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By A J LYNCH

It was Harold McMillan, Prime Minister of England 30 years ago, who used the phrase "The Wind of Change" to describe political events in Africa in his day. So well did this phrase capture the spirit of the time that it echoed around the world, and the echo has never stopped. Change is the constant factor in the society in which we live and everyone of us has had experience of the effect which it has had on our professional and personal lives. Change will not stop, it will continue at an increasing rate and the questions we must answer are how do we prepare ourselves to meet the challenge of future change and how do we take advantage of the opportunities which it will bring? It is these questions which I wish to discuss in this address.

Jan 1, 1989

Mineragraphy is a coined term to signify the field of microscopic investigation of ore minerals. The term is not euphonius and is sometimes regarded as superfluous because the subject is no more than an enlargement of the scope of petrology. In the past the practical field of petrology has been largely limited by the instruments which were designed for the study of rocks and' the microscopical properties of the transparent minerals. The addition of mineragraphy has been brought about by the use of the reflecting microscope and a totally different technique.The use of the petrological microscope, as it has been employed in the training oi geologists and mining engineers for nearly half a century, has been justified many times, not only in its application to general geological problems, but also in the more restricted field of the exploration and examination of ore deposits. It provides information of the gangue minerals and rocks associated with an ore body which is of great value in some mining fields. In cases where ore deposits occur selectively in certain favourable types of rock, the recognition and delineation of these rock types is a useful guide in prospecting. The Boulder Belt at Kalgoorlie forms one of the most striking examples in Australia where important significance is attached to different rock types, and the petrological microscope is essential to their elucidation.

Jan 1, 1932

By Henry Newton

IT may seem somewhat a work of supererogation to present to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, composed largely of gentle- men with whom the subject is so familiar, a paper on iron ores and their distribution. To many of them, however, it possibly will not be without interest, as there may be some, like myself, who hare nowhere found a connected account of the character of the deposits and the circumstances upon which are founded the great iron-producing centres of the world. This blank I have endeavored to fill,

Jan 1, 1875

By Henry Newton

It may seem somewhat a work of supererogation to present to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, composed largely of gentlemen with whom the subject is so familiar, a paper on iron ores and their distribution. To many of them, however, it possibly will not be without interest, as there may be some, like myself, who hare nowhere found a connected account of the character of the deposits and the circumstances upon which are founded the great iron-producing centres of the world. This blank I have endeavored to fill,

Research, whether applied or fundamental, is a human endeavour which increases our understanding of nature. It is insufficient to simply observe, explore, record and classify. It i necessary, as well, to fit the observations into a satisfying theoretical scheme; that is, to synthesize. Two examples of successful research programs in physical metallurgy are di cussed from this point of view. A pessimistic view is taken of the prospects for rapid growth of research activities in the Canadian metallurgical industry. THE term "research" is used indiscriminately to describe any intellectual or experimental activity which leads to a change in society. Proponents of various activities, ex-tending all the way from alloy development to subliminal advertising, use the status of the term for special advantage. With the Canadian Government entering upon a project of support to industrial research, it might be well to determine what definition is most in the public interest. As an academic, I have a rather jealous attachment to the definition that research, whether applied or fundamental, is a human endeavour which increases our understanding of nature.

Jan 1, 1963

By W. N. Hoskins

This report covers the final results of a two-phase contract study conducted between July 1974 and October 1976. A comprehensive summary of the initial phase of the study is included. Phase I of the study involved the investigation and evaluation of all potential candidate underground systems for mining the deeper deposits of oil shale and associated minerals in the Piceance Creek basin of northwestern Colorado. Phase II called for the refinement and the detailed technical and economic analysis of the most promising system or systems, thus disclosed. Of the several systems initially investigated and evaluated, four Showed considerable merit for exploiting the deeper deposits: (1) chamber and pillar mining with spent shale backfill, (2) sublevel stoping with spent shale backfill, (3) sublevel stoping with full subsidence, and (4) block caving mining using LHD's. Final refinement and analysis of these four systems indicated their technical feasibility over at least part of the range of conditions expected in the deeper deposits. Their economic feasibility also was indicated under certain operating and market conditions. A variety of engineering, production, and cost information is provided on each of these systems.

Jan 1, 1976

By Yi Luo, FENGLIANG WU

Explosions and fires originated from longwall gob due to the formation of methane-air mixture have been a severe threat to coal miner’s lives.Many numerical studies on coalmine fire and explosion hazards have focused on the airflow in roadways and mine gobs. However, most of these studies isolate the gob from its surrounding roadways, and the network analysis and the CFD method are applied independently tomodel the two classes of airflows. This approach greatly limits the ability of simulatingmine ventilation flow, especially unable to consider the effects of gob boundary conditions on air exchange between the gob and the surrounding airways. An innovative finite tube method (FTM) is developed to couple the one-dimensional mine ventilation network (MVN) and the 2D/3D gob flow field (GFF). In FTM, GFF is discretized into a finite number of flow tubes each of which is formed by any two adjacent stream lines. These tubes, representing the gob’s field flow, connect the MVN into a new coupling network. To solve the coupling model betweenMVN and GFF, an iterative solution technique is developed inwhich the MVN analysis is used to evaluate the boundary pressures for GFF simulation and in turn the FTM feeds the GFF results back to the coupling network. Based on the FTM approach, a model for gas migration in gob has been established for delineating the hazard zones of explosive methane concentration and spontaneous combustion. A computer program is developed to implement the FTM simulation. An illustrative example with five flow tubes representing the GFF is created to verify the stability and convergence of the FTM solution process. A simulation example also indicates that the accuracy of FTM is improved by 12% compared with previous method. Results of an application case show that the program is capable of quantitatively evaluating the gob’s risk zones prone for spontaneous combustion and gas explosion as well as performing risk analysis for various ventilation scenarios.

Jul 10, 2020

Study on Dynamic Characteristics of Inertia Cone Crusher and Its Application

Sep 13, 2010

This report covers the results of an industrial engineering study that assessed the safety and efficiency of underground ore handling in U.S. metal mines. Significant conclusions that will be of benefit to the entire mining industry are the following: It appears from the study that the productivity of the slushing equipment itself cannot be substantially increased using the existing technology; the unsafe situations associated with slushers can be improved by better anchoring practices, by providing better work station layout that incorporates improved clearances and protected walkways over the ore pocket, by lighting the slusher drift, and by improved operator training; improved technology needs to be applied to the movement of broken ore in the stopes; and slushers will continue to be used in the mining industry in certain spedial and unique situations outlined in the report.

Jan 1, 1974

Government established and financed the NZ Steel Investigating Co in 1960. Its investigations showed that a steel industry was feasible and desirable based uponNorth Island titanomagnetite ironsands, and charted a route for its establishment. The initial processing used post-1945 preheating and prereduction developments, but later innovative improvements created what was essentially a new New Zealand technology. Of the North Island titanomagnetite deposits: the small ones at Waipipi were best made available for export; those at Kawhia and Taharoa were too remote for the economic siting of a mill; that at Raglan proved too small; while at Waikato North Head three times the requirement of 50 million tons of concentrate were located in two sand areas averaging 18 per cent titanomagnetite. Economic studies showed that a South Auckland site would be ideal, close to New Zealand's biggest market. The mill site, on a basalt flow at Glenbrook, was located by a half-day's fieldwork - near both the Waikato North Head deposit, and a railhead for bringing in Waikato coal, etc, and taking out steel products.   This development was one of several since World War II which altered significantly the lives and homes of New Zealanders (others were natural gas, oil, geothermal power, epithermal gold, aluminium, opencastable lignite, etc). All had the essential ingredients of the highest government backing, direct or indirect government finance, and first-class New Zealand scientific and engineering skills (eg to create new technologies). Not one such project failed.

Jan 1, 1993

By B. Friedrich, A. Weyhe, H. Heegn

"Nickel-metal hydride batteries (Ni-MH) are storers of electrochemical energy, which have a higher specific storage capacity than lead or nickel-cadmium batteries. The demand for Nickel-metal hydride batteries is increasing rapidly since their market launch in the early 1990’s. Today there is no suitable and sustainable recycling process to recover nickel, cobalt and rare-earth metals. The discarded batteries are used today in the steel industry as alloy material because they contain nickel. Cobalt and rare-earth metals (RE) are lost; they are non-recycleable.In a German governmental funded research project, IME Aachen, ACCUREC Mühlheim and UVR-FIA Freiberg are cooperating in processing as well as in creating a feasibility study. The target of this project is the development of a new recycling process for metal recovery from Ni-MH-batteries. The proposed process described in this paper consists of a combination of mechanical, pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processing steps. This process is capable of treating all types of Ni-MH-batteries. After comminution steel and organics are separated. The separated Ni-MH is smelted in an electric arc furnace. The products are a nickel-cobalt alloy and a slag phase enriched with rare-earth oxides for further treatment to ‘mischmetal’. Both the Nickel-Cobalt alloy and the ‘mischmetal’ will be directly used in battery production."

Jan 1, 2003

By Robert H. Peters

Several significant problems associated with employee turnover among underground miners are described in this Bureau of Mines report. Although a vast amount of research has been conducted on turnover among employees in nonmining industries, there has never been an attempt to empirically investigate the causes of turnover among underground miners. This report presents the results of empirical research on employee turnover in other industries and describes and critiques the research methods that have been used to investigate turnover. Using the findings on employee turnover in other industries and known data about miners and the mining industry, a conceptual model of the factors that cause turnover among miners was generated. This model, which is expected to provide a basis for later empirical studies, is presented. Several recommendations for controlling miner turnover are also presented.

Jan 1, 1986

By Frederic P. Dewey

The Bureau of the Mint of the United States Treasury maintains 13 ofEces for the purchase of gold-bullion, and this paper describes an investigation to establish the reasonable differences in the assay-results at the various institutions which may be commercially allowable in the settlements between them. Beginning with the comparative assay of proof-gold at the Philadelphia mint and the Utrecht mint, which shows 0.00002 as the closest agreement now possible, nine tables of comparative results, taken from the regular work of the service, are given..These tables begin with very fine gold, produced in an electrolytic refinery, showing close agreement in the assay-results, and follow through decreasing gold fineness and increasing amounts and complexity of base metals to very impure and complex bars produced at cyanide-mills, some of which give widely-varying results. Next is given a series of results on samples, prepared and sent out to various laboratories in the service, to test the influence of different metals and various combinations upon the agreement of the assay-results ; 11 samples were sent out and each one was assayed from 44 to 71 times, making a total of 623 assays. To these ire added 107 assays of identical samples of coin-gold. On a previous occasion,' I have endeavored to show the degree of accuracy that may be expected in the ordinary everyday analysis of various materials, and on another occasion,2

Jan 1, 1910

By S. D. Rosenthal

"This paper will share my ‘shift in career direction’ journey from corporate mine engineer, with 31 years of mining various commodities with a wide range of responsibilities in a variety of countries, to the world of academia. There are times in one’s career that a change is required, albeit perhaps not as drastic of a change as moving to teaching. This paper will share how the transition arose, the decision to make the change, the challenges of the first year in academia, and the journey within academia going into the second year. INTRODUCTION As a graduate of the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology (Montana Tech) with a B.S. Mining Engineering degree in May of 1982, my first job with Utah International in the Farmington area took me back to my home state of New Mexico. Some of you will remember that the early 1980’s was not a period of prolific opportunities for mining engineers; given low commodity prices, especially for copper (for example, Anaconda Company had been taken over by Arco and was in the midst of closing down its Butte operations). Coal was good and the learning opportunities abounded with Utah (which became BHP and then BHP Billiton). Gold was taking off in the mid to late 1980’s thanks to use of cyanide and heap leaching technology improvements, coupled with deregulation of the gold price, so I ventured off to work in the gold industry with a (then) junior Canadian company called Barrick at a new acquisition of theirs known as Goldstrike. That same gold surge was causing a shortage of iron ore mining engineers in Australia so after a few years in Nevada, I uprooted the family and left for a little town in the Pilbara of West Australia, known as Newman, to work in the iron ore industry with BHP Iron Ore. An initial short overseas posting turned into six plus years before transferring to BHP’s Indonesian steam coal mines in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. BHP was going through a rough period following some ill-fated projects (Magma copper purchase, Beanup and HBI) and was reviewing assets and staffing so internal opportunities became scarce. Employees were encouraged to ‘leave the company and find work elsewhere.’ So, off I go to Argentina to try copper mining in the Andes with Minera Alumbrera. This short stint in South America was followed by a move to another mining town, Morenci, Arizona, and a posting with Phelps Dodge (now Freeport McMoran). After 12+ years without living close to snow we moved to the Denver area in a new position with Newmont Mining Corporation. Along the way I became a Professional Engineer (Nevada) and completed a Masters in Project Engineering and Management. After 11 years with Newmont, I moved to Butte, Montana where I accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Mining Engineering."

Jan 1, 2015

By H. Merton Ruth

THE northern anthracite fields, although facing the same economic problems as the southern fields, are confronted with the additional problem of fast dwindling reserves of anthracite which can be conventionally and economically won. The mining of coal which remains in thin beds and the recovery of pillars from areas heretofore considered unrecoverable, either by reason of cost or surface restriction, pose problems of in- creasing importance to the economic life of the northern field operations. Successful approaches have Been made to this problem and other work is being performed that holds promise. There exists in the northern anthracite field millions of tons of solid coal, the recovery of which has not been too successful due to the following inherent operating faults: inability to concentrate producing areas; the great quantities of rock to be cut and handled, lack of consideration of proper sequence and speed of second mining, and the continued use of the mine car as the basis of payment. A mining system that has successfully solved these major problems has been in operation in the Scranton area since 1944. Over 1% million tons have been produced from veins varying from 3 to 4% ft thick by this method, which is known as the multiple panel-triangular system-conveyor mining.

Jan 1, 1950

By E. W. Vekris

Patents are playing an increasingly important role in the business world. A diverse patent portfolio can enable a company to secure a monopoly within the market, which can provide a competitive advantage over competitors. At the same time, possessing a diverse patent portfolio greatly increases the value of a company's intangible assets. This paper provides an overview of the patenting process as it pertains to the fields of metallurgy and mining, and summarizes some general patenting strategies. A review of new "green technology" initiatives recently adopted by Patent Offices around the world is also provided.

Jan 1, 2011

By S. Vardy

The paper notes that the extraction of 22% of the remaining workable reserves in the north western area involves a risk of spontaneous combustion higher than is normal in Britain. Mining systems have been tailor made in order to minimize the risk of spontaneous heatings, and these systems are described. Well-proved methods of combating spontaneous combustion are referred to, as well as the limitations which now apply to them as the result of the introduction of modern mining techniques. A substantial part of the paper is devoted to the circumstances in which spontaneous combustion occurs underground in the north western area. Several actual incidents which have occurred in the last few years, along with the practical application of the lessons learned, are described. Of particular note are: a) the procedure adopted in the north western area to equalize pressure differences across stoppings using pressure chambers, and b) a retreat mining system, primarily designed to deal with high methane emission and steep gradients, which also affords some protection against spontaneous combustion.

May 23, 1905

By J. Hamilton Duffy

This is the first of, a series of papers describing dredging methods and costs in recovering sand and gravel from the beds of rivers throughout the United States and deals directly with the methods employed and costs obtained by the Ohio River Sand Co. near Louisville, Ky. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of J. R. Thoenen, mining engineer of the Bureau of Mines, in the collection of data and compilation of this report.

Jan 1, 1931

BENEDICT SHUBART: I am rather surprised at one statement of Mr. McKeehan, that he found it satisfactory to bond only one track. It has always been my idea of good practice to bond both tracks and cross bond frequently, so that in case of any break in the bonding of one track, which frequently occurs, there will be no interruption in the circuit.

Jan 1, 1923

By P. E. Cavanagh

Introduction A comprehensive study of the economics of processes for smelting iron ores has been made by the Ontario Research Foundation on behalf of the Ontario Research Commission. This survey has included investigations of all processes in commercial use, and proposed processes which are still in the experimental stage. The two main objects of this work were to discover (l) whether any known processes would be particularly suited to present and future Canadian conditions, and (2) whether any new process would be of assistance in solving the present scrap shortage in Canada. The future prospects of the Canadian iron smelting industry have changed radically in the past ten years. For nearly twenty years before 1939 no iron ore was mined in Canada. The ore used was imported, mainly from the United States and Newfoundland. The economics of iron blast-furnace smelting always force the location of blast furnaces near the source of coal for making high-grade metallurgical coke, and near the market for iron and steel, rather than near the iron ore. Blast-furnace installations in Canada are confined to the north shores of the Great Lakes with ready access to United States coal and ore and the major Canadian markets, and to Nova Scotia near the coalfields of that Province. This distribution of primary smelting capacity naturally results in relatively high prices for iron and steel in the West, the North, and in Quebec.

Jan 1, 1948