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By Emily Wortman-Wunder

As the 2009 president of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., I am pleased to present the 2009 issue of Transactions of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Vol. 326. A significant portion of the contribution that we as a society make is the publication of professional and technical papers that contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge and information transfer. Communication within the mining community is the key to a successful society. Through the information-transfer mechanisms of books, magazines, meetings and electronic media, the technology exchange that is fundamental to the existence of the Society is accomplished. This technology exchange continues a tradition that dates back to the 1871 meeting of 22 mining engineers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, that resulted in the founding of AIME; those individuals envisioned that these transaction volumes “would form a most valuable and greatly needed addition to our professional literature.” This volume certainly satisfies that intent. In keeping with SME’s tradition of promoting technological developments while honoring the past, the 2009 Transactions represents an important milestone. It is the last Transactions to appear as a bound volume. Future volumes will appear as e-books only, with some of the Transactions-only papers appearing online prior to the ebook (exactly what form the new Transactions will take is still in development). The decision to go to an all-digital format for this longstanding publication was a difficult one, but one which we hope will better serve the mining community, especially our international members. This 2009 Transactions of SME, Vol. 326, contains a total of 73 technical papers (510 pages), including all 23 papers (136 pages) that were published in 2009 in the Technical Papers Section of Mining Engineering magazine (Vol. 61) and all 32 papers (232 pages) that were published in 2009 in Minerals & Metallurgical Processing (Vol. 26). In addition, this volume contains 18 papers (142 pages) that are being published for the first time in this issue. The papers presented in this volume were written by some of the most distinguished professionals in the industry worldwide. All 73 technical papers were peer-reviewed and approved. The process of review and publication requires much hard work by authors, reviewers and publications staff. As the 2009 president of SME and on behalf of our members, I would like to extend our gratitude to all whose efforts contributed to the publication of this volume.

Jan 1, 2009

By Earl Rau

Introduction Will cogeneration be a major power source in the future? The location of electric power generating plants has changed. In 1900, more than 50% of electricity was generated by industrial plants. Since then, industrial plant generation of electricity greatly decreased to 17% in 1950 and to only 3% in 1980. Changing economics in electric power generating costs, though, may allow cogeneration to reverse this trend. Cogeneration has been defined as the simultaneous production of electric (mechanical) and thermal energy from a single energy source. Some applications are considered to be byproduct generation of electricity from industrial, thermal operations. Cogeneration is not new to the mining and minerals industry. Smelters and steel mills have used waste heat to generate electricity. Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 The potential for increased industrial cogeneration of electricity is related to the March 9, 1978 enactment of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). The US Supreme Court ruled that PURPA is constitutional. The court upheld requirements that utilities interconnect to cogenerators. It also ruled that 100% of avoided costs be used as the guideline for electricity sales by a qualifying facility (QF) to a utility. The state of New York established a floor price $0.06/kWh for electricity sales from a QF to a utility. It is obvious, then, that a cogenerator must first establish price and then become a qualifying facility in order to sell electricity to a utility. Proposed cogeneration plants The estimated industrial cogeneration potential for the years 1986 to 2000 is 9500 to 25,000 MW. Industries represented in this cogeneration estimate are pulp and paper, petroleum, chemicals, food, textiles, rubber, plastics, steel, lumber and wood, cement, glass, metal fabrication, and industrial parks. A cogeneration plant has been proposed for the Union Carbide chemical plant in Institute, WV. A steam turbine/generator would be installed to replace the pressure-reducing valve in the 2.7 MPa (400 psig) header. Scott Paper Co., Mobile, AL, proposed a cogeneration plant using a coal- and wood-fired boiler and a turbine/generator to produce process steam and electric power. A cogeneration system has been proposed for a large oil refining plant. A pulverized coal boiler would produce high-pressure steam to operate a turbine, generator. The exhaust steam from the turbine will go to the process and an existing turbine. Kansas City, MO's Armour meat-processing plant has proposed a cogeneration plant. This proposal is to use a natural gas or oil-fired, gas-driven turbine and a generator. The waste heat from the gas turbine would go to a heat recovery boiler for use as process heat. Dade County, FL is implementing a central energy system to supply electricity, air conditioning, and domestic hot water for five buildings in downtown Miami. The cogeneration system is to provide flexibility, to optimize fuel use efficiency while serving the variable thermal demands. Generation of electricity from municipal waste is not considered to be a cogeneration process but is covered by PURPA. Special considerations are provided for waste/electric power generation to encourage the development of these systems. ?

Jan 7, 1987

By D. Brady

When deciding to deploy rescue teams underground the decision makers need to be able to determine that there won?t be an explosion whilst the rescue teams are underground. Previously general body concentrations in areas likely to be travelled were compared to explosive limits on a one off basis with no formal process looking at trends or other areas. A new approach is being adopted that takes into account the rate of change of gas concentrations with triggers set to enable a withdrawal of personnel prior to a possible explosion and influences such a barometric pressure changes. This paper explains the rationale behind the changes made and the advantages and implications of adopting such an approach.

Jan 1, 2012

In the grand scheme of things, the 9.5-t (21,000-lb) shipment of molybdenum concentrate that left Freeport-McMoRan?s Climax Mine site on May 10, 2012 was not unlike the thousands of others that have been hauled away from the site during the last century, except for the fact that this shipment marked the official rebirth of one of America?s greatest mines. For nearly two decades, 17 years to be exact, there was no production from the mine that was once the largest underground mine in the world and was so important to the Allies? effort during World War II that it was assigned the highest priority of any mine in the United States by the War Production Board. The economic recession in 1980 put an end to the mine?s success, and the Great Recession of 2008 nearly derailed the mine again. But, like the nearby town of Leadville, CO, the mine survived thanks to an investment of more than $700 million by Climax Molybdenum Co., a Freeport-McMoRan company, to bring the Climax Mine back into production.

Jan 1, 2012

By D J. Brake

The correct specification and then selection of primary or major fans for an underground mine is a critical decision not only in terms of fan capital and operating costs, but also safety and reliability which usually has a major impact on mine production. In addition, fan manufacturers may spend tens of thousands of dollars preparing proposals for a purchase enquiry for primary fans especially where they have complete responsibility for the installation (turnkey projects). There are many good reasons to thoroughly and fairly adjudicate fan tenders. This paper describes the process to achieve this starting with the initial fan specification through to the final award.CITATION:Brake, D J, 2017. Fan specification and tender adjudication for mine ventilation engineers with particular reference to turnkey projects, in Proceedings Australian Mine Vent Conference 2017, pp 245–252 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 28, 2017

Adsorption of Starch on Kaolinite Surfaces

Sep 13, 2010

By Robert Hopler

The literature of explosives and blasting consists of a great variety of printed materials. These materials include technical papers, books, and articles by individuals and organizations; manufacturer’s product catalogs and brochures; handbooks offering guidance for the field blaster; complete encyclopedias on the subjects, and short entries in general-interest encyclopedias; government publications; proceedings of organizations devoted to the subjects; magazines specific to the subjects; articles in general circulation magazines; and other miscellaneous sources. In short, there is a multitude of literature on the subject, some well indexed for retrieval, but most not. This presentation will be a broad-brush look at some of the most important or interesting literature on the subject, since in no way can all the various references be mentioned, much less covered in depth. To illustrate the presentation, interesting materials from the author’s collection will be shown.

Jan 1, 2000

By R. L. Attridge

Namibia's newest mining enterprise, the Navachab Gold Mine, was officially opened by President Sam Nujomo during June 1990. The mine is a joint venture between Erongo Mining & Exploration Company Limited, Metal Mining Corporation of Canada, and Rand Mines Windhoek (Pty) Ltd. Erongo has a 70 per cent interest in the mine, while Metal Mining and Rand Mines hold 20 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Anglo American Corporation and its associates hold two-thirds of Erongo shares and CDM (Pty) Ltd one-third. The Mine is managed by Erongo Mining & Exploration Company. The property is located some 10 km southwest of the town of Karibib and 170 km west-northwest of the Namibian capital of Windhoek (Fig. 1), the name of the Mine being taken from the farm on which the gold deposits were discovered. Navachab is an opencast operation and was brought into production in December 1989 at a cost of around R84 milion-RS,2 million under budget. The plant is designed to treat 840 kt annually at an average gold grade of 2,6 g/t. This wil produce 1900 kg of gold per year, which at today's prices will earn Namibia more than R60 million in foreign exchange.

Jan 1, 1991

By Qing-Yun Huang, Xiao-Yi Zeng, Bing Xie, Hong-Yi Li, Jia-Rong Yan

"In order to utilize vanadium resource in vanadium-titanium magnetite ore efficiently, vanadium distribution ratio between hot metal and slag should be improved during BF process, meanwhile the precipitating of Ti(C,N) in slag must be minimized. Effects of temperature, Ti02 content in the slag and basicity on vanadium distribution between slag and hot metal were investigated by experiment and thermodynamic calculation. The results indicated that high temperature, low Ti02 content and high binary basicity of slag were beneficial to increase the vanadium distribution ratio. The effects of temperature and Ti02 content in slag on vanadium distribution were stronger than that of slag basicity.IntroductionVanadium is an important element that is widely used in industrial fields. Most of vanadium resource is hosted in vanadium bearing titanomagnetite [l]. Vanadium bearing titanomagnetite is thus one of the domainate raw materials to produce the vanadium products. In other words, the comprehensive utilization of vanadium bearing titanomagnetite is beneficial for vanadium resource utilization. Vanadium bearing titanomagnetite sources are abundant in Pan Xi of China [4]."

Jan 1, 2013

By G. T. Fisher

The material requirements of carbide cutting tools for machining steel and cast iron are dependent on WC bonded with Co, with additions of TaCand TiC. The Bureau of Mines is conducting research to devise substi-tute materials, based on Ni-alloy-bonded TiC, for C-5-grade cutting tool applications. This substitution would result in less dependence on foreign sources for Co, Ta, and W, and use of lower cost materials. In this preliminary study, the Bureau investigated the effects of composition and processing variables on the transverse rupture strength and hardness of Ni-alloy-bonded TiC to identify compositions that exhibit promising mechanical properties. Further systematic modification of these compositions by soild-solution strengthening additions would subsequently be evaluated to obtain cutting tool materials with requisite properties and performance for C-5 applications. Compositions for evaluation were prepared by a powder metallurgy method of cold-pressing and liquid-phase sintering. Complementary analysis of compositions included chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectro-scopy, and density measurements. Based on results of this investigation, promising compositions were determined to be 59.37TiC-25Ni-5Mo-lO.63Mo2C, 59.68TiC-25Ni-3.33Mo-1.77Mo2C-6.67W-3.55WC, and 59.35TiC-25Ni-l.67Mo-3.54Mo2C-3.33W-7.1WC.

Jan 1, 1987

By G S. Beros, K M. Edwards

Over the past 20 years drum scrubbers have become a widely adopted technology within iron ore beneficiation plants. Generally, the drum scrubbers in use are considered high-capacity machines capable of accepting larger-sized feed material. Together with a water addition to a desired pulp density and a mild energy input, these large rotating machines effect an attritioning action that removes water soluble clays and other deleterious materials. Within the Western Australian iron ore industry, drum scrubbers have been successfully applied to Channel Iron, Marra Mamba, Bedded and Detrital orebodies. The introduction of drum scrubbers has enabled Western Australian producers to satisfy the substantial increase in demand for iron ore from Chinese steelmakers by making the lower-grade sections of the above orebodies economic. However, despite being a relatively simple unit process, the requirements for successful design and operation of these machines are not fully understood. This paper draws on the collective experience of both authors to provide some points to consider for incorporating drum scrubbers into iron ore beneficiation plant flow sheets.

Sep 18, 2023

By A. W. Popp

After forty years of exploration and development, the heavy mineral sand deposits of the Murray Basin are on the eve of substantial exploitation by Iluka Resources Limited, Southern Titanium NL and RZM/Cable/Bemax, whom plan to initiate mining and processing operations in 2005. A trial mining and processing operation was undertaken on the Wemen North strandline deposit in 2001-2003 by Murray Basin Titanium, a joint venture of Sons of Gwalia and RZM/Cable, which brought to light a number of mining and processing problems which have since been the subject of extensive studies and process development work. The mineralogy of these weathered strandline deposits is complex by industry standards due to the variety of the heavy minerals present, coatings on the mineral grains and the extensive weathering and alteration which has taken place during the past 50 million years. This paper provides an overview of the complex mineralogy that, in turn, dictates the processes that can be used to recover the valuable heavy minerals. The Murray Basin encompasses some 300,000 km2 and has been a depositional basin, often land locked, since the start of the Cenezoic Era. The economic heavy minerals include ilmenite, altered ilmenite, leucoxene of highly variable composition, rutile, and zircon. There are also other heavy minerals present such as cassiterite, chromite, and monazite in quantities that pose both problems and opportunities. The clay content and overburden thickness also play a major role in the selection of the deposits to be mined. Project Services Consultants (PSC) has undertaken the preparation of this paper as part of its ongoing participation in the mineral sands industry and in particular the project development activities in the Murray Basin region currently being undertaken by Iluka Resources. PSC has been involved with the mineral sands business for several years with senior staff having in excess of 30 years global industry experience. The company is well placed to provide a range of services to clients like Iluka Resources in the areas of project development, execution and strategic development and industry advice.

Jan 1, 2005

By L. B. Phelps

Many coal mining companies have potential surface mine reserves which either are known or suspected to have had prior drift mining activity on them. In many cases, there is no documentation on these mines or at best, very fragmented records. These undocumented abandoned underground mines are creating engineering, financial, and environmental difficulties and concerns for both surface coal mine operators and regulatory personnel. This paper examines the use of resistivity techniques in detecting entries of abandoned drift coal mines. The detection of such a drift mine entry would confirm the presence and orientation of an abandoned underground coal mine.

Jan 1, 1985

By William H. Waggaman

The United States not only is the largest producer of phosphate rock but also manufactures and consumes greater quantities of phosphate products than any other country. New and expanding uses will increase even further the demand for this basic raw material. Only a small proportion of the total quantity of phosphate rock mined and marketed is consumed directly in a raw or unprocessed state; the vast bulk is chemically treated and converted into [ertilizer] and a wide variety of finished products that play a vital role in [r] national economy. Three fundamental methods are employed in decomposing phosphate rock. 1. Reduction by carbon at high temperatures. 2. Treatment with one or more acids. 3. Calcination or fusion with silica, sodium salts, magnesium minerals, or small quantities of phosphoric acid.

Jan 1, 1960

By R. Romano

Some topics, which difficult the effective use of RMR for dam foundations, are reviewed and a new geomechanics classification system, DMR (Dam Mass Rating), is proposed -as an adaptation of RMR- giving guidelines for several practical aspects in dam engineering and appraisal of dam foundation. On revise quelques problems qui ont fait difficile l’application du RMR pour les fondations des barrages. On propose un nouveau classification système, DMR (Dam Mass Rating)-comme un désarroi du RMR-qui donne recommendations pour quelques problèmes pratiques dans le projet et construction des barrages, et de ses fondations. Es werden einige die praxisgerechte Nutzung des RMR (Rock mass Rating) erschwerende Themen betrachtet und ein neues Geomechanisches Einteilungssystem, das DMR (Dam Mass Rating), eine Anpassung des RMR, vorgeschlagen. Daraus resultieren neue Richtlinien für verschiedene praktische Aspekte beim Dammbau und bei der Beurteilung von Dammunterbauten

Jan 1, 2003

By G. E. Agar

In the April issue of Mining Engineering there is a technical note "New size laboratory ball mill for Bond Work Index determination" written by M. Nematollahi which is very confusing. My recollection is that a description of an experimental procedure should be such that someone skilled in the art should be able to reproduce the results. Applying this test to this particular article would according to me cause a failure to be registered. There are apparently three batch laboratory test procedures referred to in the article. One of these is the traditional Bond test with all its limitations such as dry grinding followed by exclusively dry screening, two attributes which fail to simulate conventional industrial grinding. There is a second procedure (NSBM) which the author is advocating as an improvement of the Bond procedure but from the description I doubt that anyone would be able to repeat the procedure. For instance, is the grinding to be done wet or dry, if wet at what pulp density, and how is the screening to be done, wet or dry or a combination?

Jan 1, 1995

By I T. Tshabalala

In typical conventional narrow vein stoping operations, the use of temporary support components to offer some support to workers, whilst the permanent and generally more elaborate support system gets installed or constructed, still results in injuries to people. The authors wishes to explore the probability and practicality of making use of new generation support products to make the support operations safer as well as enhance productivity in the stope face. This paper will examine the use of Autorock Drills as a means to drill roof support holes and install appropriate support components into these holes, as well as the application of ?Thin Spray Liners?, commonly called TSL?s as an additional means of creating a safer operating environment. The installation of netting as a means of roof protection and other support aspects such as cemented roof-bolts will also be explored. These proposed items are envisaged to improve the safety of our people and reduce production down time and increase production and productivity.

Jan 1, 2008

Steady increases in longwall production have required operators to apply greater quantities of ventilating air in an effort to control and dilute respirable dust. Significant increases in shearer speeds necessitate that longwall supports also be advanced at a faster rate. Both of these factors may contribute to overall respirable dust levels on the longwall face because as supports are lowered and advanced, broken material falling from the top of the canopy is entrained directly into the air stream. To address this issue, the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory collected respirable dust samples from four longwall faces to characterize shield-generated dust. This paper investigates the influence of air velocity and shield advance rates on respirable dust levels. Also discussed are engineering controls currently used to reduce shield dust and alternative controls being investigated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Jan 1, 2009

Effect of Spacer Chain Length on the Flotation of Kaolinite and Quartz by Using Gemini Surfactants as Collector

Sep 13, 2010

By M. K. Seguin

The study described in this paper is first centered on the determination of the physical properties (gravimetric, magnetic, electrical, and electromagnetic) o f metamorphosed iron ores of the Carol Lake-Labrador City District. Different geophysical surveys available in the Carol Lake-Wabush area were interpreted quantitatively and the dimensions, attitude, and tonnage of the ore bodies investigated were determined. A geophysical-statistical study was undertaken which permitted the determination of the grade of iron, magnetite, and, subsequently, specularite in the ore bodies. A discussion of the theory and logical progression of the study and the application of the results to actual geophysical data is presented. The conclusions, which are of real significance from the economic standpoint, may be predicted from the data obtained from geophysical surveys before any diamond drilling is undertaken. An integrated interpretation of this type is useful in planning future exploration work and selecting the most favorable geological structures. It also serves as a guide to minimize and determine tonnage drilling patterns. The general conclusion that a restricted range of residual gravity and magnetic anomalies are a key to exploration is valid. Indeed large depths to the top of deposits are absent since all the ore bodies are overturned synclinal structures with tops located close to the surface. Certain irregular geometries do occur but they are not common and the alignment of the iron ore bodies is sub parallel so that magnetic anomalies are evenly reduced in the earth's magnetic field vector.

Jan 1, 1975