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By C. P. Watson

Economics has been defined as the useful application of wealth or material resources. The search of alchemists in the Middle Ages for s formula by which base metals might be transmuted into gold was no more intensive than has been the search by all branches of the oil industry for methods whereby the rnatcrial resources of West Texas in the nature of sulfur-bearing oil might be usefully applied. The purpose of this paper is to present in brief space developments that are conceded to possess economic significance. History The first discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the Permian Basin of West Texas was the Westbrook field in Mitchell County in 1920. Three years later the discovery well in the Big Lake field was cornpleted as a small pumper (70 bbl.) at a depth of 3028 ft. In 1925, discovery of the Powell or World pool in Crockett County stimulated activities in the Permian Basin, further establishing the importance of the Permian limestones as sources of production. The years 1925 and 1926 were marked by a period of extensive leasing and drilling activities. At the close of 1926 more than 7,000,000 acres had been leased and discovery wells completed in the Hurdle, Hendricksand Yates fields, definitely establishing the importance of the Permian Basin as a source of production from free-flowing wells. Review of Fields The producing fields in the Permian Basin are grouped on three distinct lines of folding. These may be separately identified as the Big Lake-Powell fold; the Yates, Hurdle, and Church-McElroy area and the Winkler County development. Production is derived from a porous limestone stratigraphically uniform, encountered at depths varying from 900 to 3100 ft. Lenticular sand bodies above the lime in Howard County have resulted in the

Jan 1, 1928

By A. L. Bollens, R. H. Johnson

The appraisal of oil wells, now that we have the age-size method of making composite decline curves, and the present worth of successive time units method of valuation, has its greatest remaining uncertainty in the difficulty of extending into the future the price curve and the composite production curve. The point of attack in this paper is the carrying on (or extrapolation) of the production curve. Led by the valuable discovery of Lewis and Beal that the decline curve is nearer the hyperbolic class, y = (x + a)-", than any other form, the current practice is the graphic method. The data are plotted on logarithmic paper and shifted with successive trials until the line becomes straight. This straight line can then be extended into the future. The method was a great help during the period when, for tax purposes, there was need for a quick method even though the errors were large. Now that we seek greater validity in our methods we find the following faults with the current method. 1. Where the shift is great (it exceeds 10 in some cases) the scale cannot be read with the necessary precision so that the resulting data would give a very irregular and inaccurate curve. 2. Where the curve cannot be straightened on logarithmic paper because of sigmoid shape the method has a serious systematic error. We believe the sigmoid curves to be more common than usually supposed, indeed when one considers the number of variable causative factors this is to be expected. We have therefore been seeking a method that is free from these difficulties and yet not so laborious as fitting a curve to the data and the calculation from the formula which, since it involves looking up logarithms, is unduly time-consuming. The method here described has been developed on the basis suggested by Earl Oliver, that the amount of oil produced per month or year for each reduction of production of a barrel of oil per day could be plotted to advantage. A step forward was made by Earl Carpenter in this laboratory, and some of the

Jan 1, 1928

By L. E. PORTNER

INCREASING military demands on the petroleum industry have brought into bold relief the crude-oil reserves now available to meet combined military and civilian demands, emphasizing the necessity for a greater efficiency in recovery from what has been discovered than ever before, particularly in light of the absence of new discoveries. This situation-and the fact that the industry, as well as members of the Government charged with governing oil production, desire to meet all crude-oil demands made of the industry with the least loss in tangible reserves through production practices-paves the way for increasing application of sound principles of production engineering and conservation.

Jan 1, 1944

By Louis H. Meece

The romance of the River lives on in the tales of Mark Twain; and many Americans still think of the Mississippi River in terms of the steamboats loaded with passengers, gamblers and cotton. Yet for many years, coal has been a major cargo on the American waterways. Currently, about 100 million tons a year of coal is handled in some part of its journey from mine to destination by barge. The bulk of this traffic has been on the Ohio River System and the Upper Mississippi River System in years past. Now we have a new entry. Over the past 10 years various movements of coal have developed down the Mississippi River to power plants at Memphis and along the Gulf Coast, and a small amount of metallurgical coal has moved down the Mississippi River for export to Japan since 1970. But in 1980 a brand new player came on the scene. 1980 was a momentous year for the American coal business. Historically, we have exported about 50 million tons a year of metallurgical coal to the world's steel mills. Just before and after World War I, we also had a fairly healthy export trade in steam coal; and again in the late forties, we supplied large amounts of coal to Europe until domestic production could recover from the ravages of World War II. But since the early fifties, the name of the export game has been metallurgical coal. Starting in the mid seventies, something began that was almost totally missed by the American coal industry; and that was the growth in the use of coal first in Europe and now in the Far East as a steam product and as an alternative to petroleum products. As these world coal markets began increasing, the U.S. at first was thought to be noncompetitive because ocean rates were still very low. For example, as recently as 1977, Australian coal could be moved all the way from Australia to the Gulf Coast for $12.50 per metric ton. Coal exporting countries were Poland, Australia and South Africa, except for the continuing exports of U.S. high quality metallurgical coal. But then came the second oil shock, and all of the sudden that $12.50 rate from Australia to the U.S. Gulf became $25.00. And then suddenly and almost unrecognized by the American industry, American coal was in fact competitive at overseas destinations because of the drastic change in trade patterns brought on by the doubling and tripling and quadrupling of bunker fuel prices for ships.

Jan 1, 1982

By M. du Plessis, D. F. Malan

"The aim of any mine design is to ensure that the excavations remain stable for the period they will be in use. Various pillar systems are used to ensure that underground stopes remain stable and that mining activities do not affect the surface infrastructure through either surface subsidence or seismicity. Intermediate-depth platinum mines make use of in-stope pillars designed to fail while the pillars are being cut at the mining face. The pillar stress exceeds the loading capacity and the pillars crush as a result. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of in-stope crush pillars. This will include the application, behaviour, function, mechanism, impact, and design of a crush pillar system."

Jan 1, 2015

By Katherine Mather

This paper is an attempt to put together petrographic, physical, and chemical data about the large and varied group of rocks generally called limestones. Results of the properties of these rocks on their performance as concrete aggregates are discussed.

Jan 10, 1953

By Nelson Severinghaus

Crushed stone leads all industrial mineral, except cement in annual value of production in the United States. It is also interesting to note that crushed stone value is exceeded only by that of fuels, cement, and iron ore among all mineral products of this country. An industry which started with hand-sledging to produce smaller sizes of broken stone for hard surfaced improvement of roadways as designed by McAdam in England about 1815 has grown into a complex industrial giant. Most of this growth started with the invention of a mechanical rock crusher just under one hundred years age (1858) by Eli Whitney Blake. This invention made possible the production of greater tonnages of smaller sizes of broken stone and greatly accelerated its use for Macadam road pavements and for railroad ballast. Stones Used for Crushing All three of the major geologic classifications of stone, sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic, are widely used in the production of crushed stone. Satisfactory physical and chemical properties can be found in each type so that economic availability becomes the prime determinant for development. Table 1 lists more common rocks of the three main groups with average values of specific gravity and toughness as measured by Deval test. This widely used classification was suggested by C. E. Lord, of U. S. Bureau of Public Roads. The physical properties were compiled by D. O. Woolf in "The Results of Physical Tests of Road Building Rock," U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 76. It should be noted that the figures given in Table 1 are averages. Very substantial variations in the physical properties of rocks within any one classification will occur. The solid surface of the earth was first made up of igneous rocks resulting from the solidification or crystallization of molten material upon cooling. These igneous rocks were disintegrated into sand, clay, and gravel by the weathering action of wind, water, chemicals, [ ] and temperature changes. The products of weathering were transported by wind and streams until they reached less turbulent areas such as oceans or lakes and were deposited. Chemical deposition between grains of sand or clay or the physical action of pressure and heat then solidified them into sedimentary rocks

Jan 1, 1960

By A. T. Goldbeck

THE use of stone as a building material in relatively large blocks is recorded in ancient historical records but only within the past 200 years has broken stone in small sizes begun to have extensive use, principally in highway construction. Tresaguet, in 1764, describing his method for highway construction in France, required the top surface to be built of stone about the size of a walnut, broken by the use of a hammer. It is said that the Romans, in the top layer of their rather massive roads, used large stones bonded together with lime mortar and bedded in small stones mixed with mortar. Much of the early macadam as built by McAdam around 1815 in England was made with hand-sledged broken stone. In 1858, the use of crushed or broken stone received a great impetus from the invention in that year by Eli Whitney Blake of what is said to be the world's first stone crusher. As a consequence of that invention, stone could be crushed to small sizes with considerable ease and, as a natural result, the use of crushed stone in macadam roads and as railroad ballast increased at a great rate. Also, as portland cement came into use, machine-produced crushed stone furnished readily available aggregate. Rapidly, other uses developed, such as for fluxstone in the production of pig iron and for other metallurgical operations and chemical utilizations. These utilizations made for the rapid growth of the crushed-stone industry and this growth is still proceeding with the growth of population and the development of new uses, notably the employment of limestone for the improvement of soils for agricultural purposes. The industries of which the production of crushed stone is a part have a tonnage second only to that of mineral fuel in the mineral industries of this country.

Jan 1, 1949

By Mark J. Zdunczyk

"The term “aggregate” has a number of definitions depending primarily on the use of the material. Aggregate in some context is sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag or other material of mineral composition used in bituminous and portland cement concrete, mortar, plaster, railroad ballast, filter beds and a variety of other uses where aggregates can be utilized.Of the natural aggregates, crushed stone is widely used for most construction purposes. Crushed stone can be mined from a variety of rock types such as limestone, dolomite (dolostone), granites, and granitic type rocks, basalt, gabbro (trap rock), sandstones, schist, marble, gneiss, quartzite, rhyolite, as well as other rock types. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) breaks down the rocks by type sold as follows: limestone, dolomite, marble, calcareous marl, shell, granite, trap rock (basalt, diorite) sandstone/quartzite, slate, volcanic cinder and scoria and miscellaneous stone.In 2015, the USGS estimates that 1.32 Gt (1.45 billion st) of crushed stone were produced in the United States. The volume of crushed stone produced, and the numerous mines that produce it make the crushed stone industry the largest mining industry in the United States. The five leading states for production of crushed stone in 2015 were Texas, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida and Ohio. The size of the first two states certainly helps in output because of the large market area. The remaining states benefit from being able to barge along rivers to outside markets in adjoining states. Georgia producers rail large amounts of granitic aggregate to Florida and adjacent states devoid of crushed stone aggregate, especially skid resistant aggregate (aggregate used on the top course of asphalt roads)."

Jul 1, 2016

By R. Candia

The use of industrial wastes, such as quarry fines of crushed stone, should represent a basic component of sustainable development indicators. Therefore, increasing investments should be foreseen in techniques of treatment and recycling of residues in mining, as well as by-product attainment that generate jobs and income. The standards of identification and discarding of industrial wastes vary significantly between countries. However, practically all nations have started becoming more restrictive regarding environmental legislation, especially concerning production, transport, treatment, recycling and final discarding of industrial wastes. Under an environmental point of view, solid wastes produced by a system (such as a quarry) can be handled in two ways: a) they can be discarded in piles or b) they can be internally or externally recycled and reused. This second practice is translated to an additional economic consequence such as an increase of income as well as a decreased environmental impact. This option is more advanced and should be included in company policy. This paper presents cases where this practice is used, i.e. diminishing the environmental liabilities through the use of the quarry fines in the manufacture of industrial devices, incorporating such wastes in the productive chain, instead of storing them in piles.

Jan 1, 2007

By P. Hansman

"Place Dome Canada's Detour Lake Mine is a low-grade gold producer located in northeastern Ontario. Production is targeted for 2850 tonnes of ore per day. As reserves and mining areas continued to be found below and far to the west of the shaft (Fig. 1), it became necessary to review and upgrade the materials handling facilities. This paper deals with the selection, design and construction of an underground crusher and conveyor system capable of handling up to 450 tonnes per hour from the lowest existing level in the mine.BackgroundThe Detour Lake mine site is accessed via secondary Highway 652 which runs northeast out of Cochrane, Ontario. The road consists of 200 Ian of hard top followed by 100 Ian of well maintained gravel to the mine site. A 1500 m airstrip is maintained at the mine site for emergency use. Prior to 1991, the workforce was flown to and from the mine site. Crews were now bused to the site from Timmins. Remnants of a winter road exist to the southeast which at one time ended in La Sarre, Quebec. This was the route used to haul bulk items during the construction period and early production years.A town site has not been established at the site for the current operations. Instead, a rotational scheme is being utilized whereby most personnel will work seven days on site followed by seven days off site. For some employees, however, the work week is termed as a four/three schedule where they work 42 hours between Monday at 10:00 a.m. and Thursday at 4:00 p.m. with the following three days off. All surface employees and maintenance employees underground work 12-hour shifts. All underground employees work a lOV2-hour shift. Supervisors work a similar schedule as their crews, however, other staff may overlap their rotation during the week.A five-compartment shaft was sunk in 1984 from surface to the 610 m elevation. Shaft stations were established at the 120 m, 260 m, 360 m, 460 m, and 560 m levels. The cage compartment consists of a single deck, 4O-man cage in balance with a counterweight. The cage hoist is an Ingersoll-Rand 10H and is regulated to travel at 4.1 m/s. Two 9 t skips operate in balance at a travel speed of 7.1 mls. The skip hoist is a 3.05 m drum Nordberg. Both hoists are automated to function without a hoistman during normal skipping and cage service runs."

Jan 1, 1995

By R. Martinez

The Alligator Ridge Mine was discovered in 1976 by a prospector grubstaked by Amselco Exploration Inc. in eastern Nevada 116 km (72 mi.) northwest of Ely in White Pine County. The mine is operated as a 50-50 Joint Venture by BP Gold, the operator, which is a subsidiary of British Petroleum Minerals America and Nerco Inc., a subsidiary of Pacific Power and Light.

Jan 1, 1988

By M. Vesely

Abrasive grinding, leading to ultrafine product and "critical size" material build-up inside the mill, is proposed as the cause of high power consumption and low capacity in many fully autogenous grinding processes. Addition of steel balls (hence, semiautogenous grinding) or pebble removal and separate crushing have been used, with different efficiencies, to overcome the problem. Information and data for the conceptual analysis, basic design and operation of a pebble crusher at the Los Bronces semiautogenous grinding plant is presented along with data showing a production increase of 1000 mtpd and significant operating costs savings.

Jan 1, 1985

By O. Fernandez, M. Vesely

Abrasive grinding, leading to ultrafine product and "critical size" material buildup inside the mill, is proposed as the cause of high power consumption and low capacity in many fully autogenous grinding processes. Addition of steel balls (hence, semiautogenous grinding) or pebble removal and separate crushing have been used, with different efficiencies, to overcome the problem. Information and data for the conceptual analysis, basic design, and operation of a pebble crusher at the Los Bronces semiautogenous grinding plant is presented along with data showing a production increase of 1000 t/d (1100 stpd) and significant operating costs savings.

Jan 1, 1987

By Howell IJ, Kirsopp R

In June/July 1981 Mount Isa Mines Limited was confronted with a crisis situation in the crushing operation of the Lead/Zinc and Copper Concentrators. Three crusher mainframes developed serious cracks in the upper rim area. The type of cracking indicated that major failure of these mainframes could be imminent. Operational crushers could not be sensibly inspected and it was therefore assumed that more than three mainframes were seriously cracked. The crisis was averted as described in the following text.

Jan 1, 1978

By Bearman R. A, Parkin R. M

Traditional quality control procedures for aggregates production within the quarry industry rely on off-line laboratory analysis, resulting in poor performance and inconsistent product quality. A high speed on-line aggregate classification system is described here. A product sampling system directs aggregate through an inspection chamber where a novel imaging system digitises the particle geometry. Data processing algorithms extract dimensional data and image features, while a neural network classifier assigns a qualitative shape descriptor to each rock particle. This system provides each sampled batch with a complete analysis of size and shape distributions, complementing a new generation of cone crusher technology to maximise product quality and plant efficiency.

Jan 1, 1995

By T. Shumka, M. J. Druckenmiller

"INTRODUCTION As we push further into the 21st century and closer to a more efficient mine, safety and operational enhancements are the two major keys towards attaining success. The Crusher Vision Automation System (CVAS) is a technological advance that will allow an operator to achieve higher safety and higher operational goals in the same piece of equipment. The CVAS is a patent pending system and method for measuring and maintaining the closed side setting (CSS) on gyratory crushers. In the same equipment and technology package, the CVAS will also allow safer placement of main shaft pieces for maintenance and replacement. This technology yields multiple uses and allows a site to significantly enhance safety and operational efficiencies. This measurement technique is used to provide more accurate data and faster data collection times than current techniques used today. It will give crusher operators accurate and reliable measurement for the CSS in a live, operating environment. Measurement data can be collected in five minutes allowing for fast adjustment of the mantle position and subsequent enhancement and streamlining of a crusher and downstream flowsheet. The advantage of this system is that it is permanently mounted at the crusher location, where the operator can turn the system on and off as many times as they like throughout the day with a goal of maintaining a constant CSS gap based on production and maintenance criteria to help streamline operations and enhance safety efficiencies.Regarding its other main functional area, mainshaft maintenance, it allows this work to be performed remotely while keeping personnel safer and out of harm’s way. SAFETY ENHANCEMENT The safety factor enhancement with this system is extreme. It does not require the use of overhead cranes, cleaning out the crusher, lowering people into the crusher or having the operator lower paint cans or lead balls into the crusher pocket while the crusher is in operation for measuring the setting. In order to perform the CSS measurements, the operator only needs to operate the laser through manipulation of a joystick while watching the video feed. Danger of a person falling into the crusher while trying to take measures is eliminated, as are the effects of handling lead balls and tracer dyes."

Jan 1, 2015

CrusherMapperTM - A New Tool for Crusher Condition Monitoring The efficiency of mineral processing plants is entirely dependent on the availability of the plant equipment critical path. This typically concerns comminution circuits consisting of primary crushers and primary grinding mills. Crusher and mill availability are determined by the frequency and duration of maintenance shutdowns, which are primarily driven by the need for replacement of sacrificial liners. The change of crusher and mill liner shape over respective life cycles also strongly affects plant efficiency. It is therefore highly desirable to accurately monitor the condition of mills and crushers in order to optimise plant efficiency through maximised availability and targeted liner shape. Traditional comminution liner and other production parameter condition monitoring has been attempted through ineffective methods which prevent satisfactory management of crusher and mill maintenance and reduce operational control. This situation has recently dramatically improved for grinding mills through the development and commercial deployment of MillMapperÖ, a technology based on three-dimensional laser scanning data and dedicated software (Franke, Lichti and Stewart, 2006; Franke and Lichti, 2007; 2008; Franke, 2008; Franke, Redman, Johnson and Michalek, 2009). At the time of writing in late 2009, MillMapperÖ is in successful use at a rate of approximately 170 surveys and associated reports per annum at processing plants in Australasia, South America, North America and Africa. This paper presents the introduction of CrusherMapperÖ, the MillMapperÖ equivalent for crushers. CrusherMapperÖ also utilises high density, high accuracy laser scanning data, and features dedicated algorithms for three-dimensional monitoring of wear on crusher concaves and mantles. This facilitates the detection of wear hot spots or zones or localised liner failures, and accurate forecasting of reline tonnages and dates. It also for the first time provides the means to establish optimised concave and mantle shapes in order to achieve production targets. In contrast to any other currently utilised condition monitoring method, CrusherMapperÖ data collection can occur remotely and does not require any shutdown or crusher isolation. This method therefore does not interrupt crusher production while at the same time eliminating any confined space risk normally associated with taking measurements inside the crusher cavity.

Sep 13, 2010

By R Bearman

The importance of crushers in the mining industry declined with the introduction and resultant dominance of AG and SAG based circuits, but the recent move to consider more energy efficient circuits has caused the industry to re-consider the role of crushers.Different types of comminution equipment have different efficiency in the way the energy is applied in the size reduction process. Because of the general trend towards more sustainable production processes and emission of carbon dioxide, energy use has become more important. To fully understand how crushers can contribute to optimising the energy application in comminution circuits, detailed models of process performance are required. Such models need to take into account the mechanical design factors and how the crusher performance changes in response to feed conditions, the control strategy utilised and the wear of the crusher liners.It is also critical to analyse the total circuit, not just the individual crushers. To fully understand the performance of the entire circuit, dynamic simulation should be applied. Without the holistic understanding of the total circuit and the incorporation of transient effects, the full circuit performance cannot be adequately determined and the true energy picture will not be quantified.Based on detailed mechanistic modelling of crushers by the authors and the application of dynamic simulation, the opportunities to optimise the use of crushers for energy efficiency are examined.

Aug 8, 2011

By Jerome C. Motz

Primary Crushers The types, sizes and number of crushers employed in a complete reduction system will vary with such factors as the volume of ore to be processed, the size of the mine-run lump material, the hardness of the ore bearing rock and the size and dimension required for the final product. Basically, for primary crushing there are only three distinct types of crushing equipment. These are the Jaw crushers, Gyratory crushers and Impact crushers, and they each have their own distinctive operating characteristics. Jaw crushers operate by squeezing the rock between the fixed and the movable sides of a tapered cavity. Variations of pitch and swing have been tried, but most Blake-type machines have a crushing angle of about 27° between swing and stationary jaws. The principle of which Gyratory crushers work is very simple. If a Cone is mounted on the upper end of a vertical shaft and the top of the shaft is held .stationary while the lower end is rotated eccentrically, the Cone will also swing eccentrically. If the Cone is enclosed in a suitable housing, it will swing toward and away from the housing walls-as it rotates. If the done and the housing walls are sufficiently strong and heavy, anything caught between them will be crushed.

Jan 1, 1978