to {110), {112), and (123) planes (the three closest packed planes of the lattice). 3) Slip occurs in a (111) direction, but not necessarily on planes of close packing (banal slip). 4) Slip occurs in those directions and on those planes for which ß, the ratio of Burgers vector to interplanar spacing, is a minimum. The slip systems of the bcc metal tungsten have never been fully determined, although several investigators have reported pertinent results.3"7 The present work was initiated to determine the active slip systems in tungsten at room temperature, the critical resolved shear stresses associ- ated with these systems, and the orientation dependency of operative systems. These features of tungsten deformation at room temperature have never been reported in the literature. The authors find this somewhat surprising, particularly in view of the availability of tungsten single crystals since the advent of electron-beam zone-melting techniques and the widespread interest in refractory metals. It would seem apparent that such work has been attempted but the results have not been reported, possibly due to the conflict with deformation theory. The results of the present work conflict with any straightforward description of deformation based on the proposed explanations of slip in bcc metals. Although these conflicts have not been resolved, a presentation of the problem seems in order and should be of value to others working in this field. MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE Single-crystal tungsten rods of 1/8-in. diameter were grown from undoped commercial rod by one-pass electron-beam zone melting in apparatus previously described by witzke.8 Representative analyses of the rod before and after melting are given in Table I. There was no detectable zoning of impurities during melting. Buttonhead tensile specimens, as shown in Fig. 1, were machined from single crystals. Two flats 90 deg apart were ground in the gage length of each specimen. These flat surfaces facilitated the analysis of slip traces. No attempt was made to position these flats with respect to the crystal orientation. The worked surface layer of the machined specimens was removed by electrolytic polishing in a NaOH solution. Tensile-axis orientations were determined by standard Laue back-reflection techniques. The sharpness of the Laue spots indicated that the crystals were free of strain.

Jan 1, 1964

By L. Valentik

Many attempts have been made during the last 40 years to evaluate the performance of gravity separation equipement, that is, the effectiveness with which light and heavy particles are separated. The most comprehensive treatment of the subject was made by Cerchar at the 1st International Conference on Coal Preparation held in Paris in 1950. The methods suggested by the Conference were accepted and very widely used in the last two decades. 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 me 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 content is valid and applicable to other types of minerals which are separated by gravity methods. Many attempts had been made during the last forty years to evaluate the performance of heavy-media separation (HMS) equipment, that is, the effectiveness with which floats and sinks are separated.'-' The most comprehensive treatment of the subject was made by Cerchar at the 1st International Conference on Coal Preparation held in Paris. 6 The primary aim was the thorough understanding of the mechanism of separation and the unified presentation of data on gravity separation so that the evaluation and comparison of washery performance could be made from all over the world. No strict overall standardization has been achieved, but after the conference a more or less uniform presentation of performance was accepted, which, during the last two decades, has been very widely used. In this paper, illustration of the old methods and an improved method of evaluation will be given. HEAVY-MEDIA SEPARATION (HMS) PERFORMANCE CRITERIA In the ideal HMS process, all material lower in density than the specific gravity of separation (SGS) would be recovered as floats and all material of higher density would appear as sinks. In order to evaluate the misplaced material, the washery products are tested at the density at which the washing unit is operated. The original type of plot1,7, 8 is shown in Fig 1; this was developed primarily for coal cleaning units. The curve for raw coal represents the cumulative percentages of sink material. The refuse curve is also plotted as a cumulative sink, the percentages being expressed in terms of raw coal. This diagrammatic representation of the results of washing units has the merit of easy visual observance of the degree of separation obtained. The error areas (cross-hatched) are a measure of the amount of misplaced material and therefore they can be used to characterize the quality of separation. The ideal and actual separating performance between floats and sinks can be best seen from the partition curve developed by Tromp,2 where the ordinate is the percentage recovery of the sinks, and the abscissa is the specific gravity (Fig. 2). It can be seen from the shape of the curve that as the SGS is approached, the proportion of material reporting to the improper product increases rapidly. In fact, the SGS can be defined as the density of the material in the feed that is distributed equally between float-and-sink products. When the upper half of the curve is inverted, a shape similar to that of a Gaussian error distribution curve is obtained and therefore the analysis of gravity separation may be carried out by using the law of probability. The shape of the curve in Fig. 2 is determined partly by the density composition of the feed, and partly by the sharpness with which the unit separates floats from the sinks.9, l0

Jan 1, 1970