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By Martin J. Conway

DURING the past year, the intense interest shown by the metallurgical industry in the use of relatively pure oxygen has been evidenced by the number of papers dealing with its application and production. The reason for this interest is apparent when it is realized that, weight for weight, oxygen enters into the formation of steel equally with iron. In the manufacture of steel, approximately one ton of oxygen is required to produce one ton of ingots. Until the recent development of plants capable of producing oxygen at far lower costs than had ever previously been considered possible, the oxygen required for steel manufacture was used as it occurs in air, where it is associated with approximately four times its volume of nitrogen. Because of the diluent nitrogen more than 4 tons of total gaseous material per ton of steel must be handled rather than only approximately one ton required when pure oxygen is used. In addition, provision must be made to handle the large quantity of waste, gases resulting from the process. There are cases where the reduction in gas volume alone can justify the installation of an oxygen plant.

Jan 1, 1947

The Empire IV expansion is on schedule for completion in January 1980; Hibbing Taconite's 2.7 million ltpy* expansion should be finished late in 1979; and Reserve Mining's tailing disposal project is on target for April 1980. Erie Mining Co., the first to bring 170-ton haulage trucks to the Mesabi Range, reports excellent operating results, and Inland Steel expects to produce 80% of its pellets in 1979 using coal rather than oil. One Michigan mine has so many inspectors that it has hired a school bus to transport them around the operation; and a contractor reports that mine construction projects of the future may require the training of 15,000 workers. All of this was covered at the 52nd Annual Minnesota Section AIME Meeting and the 40th University of Minnesota Mining Symposium, a joint event held each January in Duluth.

Jan 3, 1979

By F. H. Labee

Questionnaires and special letters soliciting information were sent to a great many geologists, petroleum engineers, independent operators, and representatives of large companies in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico. Replies to more than 50 per cent. of these letters were received. A survey of the facts and opinions presented in this correspondence will be made a little later, but first some of the general aspects of the problem will be reviewed. By "unit operation,"1 we mean the development and operation of a single entire pool, or reservoir, of petroleum by one management, on a systematic and scientific plan which is best calculated ultimately to extract from the pay sand and bring to the surface of the ground the largest possible amount of oil with the greatest possible total profit. No one, as far as the author has been able to ascertain, denies the advantages, both scientific and practical, of unit operation. All are agreed that it is sound in theory. It permits the proper distribution of wells, which should always be spaced on the ground according to a regular geometric plan with the intention of maintaining the same spacing all the way down and into the pay sand, or pay sands. This spacing will be different for different fields, depending on such variable factors as the lithologic character of the pay formation, the nature of the controlling structure, the depth of drilling, the viscosity of the oil, and so on. From the viewpoint of engineering practice, as applied to economical extraction of oil, there is no more important consideration than well spacing—well spacing in the pay formation, and not merely on the surface of the ground —for the method of well spacing has a direct bearing upon all such engineering practices as pressure control, repressuring by gas, the water drive, and SO on. H. C. Miller2 summarized the advantages of an ideal cooperative development plan as follows: "Among the more important advantages of

Jan 1, 1930

By Howard C. Dunkle

Various factors can affect the quality of BIII2 and BIII3 steel as produced in a bessemer plant; among them: vessel-charging practice, blowing practice, ingot-pouring practice, ingot delivery-time practice, pit-heating practices, and ingot-rolling practice. Evaluation of the influence of ingot delivery time on quality has been chosen as the subject for this paper because this time is completely within the control of the operator, and on this particular factor there is a tremendous amount of information in the dusty archives of the average steel plant. In order to know how much improvement can be made and when attention should be directed to other factors that influence quality, in the continual struggle for improvement, the effect of ingot delivery time must be accurately evaluated. Once this is done, the importance of other variables can be accurately obtained, thus eliminating the necessity of resorting to opinions that are of doubtful value at best. In the study described herein, extensive use was made of the statistical card system as a method of determining the effect of ingot delivery time as a quality factor in bessemer screw-stock grades by simple direct correlation. The value of this statistical method as a means of accurately determining the influence of various factors has been amply demonstrated by Work1 for the bessemer process and by Hand and Gould2 and Fetters and Chipman3 for the open-hearth process. The quality records of 300,000 tons of bessemer screw-stock billets were used in this study of the effect of ingot delivery time on the rejections for breaks, pipe, check and seams. The reduction in the number of rejections for poor quality reduces the costs and increases the productivity per man-hour. The operator today, more than ever before, must know how to keep costs down, how to do it most quickly and in the best way, and how to obtain the highest quality in line with the ever increasing demands of the customer. It is necessary for him to know the individual relations and interrelations between various factors affecting the quality of the manufactured product if he is to produce material that will meet competitively the cost, performance, and quality demands of the trade. Significance of Steel Manganese, Mixer Silicon and Steel Sulphur as Quality Factors In order to obtain the highest grade of material it is necessary to control many factors—not just one or two, as operators

Jan 1, 1945

By Gerald V. Jergensen

Does an idea have merit? What does it cost to implement? Can the concept be implemented successfully? The ultimate proof is to try, then see. However, when there are many millions of dollars at stake, blindly building and trying requires considerable courage. Owners and investors in retrospect might choose other less complimentary words. So we might ask, "How might we establish the feasibility of an idea or concept before committing large sums of money to the ultimate test?" From this basic and prudent question, has evolved the engineering concept of the feasibility study. A feasibility study is simply a systematic evaluation of an idea or concept to determine the prospects for success. In a literal sense, a feasibility study considers an idea in terms of its data base, "builds" the idea on paper, "operates" that idea, calculates the cost and benefits, then measures the probable success in terms of some economic, technical or financial standard. Feasibility studies can be quite modest in scope yet provide useful insights as to the viability of an idea. A study might be initiated only to examine the completeness or validity of the metallurgical data base. Another study could be a search for a workable idea or solution to an already-identified possibly troublesome problem. In this latter case, the question, "Will it work?" may be far more important than, "How much will it cost?" Feasibility studies are sometimes global in scope, involving several dozens of specialists and examining an entire "grass roots" mining complex. Other studies may be less ambitious but equally important in examining an expansion proposal or developing new operating techniques. Studies may be commissioned to remove plant bottle-necks, solve maintenance problems and so on. The terms study and feasibility study are used interchangeably in this chapter. They denote a systematic method to examine a proposed concept or idea. DATA BASE Typically, studies are initiated with a minimum amount of specific information and a maximum number of assumptions. As the work proceeds and the data base expands, assumptions are replaced

Jan 1, 1982

By Richard H. Sibson

Changes in seismic style along the San Andreas fault system appear to correlate with strike-parallel variations in regional heat flow. Large earthquake ruptures are associated with colder segments of the fault zone, while comparatively high levels of microearthquake activity and small to moderate shocks occur along the hotter segments, often in association with aseismic creep. Such behavior is consistent with geotherm and strain rate dependent profiles of shear resistance versus depth, constructed for quartz-bearing rocks. These profiles suggest that the transition from frictional to quasi-plastic behavior with depth should increase by a few kilometers passing from the hotter to the colder portions of the fault zone, giving rise to long-wavelength concentrations of distortional strain energy near the base of the seismogenic zone in the cold segments. Some support for this hypothesis comes from the observed deepening of microseismic activity passing northwest and southeast from the central Californian active region to the currently locked, ~400 Ian segments of the San Andreas fault that ruptured in 1906 and 1857.

Jan 1, 1982

By Thomas E. Howard

Recipient of the 1975 D. C. Jackling Award - "For his vision and initiative in defining, planning, directing, and accomplishing mining research programs; for his leadership in focusing worldwide attention on the need for research to improve underground excavation for mining and civil applications; and for his lecture. . ."

Jan 1, 1976

By M. J. deBastiani, John Kostuik

The Denison orebody, located on the north limb of a syncline, rests at depths of 800 ft in the northern end of the property to 3000 ft at the southern end, and has a composite dip of 19º, varying locally from 0º to 45º. It is composed essentially of two pyritized conglomerate beds separated by a varying thickness of quartzite. The thickness of the upper conglomerate reef of the main ore zone varies from 2 to 15 ft while the lower reef is from 2 to 12 ft. Mining, whether carried out over the entire section of the reefs and quartzite or by selective mining of the reefs, is accomplished by room and pillar methods, with an initial 67% extraction on the advance towards the property boundaries. The underground ore handling requirement in such an orebody has become one of the most challenging problems in mining.

Jan 8, 1966

By James W. Lower

IN developing the orebody on lower levels of the Star mine at Burke, Idaho, Hecla Mining Co. is faced with a serious problem in driving raises. Levels are at 200-ft intervals. As a raise is being driven between levels, at points about 70 and 130 ft from the sill, heavy pressure arches develop and the raise becomes extremely hazardous. Eventually, following a blast, caving occurs, making it impossible to recover the raise. In February 1957 it was decided to attempt sinking a small winze on the vein from the 5500 to the 5700 level. This shaft (winze-raise No. 2) was to be used as a raise prior to stoping. It was assumed, and correctly, that the heavy ground pressure could be controlled by timbering close to the bottom after each advance.

Jan 7, 1958

By N. H. Mannakee

[Secretary's Note.—At the Spokane meeting of the Institute, in discussion of President Brunton's address on "Modern Progress in Mining and Metallurgy in the Western United States," and at the request of members present, Mr. Ayres gave an oral account of his new separator, which is here published as an independent paper, partly because of its inherent importance and partly because it describes an improvement which did not originate in the Western United States, and therefore does not fall, strictly speaking, under the title of President Urunton's address.—R. W. R.] A brief history of the growth of the anthracite-coal preparation will give a better view-point from which to judge the present problem of separating slate from coal. At the beginning of the commercial value of anthracite, 70 years ago, only the pure portions, or " splits," of the veins were mined and shipped to market, and without any preparation or screening other than the selection, while loading, of the glassy lumps, and the rejection of the fine material and the slate that had strayed accidentally into the coal. The next step was the crushing or breaking of the coal (hence the name "breaker" as applied to the preparation-building), and the sizing of it by means of bars or revolving screens. This stage of its development marked the advent of the " breaker-boy " as a slate-picker, with his ever-increasing capriciousness. As the richer veins or a splits " became exhausted and the market demanded a still greater output, the less-pure " splits " and the thinner veins were utilized to produce the coal. Carrying as they do a far greater percentage of impurities, particularly when removing the pillars, it became necessary to build new and better equipped preparation-plants. Finally, we are now at the highest stage of complicatioii yet known to the art of coal-preparation. We are dealing with varying specific gravities, frictional difference, hardness, structure, and form in the pieces of coal and slate coming from many different veins, and

Jan 1, 1910

STANDING COMMITTEES Executive CHARLES F. RAND, Chairman. JAMES F. KEMP, JOSEPH W. RICHARDS, ALBERT R. LEDOUX, BENJAMIN B. THAYER. Membership BENJAMIN B. THAYER, Chairman. KARL EILERS, JOHN H. JANEWAY, Jr., JOHN D. IRVING, HERMAN A. PROSSER. Finance EDWARD L. YOUNG, Chairman. KARL EILERS, JAMES GAYLEY. Library JAMES F. KEMP, Chairman.1 JOHN HAYS HAMMOND,3 E. GYBBON SPILSBURY,2 ALEX. C. HUMPHREYS,4 BRADLEY STOUGHTON.

Jan 1, 1914

By Gustave E. Behr

The peculiar and changing conditions of a wartime market and the necessary governmental restrictions have resulted in an accumulation of a large amount of certain secondary metals in the tin-lead alloy class. With certain of these metals this accumulation has reached such proportions that it has been proposed that government agencies finance the creation of stockpiles of these secondaries just as stockpiles of primary metals have been created. The purpose of such financing would be to keep the secondary metal dealers engaged in collecting these metals, which they might

Jan 1, 1943

By Oscar A. Glaeser

It is common knowledge that the iron orebodies of the Mesabi Range lie nearly horizontal and are of trough or blanketlike types. These orebodies are from a few feet to several hundred feet thick and vary from a few acres in extent to the size of the largest one, at Hibbing, Minn., which is over 1 mile wide and 3 miles long. They are covered with sand, boulder and clay overburden and occasionally shallow depths of ledge material, varying in total depth from about 20 to 200 ft. Large areas are not capped with overlying ledge material; the top of the ore lies directly underneath the surface material. Because of the comparatively great tonnage of ore, open-pit mining has made tremendous strides since the first open-pit ore was shipped from this range by the Merritt brothers, from the Mountain iron mine in October, 1892, and along with the great development of open-pit mining on the Mesabi Range has gone a tremendous change in the character of. equipment used. Early Stripping Operations The first stripping at the Burt mine at Hibbing, Minn., started in 1902. The engineers spent a long time in selecting the most suitable location for a small pit area, involving a stripping contract of 350,000 cu. yd. This property afterwards had several million yards of stripping and several million tons of ore removed from it, but inasmuch as it was the first open pit of the Oliver Iron Mining Co. in this district it was necessary to try several different locations for the small pit area, to uncover maximum tonnage and the best grade of ore so as to sell the idea of open-pit mining and discontinue the underground operation then going on. The writer's first open-pit work on the Mesabi Range was in 1903 as an Oliver company mining engineer on a stripping job of 1,500,000 cu. yd. at the Monroe mine, Chisholm, Minn. Here the contractor, an old-timer used to railroad methods, was, to a small extent, using teams of horses hitched to 2-yd. narrow-gage cars and hauling the stripping material from the pit area to outside of the pit limits. The dirt thus moved was loaded by hand. The same contractor was also using 60-ton and 70-ton railroad-type shovels with dippers of 21/2 and

Jan 1, 1930

By D. R. Hanson

The acoustic vibrational spectra of impacted rock slabs were examined at the Denver Research Center, US Bureau of Mines, in an attempt to characterize the behavior of partially detached mine roof rocks. The ultimate goal of this study was to develop a technique or instrument that could provide a quick, accurate, quantifiable measure of mine roof stability. The power spectra of unstable rock slabs were found to contain more energy in the range of 200 to 1000 Hz than solid rock. Comparison of the power contained between 500 and 1000 Hz with that between 3000 and 3500 Hz provided a quantitative measure of rock stability. A lightweight prototype field instrument was designed, constructed, and field tested. This battery-powered instrument computes the power contained in the two frequency bands, compares their magnitude, and displays a number related to the stability of the block tested. Field tests showed the instrument provided reliable measurements of block stability even under conditions of noise that would have seriously degraded the accuracy of the standard methods of roof sounding.

Jan 1, 1986

By A. M. Gaudin

The flotation process has been applied extensively in the mineral and chemical fields. This paper reveals results obtained by an exploration of an application to the biological field. In many ways this study was indeed an exploration since so many factors are different. In the mineral field, the particles, both those floated and those not floated, cover a wide range of sizes and shapes; in the biological field, the particles of one population are primarily of one or two sizes and one or two shapes. This identity in size and in shape gives biological systems the advantage of homogeneity. In the mineral field the particles may be as coarse as a millimeter; in the biological field the size may be a micron, or less. In the mineral field the particles may have a gravity several times that of water so that their apparent gravity is quite substantial. Microorganisms, on the other hand, may have a gravity so near that of the liquor that their settling velocity in the liquor is vanishingly small. These two facts conspire to make bubble-particle encounter in the pulp-body less likely. Finally, microorganisms are living, reproducing, and dying-all of which does not help the experimenter get a balance of materials. The analytical problems, too, are extraordinarily difficult, for the organisms can contain only elements that occur in their environment, although at a different level of concentration. The chemical composition of the surface of microorganisms is readily altered. In spite of these areas of difficulty, microorganisms can be floated to leave practically water-clear tailing, they can be floated from each other and, in fact, the same organism can be fractionated into a float that differs from the sink. SIZES AND SHAPES OF ORGANISMS Most ore pulps are described with reference to the percentage of the pulp that is fine enough to pass a 200-mesh sieve. Thus a copper-ore pulp may be 80% -200 mesh. Since 200 mesh equals 74 µ, a 2000-mesh particle would be 7.4 µ in diameter, and a 20,000-mesh particle would be 0.74 µ. The microorganisms with which this work is concerned are of the order of magnitude of 20,000 mesh. We have worked with Escherichia coli, the colon bacillus, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus megaterium, and Serratia marcescens. In some pioneer work, Dognonl,2 reported the use

Jan 1, 1962

By W. C. J. van Rensburg

Exploration of unconventional mineral resources is stimulated by uncertainties about the cost and security of conventional resource sup- plies. Costs of the latter are likely to increase as a result of inflation, higher energy costs declining productivity, a lack of sufficient investment in politically volatile areas, or through cartel-like action. Exploration of unconventional resources is likely to be delayed by these same factors, insufficient research and development facilities, and a decline in capital formation. World economic growth is likely to be slow, so there will be more emphasis on material conservation. Therefore, the incentive to explore for unconventional resources may be reduced.

Jan 1, 1983

By James Aston

THE origin of wrought iron may be taken as coincident with the earliest record of ferrous products. The limitations of primitive methods of manufacture undoubtedly resulted in a material conforming to the general characteristics of what we now classify as wrought iron. Iron has been known from prehistoric times. It is frequently mentioned in Egyptian literature, and some samples in the British Museum are believed to date from 3733 B. C. Iron instruments, tools and weapons were used in Greece in 1400 B. C., and in Assyria and. Italy in 1100 B. C. History records their use in Central and Western Europe in 1000 B. C. And in Styria and Carinthia before the Christian era. The noted Pillar of Delhi is generally assumed to date from 400 A. D. The use of iron was general in Europe in the Roman Empire, and heat treatment of weapons and tools was then practiced. All of this early iron was the result of direct reduction from the ore. It serves to illustrate the ease with which the extraction may be effected, and to point out the well known principle that a malleable product of relatively high purity may be produced from high-grade iron ore at temperatures well below the fusion point of-the metal. The fact is also emphasized that there is no novelty in the seemingly ideal and constantly recurring attempts to effect direct reduction. Economic and engineering considerations have been dominant factors in dictating today's two-step practice in the manufacture of wrought iron and steel. Bear' in mind that all of this history antedated the blast furnace, and a knowledge and use of cast iron. It was only in attempts to get greater output by use of shaft-type furnaces, that cast iron was produced in Germany in the period 1300 to 1400 A. D. This was the result of longer contact with the carbon of the fuel, and higher temperatures in the furnace. This period marked the beginning of the existing two-stage operation, involving as the second step the refining of the. cast iron to a malleable product. For a time this was effected in small hearths not unlike a blacksmith's forge.

Jan 10, 1926

By Francis Collins, E. R. Brownscombe

A study has been made of the material balance-fluid flow method of estimating reserves and degree of water drive from pressure and production history data. By considering the effect of random pressure errors it is shown that in a particular example a standard deviation of three and one-half pounds in each of ten pressure survey? permits the determination of the reserves with a standard deviation of 8 per cent and the water drive with a standard deviation of 15 per cent, assuming that certain basic geologic data are correct. It is believed that this method of estimating reserves and water drive is useful and reliable in a number of cases. The method is particularly valuable when reservoir pressure data are accurate within a very few pounds, but may also be applied with less accurate pressure data if a relatively large reservoir pressure decline occurs early in the life of the field, as for example in an under-saturated oil field. INTRODUCTION A knowledge of the magnitude of reserves and degree of water drive present in any newly discovered petroleum reservoir is necessary to early application of proper production practices. A number of investigators have contributed to methods of relating reserves, degree of water drive, and production and pressure history. 1-8 Three types of problems of increasing complexity may be mentioned. If a reservoir is known to have no water drive. and if the ratio of the volume of the reservoir occupied by gas to the volume of the reservoir occupied by oil (which ratio permits fixing the overall compressibility of the reservoir) is known, then only one further extensive reservoir property remains to be determined, namely the magnitude of the reserves. A straightforward application of material balance considerations will permit this determination. The problem becomes very much more difficult if we wish to determine not only the magnitude of the reserves but also the magnitude of water drive, if any, which is present. In principle, a combination of material balance and fluid flow considerations will permit this evaluation. Finally, if neither the magnitude of reserves, the degree of water drive, nor the ratio of oil to gas present in the reservoir is known and it is desired to determine all three of these variables, the problem could in principle be solved by a fluid flow-material balance analysis which determines the overall compressibility of the reservoir at various points in its history. The change in compressibility with pressure would provide a means of determining the ratio of gas to liquid present, since the compressibilities of gas and liquid vary differently with pressure variation. However, in practice this problem is probably so difficult as to defy solution in terms of basic data precision apt to be available.' It is the purpose of this discussion to illustrate the second case, which involves the determination of two unknown variables, single phase reserves and degree of water drive, from pressure and production history and fluid property data, and to study the precision with which these unknowns can be determined in this manner in a particular case. Although an electric analyzer developed by Bruce as used in making the calculations to be described, numerical methods necessary in carrying out the process have been devised and have been applied for this purpose. Schilthuis,' for example, developed a comprehensive equation for the material balance in a reservoir. He combined this with a simplified water drive equation, assuming that the ratio of free gas to oil was fixed by geological data and that a period of constant pressure operation at constant rate of production was available to determine the constant for his water drive equation. On this basis he was able to compute the reserves and predict the future pressure history of the reservoir. Hurst developed a generalized equation permitting the calculation of the water drive by unsteady state expansion from a finite aquifer. He showed in a specific case how the water influx calculated by his equation, using basic geologic and reservoir data to fix the constants, matched the water influx required by material balance considerations. Old3 illustrated the simultaneous use of Schilthuis' material balance equation and Hurst's fluid flow equation for the determination of the magnitude of reserves and a water drive parameter from pressure and production history. He used this method to calculate the future pressure history of the reservoir under assumed operating conditions. As a basis for determining reserves, Old assumed a value for his water drive parameter and calculated a set of values for the reserves, using the initial reservoir pressure and each successive measured pressure. The sum of the absolute values of the deviations of the resulting reserve numbers from their mean value was taken as a criterion of the closeness of fit to the experimental data possible with the water drive parameter assumed. New values of the water drive parameter were then assumed and new sets of the reserves calculated until a set of reserves numbers having a minimum deviation from the average was established. The average value of- the re-

Jan 1, 1949

By E. R. Brownscombe, Francis Collins

A study has been made of the material balance-fluid flow method of estimating reserves and degree of water drive from pressure and production history data. By considering the effect of random pressure errors it is shown that in a particular example a standard deviation of three and one-half pounds in each of ten pressure survey? permits the determination of the reserves with a standard deviation of 8 per cent and the water drive with a standard deviation of 15 per cent, assuming that certain basic geologic data are correct. It is believed that this method of estimating reserves and water drive is useful and reliable in a number of cases. The method is particularly valuable when reservoir pressure data are accurate within a very few pounds, but may also be applied with less accurate pressure data if a relatively large reservoir pressure decline occurs early in the life of the field, as for example in an under-saturated oil field. INTRODUCTION A knowledge of the magnitude of reserves and degree of water drive present in any newly discovered petroleum reservoir is necessary to early application of proper production practices. A number of investigators have contributed to methods of relating reserves, degree of water drive, and production and pressure history. 1-8 Three types of problems of increasing complexity may be mentioned. If a reservoir is known to have no water drive. and if the ratio of the volume of the reservoir occupied by gas to the volume of the reservoir occupied by oil (which ratio permits fixing the overall compressibility of the reservoir) is known, then only one further extensive reservoir property remains to be determined, namely the magnitude of the reserves. A straightforward application of material balance considerations will permit this determination. The problem becomes very much more difficult if we wish to determine not only the magnitude of the reserves but also the magnitude of water drive, if any, which is present. In principle, a combination of material balance and fluid flow considerations will permit this evaluation. Finally, if neither the magnitude of reserves, the degree of water drive, nor the ratio of oil to gas present in the reservoir is known and it is desired to determine all three of these variables, the problem could in principle be solved by a fluid flow-material balance analysis which determines the overall compressibility of the reservoir at various points in its history. The change in compressibility with pressure would provide a means of determining the ratio of gas to liquid present, since the compressibilities of gas and liquid vary differently with pressure variation. However, in practice this problem is probably so difficult as to defy solution in terms of basic data precision apt to be available.' It is the purpose of this discussion to illustrate the second case, which involves the determination of two unknown variables, single phase reserves and degree of water drive, from pressure and production history and fluid property data, and to study the precision with which these unknowns can be determined in this manner in a particular case. Although an electric analyzer developed by Bruce as used in making the calculations to be described, numerical methods necessary in carrying out the process have been devised and have been applied for this purpose. Schilthuis,' for example, developed a comprehensive equation for the material balance in a reservoir. He combined this with a simplified water drive equation, assuming that the ratio of free gas to oil was fixed by geological data and that a period of constant pressure operation at constant rate of production was available to determine the constant for his water drive equation. On this basis he was able to compute the reserves and predict the future pressure history of the reservoir. Hurst developed a generalized equation permitting the calculation of the water drive by unsteady state expansion from a finite aquifer. He showed in a specific case how the water influx calculated by his equation, using basic geologic and reservoir data to fix the constants, matched the water influx required by material balance considerations. Old3 illustrated the simultaneous use of Schilthuis' material balance equation and Hurst's fluid flow equation for the determination of the magnitude of reserves and a water drive parameter from pressure and production history. He used this method to calculate the future pressure history of the reservoir under assumed operating conditions. As a basis for determining reserves, Old assumed a value for his water drive parameter and calculated a set of values for the reserves, using the initial reservoir pressure and each successive measured pressure. The sum of the absolute values of the deviations of the resulting reserve numbers from their mean value was taken as a criterion of the closeness of fit to the experimental data possible with the water drive parameter assumed. New values of the water drive parameter were then assumed and new sets of the reserves calculated until a set of reserves numbers having a minimum deviation from the average was established. The average value of- the re-

Jan 1, 1949

By W. E. Horst

During the past few years of operation at Kings Mountain, N. C., full-scale flotation has generally yielded poorer metallurgical results than those obtained in the laboratory or pilot plant. After 2 min in each size of Denver flotation machine in the spodumene rougher circuit, pilot recovery (41.7 pct) was almost three times that of the plant (13.6 pet) and about twice that of the laboratory (21.0 pet). Pilot and commercial plant data are based on continuous operation, and laboratory results on batch testing of rougher performance. The ore is a pegmatite containing spodumene, feldspar, quartz, mica, and amphibolite. Data were accumulated to evaluate the scale-up relationships between laboratory, pilot plant, and plant flotation cells. Flotation rate constants and dimensional analysis were used to define the relationship existing between flotation behavior and scale of operation.

Jan 11, 1958