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By Charles S. Allbright

This report describes hydrogenation of petroleum distillate fuels in bench scale equipment and the effects of hydrogenation on the storage stability and the composition of the fuels. Two distillate fuels were hydrogenated in laboratory equipment using a commercially available cobalt molybdate catalyst. Reactor temperatures were varied from 600° to 850° F and pressures from 100 to 600 psig. Product fuels were analyzed by ASTM, Bureau of Mines, mass, and infrared methods. Hydrogenation of a catalytically cracked fuel from Oklahoma crude oil significantly improved the storage stability, reducing insoluble gum formed during 9 months of storage at 110° F from 19.0 to 1.3 mg per 100 ml fuel, average. Conversion of the olefins to other hydrocarbon types varied with the temperature of hydrogenation--at 700° to 850° F the conversion was mainly to aromatics, at 650° F about 50:50 to saturates and aromatics, at 600° F principally to saturates. Processing a fuel composed of a mixture of virgin distillate and catalytically cracked stock, both from Illinois crude, at 700° F and 200 psig effected marked improvement in stability; the buildup of insoluble gum in storage was lowered from 18.3 to less than 1 mg per 100 ml fuel.

Jan 1, 1967

By R. L. Bolmer

Rapid depletion of our known mineral resources has stimulated exploration for new mineral deposit. Abandoned mines or prospects may prove to be commercial in today's economy. Often it is necessary to revaluate such properties. Some of these may be inaccessible because of caving of flooding. Many, however, remain in good condition, except that over the years the air in the workings has become depleted of oxygen. Each year the Bureau of Mines receives numerous requests for aid in entering old mines, the air in which is incapable of supporting life. Requests of many individuals who wish to examine or explore-such places with the help, of the Bureau's self-contained oxygen breathing apparatus have been denied because of the hazards involved in the use of this equipment for such purposes. The distance to be traveled in irrespirable gases may be too great for safety; under favorable conditions, a round trip of 2,000 feet from fresh air is the maximum distance that may be traveled.3/ The use of such equipment is hazardous unless a team of at least 5 men thoroughly experienced in its use is provided; and when extensive traveling from. a fresh-air base is required, a reserve team should be provided.3/ Usually, the apparatus is requested for use in exploring workings having only one surface connection, as mines having more than one opening usually are more easily ventilated;,and in some natural ventilation is sufficient or can be made so by cleaning out obstructed openings.

Jan 1, 1951

By C. M. K. Boldt

The Bureau of Mines studied the compaction characteristics of metal and nonmetal tailings. Densities of the tailings and zone of compaction influence, compactive effort, and cost of equipment are related to changes in the factor of safety for specific grain-sized tailings and embankment configurations. Field testing was accomplished in two distinct phases. The first phase investigated the effectiveness of using a nuclear gauge on metal and nonmetal tailings to produce rapid, instantaneous measurements of moisture content, wet density, and dry density. The results of the nuclear gauge testing are presented in chapter 1. Chapter 2 presents a comparison of the compactive effectiveness of three different pieces of construction equipment on a coarse-grained metal tailings pond. The three pieces of equipment chosen for study were a DBH track-mounted dozer, a DSOO rubber-tired dozer, and a SP848 vibratory smooth-drum compactor.

Jan 1, 1985

By Piyush K. Dutta

This report describes the design, development and manufacture of a prototype quiet hard rock stoper drill and results of its field tests. It is shown that the stoper drill noise level can be reduced from 118 dBA to below 100 dBA by using this design. The design concept of this drill is based on a valveless independent rotation system, use of an integral muffler and pivot mount. The drill was manufactured in a standard commercial drill manufacturing setup and organization. The design and production technology proved that commercially viable quiet drills can be made available for mine use.

Jan 1, 1985

By R. L. Marek

The number of persons fatally injured in the California petroleum industry in 1932 was 24, a decrease of 6, or 20 percent from the number killed in 1931. The decrease in the number of fatalities occurring in 1932 caused the fatality curve of the California petroleum industry to reach its lowest point in 10 years. Changing conditions in the oil industry - reduced personnel, decreased active field development, and curtailed production - have undoubtedly caused a part of this decrease, but continued accident-prevention efforts by the industry have also contributed to the reduction in the number of fatalities for 1932. The Bureau of Mines has analyzed and reported annually the fatalities in the California petroleum industry for a period of 10 years. Figure 1 shows the trend of fatal accidents during that period. Fatality statistics for 1932 show that the drilling and producing, pipe line and transportation, and refining and natural gasoline divisions of the industry had fewer accidents in 1932 than in 1931, sales and marketing being the only division that showed an increase over 1931. The number of fatalities by divisions for 1931 and 1932, percent of total, and percentages of increase and decrease are given in Table 1.

Jan 1, 1933

By Donald P. Schlick

Respirable dust provisions of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 are designed to protect the most important resource of the coal mining industry--its workers. The Act imposes two respirable dust standards of 3.0 milligrams per cubic meter of air after June 30, 1970; and 2.0 milligrams per cubic meter of air after December 30, 1972. Under Federal regulations, each operator is required to carry out a dust sampling program established by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, This program features the sampling of "high risk" face workers to establish that the exposure of each miner is below the dust standard, Mining sect ions, continuously in compliance with the regulations, may sample at less frequent intervals. In addition to requiring the mining company to take respirable dust samples, the Bureau of Mines will perform in-depth dust inspections twice a year, as well as frequent "spot inspections." The Bureau has established a semiautomatic computerized operation capable of processing over 1 million samples per year. This facility will be linked to various Bureau offices by a telecommunications system to provide automatic data printouts within hours after samples have been weighed.

Jan 1, 1970

By Walter Murphy

For a number of years the Bureau of Mines has been studying the properties of crude petroleums produced in the United States and the Western Hemisphere. A number of reports have been published giving the analyses of crudes from the different fields and regions as made by the Bureau of Mines Hempel method of analysis.4 Several of these reports include analyses of crude oils from the Rocky Mountain region.5/ The search for new fields and new producing horizons in old fields in the Rocky Mountain region has been quite intensive during the last few years, and a number of discoveries have been made.

Jan 1, 1937

By Paul M. Tyler

Calcium chloride is a conspicuous example of a former waste product that has found a place for itself in the onward march of civilization. Formerly considered a troublesome constituent of the effluent sewage of many chemical manufacturing plants and salt works, it has now become a commercial product of substantial importance, with sales aggregating almost six million dollars in 1929. The point has not yet been reached where it would seem profitable to undertake large-scale production of calcium chloride as a main product, but as a byproduct it has become an item that warrants serious consideration by all who are in a position to recover it at sufficiently low cost. The largely increased demand for bromine and for certain magnesium salts, which are likewise potential byproducts associated with calcium chloride in most salt-works bitterns (and brines generally), adds further impetus to commercial research directed toward the fuller utilization of the natural saline resources of the United States.

Jan 1, 1934

These tentative inspection standards have been prepared as a guide for the Federal inspection of the anthracite mines of the United States. The Federal Coal Mine Inspection Division is not a mining-law-enforcement

Jan 1, 1943

By L. E. Cardwell

This publication contains routine analyses and related source data for 390 natural gas samples from 22 States and five foreign countries. Of this total, 385 samples were collected during calendar year 1969. The remaining five analyses are of samples collected during previous years, but releases granting permission to publish the results were not received until 1969. All samples were collected as part of a continuous survey of the free world for occurrences of helium in natural gas. This survey has been conducted in the United States by the Bureau of Mines since 1917. In late 1965, the survey was expanded to include foreign gasfields. The analyses published herein were made by mass spectrometer and a special helium analysis apparatus which are described in Bureau of Mines Bulletins 4863 and 576.4 Eleven previous publications have presented the results of 8,660 gas analyses made by the Bureau of Mines Helium Activity prior to 1969. The first three, Bulletins 486,6 576,6 and 617,7 contain analyses and related source

Jan 1, 1970

By B. H. Caudle, A. D. PUCKETT

This paper summarizes precent knowledge of the ignition qualities of pure hydrocarbons likely to be present in modern Diesel engine fuels, as shown by an extensive search of the technical literature. The report also discusses the possible significance of cetane number and hydrocarbon struc- ture. Cetane or cetene numbers, and other physical properties, are tabu- lated for about 100 hydrocarbons, and a bibliography is appended. In recent years the Diesel engine has enjoyed increasing popularity due to its dependability, inherent characteristics of fuel economy, and the fact that it operates on a fuel that hitherto has been available in comparatively large quantities at a low price. These qualities have en- abled the compression-ignition engine to compete very favorably with other types of prime movers in many fields and have led to predictions of fur- ther rapid expansion in the application of Diesel power. In a survey of the field of all petroleum fuels for combustion engines, Holaday et al (9) have predicted that by 1948 railroads will be using 10 times as much Diesel fuel as was used in 1939 and that over-all consumption will have doubled that of 1939. Other estimates of the yearly demand for Diesel fuels five years hence vary from 2,6 to 5 times the amount used in 1944. Into this picture has come the question of whether the greatly in- creased production to meet this estimated demand is compatible with the maintenance and possible improvement in quality of fuels necessary to satisfy future engines. Unfortunately perhaps for the Diesel engine, factors other than those of simple arithmetical multiplication must be considered. For example, the consumption of oil in central heating plants doubled from 1935 to 1943, and a further increase of 57 percent of the 1943 demand is expected by 1950. Jet propulsion has been developed to the stage where it is entirely practical for military aircraft. Catalytic cracking plants, many of which were constructed to meet the war- time accelerated demand for high-octane gasoline, are taking their place in the refining industry. All these developments, as well as the Diesel engine, require material of approximately the same boiling range. Virgin gas oils make excellent burner fuels, perform most satisfactorily in the gas-turbine units for aircraft according to present information, and are at a premium as catalytic cracking stock.

Jul 1, 1948

By A. E. Petersen

To reduce U.S. dependence on imports of titanium, the U.S. Bureau of Mines has investigated the recovery of titanium from perovskite (CaTi03). Domestic perovskite deposits represent a significant, but untapped, titanium resource. An acid sulfation method was developed that will extract about 97 pct of the titanium and the columbium and 70 to 90 pct of the rare-earth byproducts from perovskite concentrates. A flow-sheet for recovering titanium as pigment-grade titanium dioxide (Ti02) is discussed. Test work performed in developing each unit operation is described. The first three unit operations have been demonstrated using laboratory-scale continuous methods of operation: acid sulfation of perovskite concentrates, leaching sulfation residue to dissolve metal values, and precipitation of titanium oxysulfate monohydrate (TiOS04?HP) from the resulting leach flltrate. Batch testing of other unit operations was performed: TiOS04?H20 redissolution and iron reduction, precipitation of Ti02 by hydrolysis, and regenerating recoverable acid with rare-earth byproduct recovery. Cost evaluation results are provided, indicating that processing perovskite concentrates by acid sulfation may be an economically viable means of producing Ti02.

Jan 1, 2010

By William W. Adams

Progress made by the quarrying and related industries of the United States during 1939 included increases in the number of men employed and the number of man-hours worked and reductions in the death and injury rates per million man-hours of exposure to risk. Forty-seven States reported quarries in operation; in each of 26 States the industry employed 1,000 or more men. Of these 26 States, 16 reported lower accident rates than in 1938. Among the operations of various types for which separate figures are published in this bulletin, the limestone, lime, and cement groups reported lower accident rates. During 1939, 79,449 men were employed in the quarrying industries. The period of operation of the plants averaged 236 clays per employee, with a total working time that equaled nearly 144 million man-hours. Accidents at the plants resulted in 48 deaths and 5,204 disabling injuries among the workers. Expressed as frequency rates, the accidents represented 0.33 fatality and 36.18 injuries for each million man-hours of work performed during the year. The major cause of fatal accidents inside the quarries was falls or slides of rock or overburden; nine deaths were reported from this cause. Four men were killed by explosives and four by falls of persons. Nonfatal injuries inside the quarries were clue chiefly to handling materials; about one-sixth of the total number at all operations in connection with quarries and related plants were in this class. Flying objects also caused numerous injuries, although only about one-half as many as did handling materials. Next in numerical importance were injuries from falls of persons. Then followed accidents caused by falls or slides of rock or overburden and accidents caused by machinery.

Jan 1, 1941

By R. K. Koch

The normal spectral emissivities of liquid Ti, V, Zr, Mo, and Pt were determined at the fusion temperatures in an electron-beam furnace using a water-cooled copper hearth. The normal spectral emissivities were estimated above the melting points by using adjusted two-color temperatures as approximations of the true temperatures for substitution in Wien's equation. Simultaneous brightness temperatures were determined with a micro-optical pyrometer. The true temperature ranges covered were 1,668° to 1,885° C for Ti; 1,919° to 2,013° C for V; 1,855° to 2,367° C for Zr; 2,610° to 2,751° C for Mo, and 1,772° to 1,990° C for Pt. The spectral emissivities for titanium and zirconium decreased with increasing temperature. At an effective wavelength (?) of 658 mµ the emissivity of titanium ranged from 0.51 to 0.45 and zirconium, from 0.47 to 0.41. The emissivities of vanadium (? = 658 mµ) and molybdenum (? = 657 mµ) were constant at 0.41±0.02 and 0.33±0.01, respectively. The spectral emissivity of platinum (? = 658 mµ) was constant at 0.39±0.02 up to 1,900° C; above that temperature anomalous data were obtained. A mass spectrometric study indicated that platinum was reacting with back-streaming silicon vapors from the diffusion pump when the ambient pressure was greater than 2 X 10-5 torr.

Jan 1, 1973

By L. R. Burdick, J. F. Barkley

"There is a general conceit in the coal trade that the moisture- and ash-free B.t.u. of coal from the same seam, and surely from the same mine,is substantially a constant; that calculation of the moisture- and ash-free B.t.u. value from the proximate analysis and B.t.u. determined in the laboratory will reveal whether a coal came from a given area or seam; and that, having this constant, the B.t.u. value of a coal sample can be calculated fairly closely upon a dry or as-received basis from the moisture and ash values of its proximate analysis.To illustrate with a simple example;"

Jun 1, 1941

By Oliver Bowles

In 1943 the Bureau of Mines began a review of trends in consumption and prices of the more important nonmetallic minerals. The first report covering building materials4/ appeared in December of that year. The present paper, which deals with chemical raw materials and fertilizers, is the second of the series. The 34 years from 1910 to 1943, for which statistics are presented herein, comprise periods of uneventful peace, unparalleled prosperity, industrial depression almost to the point of stagnation, and two wars of world proportions.

Jan 1, 1945

By Nadia C. Miller

In situ metals research to characterize the hydrology of a fractured crystalline rock mass in under-ground mine stopes is discussed. The objective of this study was to find the potential direction, velocity, and concentrations of a lixiviant plume, should leaching solvents (lixiviants) escape from a test stope. The study was conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines at the Colorado School of Mines Experimental Mine in Idaho Springs, CO. Since this was a method evaluation site, the lixiviant was simulated using water and acceptable tracers. The site is located in moderately fractured Precambrian migmatite-biotite gneisses of the Idaho Springs Formation. The data required for the characterization were obtained from geologic maps and reports, core logs, and air and water permeability tests. The acquired data were analyzed and applied to a computer model that calculated' the characteristics of a lixiviant plume originating at the stope. A sensitivity analysis showed that dispersivity, ground water velocity, fracture porosity, and fracture spacing had notable effects on the concentration of the plume. Assuming a saturated rock mass, the lixiviant plume would disperse to undetectable levels in a very short time because of a high fracture density at the mine site.

Jan 1, 2010

By C. W. Owings

"Coal may be and has been hauled safely at approximately the same cost with permissible2 storage-battery locomotives as with trolley, cable-reel, crab-reel, or nonpermissible storage-battery locomotives. While in general, thinking mining men readily admit the relative safety of the permissible storage-battery locomotive there are some persons who question the safety of this type; however, the greatest opposition to the widespread use of storage-battery locomotives is from those who believe them to be more expensive to operate and to be more expensive in first cost than the trolley or cable-reel locomotive. Data collected during a comprehensive study- of storage-battery and wired transmission of power in some Pennsylvania and West Virginia coal mines indicate that there is but little difference between the cost of hauling with cable-reel or with storage-battery locomotives. It would appear that if this fact were mere generally known mine operators of the more progressive type would install such equipment and avail themselves of greater safety in hauling coal.The need for greater safety in haulage in coal mines is readily understood when it is considered that during the 12 month period, July 1, 1929 to June 30, 1930, trolley or cable reel gathering locomotives caused four explosions in which 407 lives were endangered, 11 persons were injured, and 30 lives were lost. Still another disaster was averted by the vigilance of a fire boss, who discovered a stratum of gas 3 feet thick at the top of an entry into which a gathering locomotive was about to enter. Other explosions not resulting in any fatality probably have not been reported. In addition numerous fires have been caused by trolley or cable-reel locomotives, and these fires probably would have been avoided had permissible storage-battery locomotives been used."

Nov 1, 1930

By C. G. Maier

The present trend of chemicometallurgical research toward widespread and inclusive use of thermodynamic methods requires the inclusion of available data of this sort in any comprehensive metallurgical report . Such data for manganese are far from adequate for the full utilization of these methods . Even if our knowledge of these properties is weak , the collection of available figures is nevertheless well worth while , especially if their utilization in an approximate way may show inherent possibilities of application . No less important is the necessity for discovering the vital gaps in the existing information , to serve as a basis for further pertinent study . The utility of the thermodynamic methods of Lewis and Randall ( 234 ) 3 has become increasingly evident to metallurgists . It is true that at present no better approach to the general , fundamental problems of chemical metallurgy is available than close adherence to these methods . The effort is here made to collect and correlate , as far as possible , significant quantitative thermodynamic data on manganese and its metallurgically important compounds . There are considered here only the intrinsic properties of pure materials . The order maintained as far as possible will be as follows :

May 1, 1934

By C. H. Johnson

The Big Jim mine of the United Eastern Mining Co. is at Oatman, Mohave County, Ariz. Oatman is in the foothills on the western side of the Black Mountains, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. It is on a paved highway about 30 miles west of Kingman, the principal distributing; center for mining supplies in the district, and 25 miles from Topock, en the Colorado River. Both latter towns are stations on the Santa Fe Railroad; Oatman has no roil connection. Mining conditions are typical of western Arizona; water is scarce, no mine timber is available locally, and the winters arc mild and the summers hot. The supply of a killed labor is usually adequate, but in 1933-34 it w not more than sufficient for the restricted operations. Wages have been $4.00 to $4.50 for miners. Electric power was supplied from Kingman and cost about 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Jan 1, 1935