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By P Standish

Qualitative risk assessment methods are not well suited to considering complex systems and potential interactions of new technology. As part of supporting tier one mining organisations and international industry groups, the author and colleagues have innovated processes to help provide better solutions to sites/companies considering a move to implementing proximity detection and collision avoidance systems. The process identifies required operating states for the system. By applying a combination of research and team-based analyses, a rigorous identification of credible failure modes which could cause these states to be lost, is identified. Finally, required business inputs, expressed in practical terms are distilled from regulator, industry, organisation and site in a way which clearly addresses the failure modes and so retain the required operating states. These business inputs identify improvements for site arrangements (EMESRT levels 1 to 7) before identifying functional requirements for technological collision avoidance solutions (levels 8 for advisory and 9 for autonomous). The paper presents a case study synthesised from multiple sites analyses and will provide guidance on where to find additional resources to assist in making the best possible transition to better equipment and road network solutions.

Jun 22, 2022

By I Villalba

The need to continue the development of the Ensham mine has led to blast up to 75 m to the Eastern side of a water dam in the vicinity of Ramp 23. The water dam wall is exposed to blasting over a distance of approximately 500 m. The first decision was to determine that the existing rock pillar between the Eastern side of the water dam and the blasting operations may not be less than 75 m in order to minimise the damage that the blast could generate to the dam wall. It was also necessary to define blasting practices to minimising the blast damage to the rock properties of the dam wall and to avoid adverse effects from vibration and gases generated by the detonation on structures.For this purpose analytical designs and test blasts were conducted to assess the ground vibration attenuation within the rock pillar. From this analysis, it was concluded that the best practice to reduce the rock damage was to create a zone of fractured rock adjacent to the side of each production blast. This fractured zone would create an effective filter both for vibration and for gases generated by the blast. This zone of fractured rock was created by firing two buffer rows. In terms of pattern size and powder factor the two buffer rows were designed just to generate a fractured rock zone. To date approximately 500 m have been excavated along the eastern wall of the water dam where each production blast was preceded by a Trim blast. This practice has given good results with regard to minimising the damage generated by production blasting.

Nov 8, 2011

By Conrad W. Stellar, John L. Paynich

Design/Build concept that provides for earliest possible completion and lowest cost is presented. Elements of the program include: joint cooperation between owner, designer and builder; schedule construction sequence; and a line budget. Benefits over lump sum contracts are reviewed.

Jan 1, 1979

By Conrad W. Steller

What is the definition of a successful construction or development project? It could be described in many ways: a project that performs as designed; a project completed on time, a project completed within budget. The title of our talk today is, "The Advantages of Applying Design/Build -Construction Management to the Mining Industry." As our talk develops, you will see that rather than tell you how to apply this concept, we will discuss the advantages and details of Design/Build so that you can independently apply the concept. Design/Build is not new, and it cannot be universally applied. It has, however, within the past ten years, carved a specific and substantial place in the overall construction -development market. The reasons for its rather recent rise to considerable prominence as a concept is due, in part, to the increasing urgency of gaining productive access of a production facility and, in part, to the inherent advantages of the concept's economics--and they are considerable. If the Design/Build concept of contracting were fully understood, it would, without exception, be the favored way for private industry to contract for its new construction and development as well as renovation work. The basic advantages are: earliest possible access and completion at the lowest cost. Design/Build is often equated and compared to "fast track" or "turnkey" methods of construction. The Design/Build concept can, in fact, be both of these or neither. "Fast track", in and 6f itself, implies that the project will be phased construction, that is to say, it will be built quickly; whereas I "turnkey" is a measure of the completeness of the project, usually meaning essentially that the

Jan 1, 1977

By Conrad W. Stellar, John L. Paynich

Abstract-A Design/Build concept that provides for earliest possible completion and lowest cost is presented. Elements of the program include: joint cooperation between owner, designer and builder; schedule construction sequence; and a line budget. Benefits over lump sum contracts are reviewed.

Jan 11, 1978

By Bern Klein, Tichang Sun, Daozhen Gong, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Chunbao Sun, Stefan Nadolski

"This paper is focused on the effect of modifying the SAG mill/ball mill transfer size on the energy efficiency of SABC circuits. The transfer size is considered to be a parameter which provides operators with the opportunity to improve comminution circuit performance. In this study, the Moly-Cop tools package was employed to predict the energy consumption of SAG mill and ball mill circuits under different operating conditions. An Energy Benchmarking model was adopted to calculate grinding energy efficiency. The SABC circuit at the Huckleberry mine was selected for this case study. It was observed that after increasing circuit transfer size (T80) from the existing 3.3 mm to 4.8 mm, the Benchmark Energy Factor (BEF) of the SABC circuit decreased from 4.30 to 4.05. In terms of energy consumption of the SABC circuit, 1.17 kWh/t of specific energy saving was achieved through the transfer size optimization.It was also observed that when a transfer size was selected such that both SAG mill and ball mill circuits operated at their highest energy efficient states, the entire SABC circuit was the most energy efficient. The maximum energy efficiencies of these three circuits were all approximately 25% when compared to the minimum practical energy required to carry out an equivalent comminution duty. Single-particle compression breakage testing was used to determine the minimum practical energy associated with the Huckleberry mill feed. In combination with geo-metallurgical data, this study also provides an opportunity to perform dynamic optimization of SABC circuits."

Jan 1, 2016

By R Morrison, P Walters, B Adair, V Jokovic

‘Grade Engineering<sub>®</sub> is an integrated approach to coarse rejection that matches a suite of separation technologies to ore specific characteristics and compares the net value of rejecting low value components in current feed streams to existing mine plans as part of a system-view’ (Walters, 2017). Two of these technologies are directly recoverable through screening stages: Natural Deportment and Induced Deportment. The potential for taking advantage of “Natural Deportment” by size following blasting and crushing has been demonstrated for a range of ore types. Simple and low cost screening can in some cases generate a fine product with improved grade and a lower grade oversize which can be directed to leach or to waste. Where an ore body consists of many different ore types, the traditional approach of blending to metal grade will often add to complexity of treatment, which will reduce the effect of “natural deportment” by size.CITATION: Jokovic, V, Walters, P, Adair, B and Morrison, R, 2018. Applying enhanced grade engineering to complex ore bodies, in Proceedings Complex Orebodies Conference 2018, pp 21–23 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 21, 2018

By T. R. West

Planning for urban development in many locations is based largely on 0.10 factors, 1) soil conditions and 2) socio-political aspects of the region. A more widely based approach is necessary, however, if a complete and functional plan is to be obtained. Under this unified approach, the overall field of earth science is included in the planning process. As considered here, the earth sciences comprise a large segment of the natural sciences; that is, geology, pedology, geomorphology, reengineering geology and ground water hydrology. A number of shortcomings can develop when using the restrictive, two-factor approach for urban development planning. These deficiencies are discussed in the paper. The specific considerations for each earth science area are examined and land use considerations for various urban requirements reviewed in light of these specialties. To illustrate the potential of the unified or earth science approach, Tippecanoe County, Indiana is presented as an example. The current area planning system for Tippecanoe County is examined to determine how well it compares with the unified approach and some of the shortcomings of the current plans are discussed.

Jan 1, 1972

By Richard W. Jolk

A pollution control equipment exemption which reduces the fair and equitable taxable value of a mine property is allowed under Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 361.077 and must be filed in accordance with the filing requirements of NRS 361.155. USMX Nevada Operations annually saves a substantial amount of State property tax dollars by taking advantage of this tax exemption. The State documents received by USMX and the documents filed by USMX are reviewed in this paper. The application filed by USMX exhibits the format and detail used to obtain this tax exemption and the extent to which environmental control equipment may be claimed.

Jan 1, 1993

By Q. Feng

Study has been carried out to apply fly ash as a high strength, water-resistant precast construction material through geopolymerization. Experiment results show that the working conditions such as water content, the concentration of NaOH, curing temperature and curing time, significantly affect the mechanical property of geopolymer matrix. Through optimization, an above 100 MPa compressive strength has been achieved with the geopolymerization products. Water soaking tests show that the geopolymerization product has a very high water resistance without losing noticeable compressive strength even after a one month soaking time. To elucidate the geopolymerization mechanism, microscopic techniques such as SEM/EDS and XRD are also applied to investigate the microstructure, the elemental and phase composition of geopolymerization products. The findings of the present work provide a novel method to apply fly ash as a high strength water-resistant precast construction material. INTRODUCTION Geopolymerization is a process of obtaining a polymeric structure from aluminosilicate by dissolving aluminosilicate sources in a strong alkali (NaOH) solution and condensation of free [SiO4] and [AlO4] tetrahedral units (Davidovits, 1985 and 1988; Duxson et al, 2005; Xu et al, 2000, 2002). After being cured at an elevated temperature for a specific time, the geopolymerization product shows a greatly increased compressive strength. Therefore, the product can be used as construction material such as bricks and road pavement. It provides a very promising method to apply aluminosilicate sources such as fly ash as a construction material for a sustainable development. Fly ash is a main industrial waste which needs to be carefully impounded because of its potential impact on environment. Many efforts have been tried to utilize fly ash as construction materials substituting Portland cement because of the following reasons. First, fly ash is a silica/alumina rich aluminosilicate source, which makes the specific material an ideal source for the geopolymerization process. Secondly, the particle size of fly ash is usually very small (< 50 microns) and it saves a lot of energy consumed during the production process of cement for grinding. Thirdly, fly ash is an ideal source for geopolymerization because it is reactive to alkali even at a mild temperature. In the past twenty years, many studies have been carried out on the geopolymerization of fly ash to a make construction material. However, there are some disadvantages associated with the conventional methods of treating fly ash (Palomo et al, 1999; Perera et al, 2007; Temuujin, et al, 2009; Hanjitsuwan et al, 2014). First, in most of the proposed geopolymerization methods, a salient amount of sodium silicate has to be added. It therefore makes it complex whether the achieved mechanical strength of geopolymerization products is due to a real geopolymerization process between fly ash and alkali or just largely the solidification of metal silicate in air at an elevated temperature. Secondly, the authors have noticed that when the geopolymerization product is soaked in water, the solution pH increases sharply and the products will lose its compressive strength gradually in water. Thirdly, the compressive strength of the geopolymerization product as reported is usually less than 50 MPa.

Jan 1, 2019

By M. Zavvari

Flotation, as with most engineering disciplines, involves testwork. Commonly this means going from lab scale to pilot scale to industrial scale. It is important to conduct tests to identify key parameters and to optimize even at the lab scale. To reduce the number of tests while maximizing the information, it is necessary to use Design of Experiment and Statistical Analysis. In this communication Fractional Factorial Design was used to identify the effect of 7 main factors on barite flotation recovery from jig gravity tailings at the Dorrin Kashan operation. The factors include: pH, collector and depressant dosage, impeller speed (RPM), pulp dilution, particle size and flotation time. By analysis of the output with Minitab software all factors were shown to have an effect. Among the factors, pH and flotation time have an interaction effect but the others have wise effect as an interaction effect and main effect. Finally, reliability tests at pH= 9, RPM= 1000, collector 1 000g/ton, depressant l 750g/ton, particle size 90 µm, flotation time 90 s, pulp dilution 23 % solids, the optimum level of each factor, were done. At the optimum level a barite concentrate with average specific gravity 4.308 g/cm3, average grade 93.72% and average recovery 90.04% was produced from the jig tail.

Jan 1, 2009

By Yu Qixiang, Wu Yanyun, Guo Junfeng

The experience of mining coal and gas outburstprone coal seams shows that the degree of outburst danger in various coal seams and even at different parts of the same seam are quite different, and that to deal with them respectively in different ways will not noly be significant to safety but bring us remarkable economical profit, Based on the statistical data,including elght static and dynamic factors, gathered from coal and gas outburst spots at Nantong colliery in Chong Qing district of China, this paper has partitioned the degree of outburst danger of the No. 5 seam there by means of Fuzzy Clustering method. Because in the evaluation multiple indices have been considered, the result of partitioning is identical to practice and more efficient in applications.

Jan 1, 1991

By J. R. Barrett

Geotechnical techniques to evaluate conditions in underground metalliferous mines change through a mine&apos;s development from prefeasibility to remnant mining. The objectives of this paper are to determine the geotechnical requirements of typical underground metalliferous mining projects, to determine any shortfalls in conventional geotechnical techniques in satisfying these requirements, and to determine the costs of such investigations in proportion to the project expenditure. Finally, areas for future research and development are discussed. A group of over one hundred case history studies are examined to generate data on typical mining problems. The case studies include projects at most Australian underground metalliferous mining operations supplemented with case studies in Canada, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Jan 1, 1983

By Craig Hartley

? A helper stands beside a continuous miner as the operator is at the controls. The operator means to push the stop button but hits the drum rotation start button by mistake. The drum begins to turn and the bits catch the helper&apos;s clothing. He is thrown violently to the ground and suffers multiple contusions. ? A farmer&apos;s wife helplessly watches her husband drawn into the claws of farm machinery while she frantically and unsucessfully searches for the control to stop the machine. ? A mechanic on the night shift replaces plugs in the lubrication systems of all three engines of an airliner following routine maintenance. In doing so&apos;, he fails to notice that "0" ring seals have not been mounted on the plugs. A few hours later, as the fully loaded airliner is cruising high over the ocean, oil pressure on one engine drops precipitously. The pilots quickly shut down the engine and turn for home. Almost immediately, the two remaining engines lose their oil and fail.

Jan 1, 1983

The ever-increasing power (and decreasing cost) of computers has opened up substantial oppor¬tunities for &apos;Vision&apos;-based systems in both on-line and off-line control. This paper reviews image analysis applications in use at the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) for: •blast and mill feed size monitoring; •AG/SAG mill model-based control; •mineral liberation; and •froth flotation control. The SPLIT™ image analysis system is being used to estimate muck pile and ROM feed sizings. AG/SAG mill feed sizing is being used in a dynamic model for mill control. A new generation mineral liberation analyzer has been developed with Philips Electron Optics. The Philips-JKMRC mineral liberation analyzer offers a substantial improvement in resolution and speed over previous developments. While on-line liberation control continues to be something of a pipe dream, measuring liberation "one shift behind" is now feasible. A robust instrument has been developed to measure flotation froth bubble size and velocity. The instrument also derives a parameter that allows different froth textures to be distinguished. The instrument has been used for on-line control in coal and sulfide flotation. For coal froth, an online ash estimate has been achieved at one site and is being tested at other sites. Overall, image analysis is finding many applications in mineral processing and control.

Jan 1, 2000

By M. Evertsson, M. Johansson

"In minerals processing control is vital to increasing performance and output of a plant. Model predictive control (MPC) is one of the most effective control strategies used in process industry. Sbárbaro (Sbárbaro and Del Villar, 2010), Asbjörnsson (Asbjörnsson, 2015), and Légaré (Légaré et al., 2016) have for example highlighted the possibility to simulate, develop and tune control systems using plant simulators within minerals processing. In more recent years the use of model predictive controllers have increased, and many process industries now utilize more advanced control methods to regulate their processes, raising the question regarding how to, build, test and verify a proposed control solution successfully. In this research, a linear model predictive controller is formulated and applied to a simulator of an existing tertiary crushing circuit. The circuit has in previous work by Johansson (Johansson, 2017) been modeled in MATLAB Simulink and calibrated relative plant data to an average error of less than 10% over 8 hours of production. The work demonstrates how to formulate the controller model structure to describe conveyor belts, storage components, screens, crushers, and control objectives for a minerals processing circuit. The work illustrates how to apply and successfully evaluate possible upsides in a circuit. The advantage of a crushing circuit simulator is that it can be configured, tuned and modified in any possible way, which is of great benefit to developers and engineers. Additionally, examples of how to use estimated measures to improve the performance of the plant are demonstrated. The control performance is finally evaluated for three different controller configurations."

Jan 1, 2018

By C A. Myburgh, S Craig, K Deb

In focusing on open pit mine scheduling, one of the biggest areas that a mining engineer can add value is in the area of cut-off grade optimisation. It is not atypical to add up to an extra 20 per cent in value by bringing forward higher-grade ore and deferring costs into the future.There are many techniques available to maximise net present value (NPV) when applied to open pit mine scheduling. That in itself raises the question of why so many of these techniques exist. The short answer is that none of these techniques are robust. Every time the problem changes, the algorithms also have to change.Instead of trying to make a problem fit the constraints of an existing technique, there is much to be said for usefully hybridising different approaches. This paper describes an innovative approach where evolutionary algorithms are combined with both local search and linear programming. The goal is maximising NPV through optimisation of cut-off grade policy and extraction sequence for an open pit mine. The cut-off/cut-over grade policy produced caters for multiple processing streams and stockpiles.Finally we demonstrate the quality of the algorithm by comparing some results with a well-known mathematical solution.CITATION:Myburgh, C A, Deb, K and Craig, S, 2014. Applying modern heuristics to maximising net present value through cut-off grade optimisation, in Proceedings Orebody Modelling and Strategic Mine Planning Symposium 2014, pp 155–164 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 24, 2014

By B Flynn, P Knights

Low-loaders or &apos;floats&apos; for relocating equipment in surface mines are limited to a capacity of approximately 350 t. In the iron ore industry it is desirable to be able to rapidly relocate excavators in order to maintain production rates within appropriate quality limits. In addition, the ability to rapidly relocate heavy equipment raises the possibility of improving the quality of repairs by performing maintenance in controlled shop conditions. However, many iron ore operations operate hydraulic excavators in the 600 to 800 t range, with newly released excavator models exceeding 800 t. These excavators are too large to float using conventional technology. This paper examines the potential for using multi-bogie transporters to relocate large hydraulic excavators in surface mines. Recent innovations have seen the development of modular transporters which can be coupled together to achieve larger platform areas. When separated, and with their drive bogies neutralised, these units are able to be towed behind prime movers and relocated between mines via public roads. The potential cost savings for relocating a Terex RH170 excavator in an open pit coal mine are examined. In the first six months of 2008, the analysis showed the potential for a 38 per cent reduction in total travel time with a corresponding revenue increase of approximately $350 k. The paper recommends that a feasibility study be conducted into offering a heavy equipment relocation service within the Pilbara region.

Jan 1, 2009

By S. Makni, G. Gagnon, F. Couët, C. Rochefort

"Comminution represents a significant part of mineral processing plant operating costs. Yet, autogenous (AG) or semi-autogenous grinding mills (SAG) are difficult to control because of disturbances like feed size distribution and rock hardness. AMIRA, within project GeMIII, developed a comminution index from laboratory crusher data. The index correlated with the Bond ball mill work index and with the A×b parameter. The present work extends the use of crusher data as a grindability indicator to real-time industrial applications. The aim is to improve comminution operation using online hardness estimation. Because the operational work index is proportional to the ore work index, rock hardness variations can be estimated from the feed and product size distributions, the throughput, and the power draw of a crusher. Real-time estimation of rock hardness can help understand the dynamic behavior of AG and SAG mills. Multivariate time series were analyzed to understand the impact of hardness on a SAG operation. Results showed that the estimated hardness influences the SAG operation and its throughput. Moreover, non-linear dimension reduction was used to ease the process visualisation and search for potential control strategies. In the future, online hardness measurements should also impact the understanding of comminution circuits and improve their operation.INTRODUCTIONThe variability in hardness, and the feed size distribution, are two of the main disturbances affecting comminution circuits (Sbarbaro & del Vilar, 2010). Size distribution can be measured by imagebased granulometry systems such as WipFrag (Maerz, Palangio, & Franklin, 1996), or by 3D vision systems when the fines are difficult to discriminate by 2D segmentation (Faucher, Makni, Gagnon, Lavoie, & Roberge, 2015).There are few examples of online hardness measurements. One example was the work of Casali et al. (2001) who developed a hardness indicator. The ore grindability soft sensor used the fraction of each lithological class in the ore, as determined by image analysis, to predict the work index of the material. The model was developed using a moving window with a width of 12 months and trends were shown over many years with one data point per month."

Jan 1, 2016

By N. Johnson, J. Quinteros

With the general trend across all commodities towards the treatment of lower grade ores, it is becoming increasingly important to develop efficient protocols for comprehensive mineralogical characterisation to allow the development of the most appropriate strategies for processing an ore. In the case of silver, there are more than 200 known silver bearing minerals which can make it challenging to identify them. Knowledge of the deportment of silver within an ore is one of the factors used to determine an appropriate processing strategy. Automated SEM-based tools are commonly used for mineralogical characterisation but the low-grade together with the large number of minerals that are potential hosts for silver means that often, complementary analytical tools must be used in order to properly account for the silver. The work presented in this paper is a demonstration of the approach that should be taken when identifying the deportment of silver in complex ores. Three complex, low-grade silver ores were characterised using the approach. The insights from the mineralogical characterisation were then used to inform the metallurgical testing that was undertaken. The results from the batch flotation testing clearly demonstrate the importance of understanding the mineralogy in order to select the most appropriate metallurgical processes.

Jan 1, 2014