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Jan 1, 1886

By E. A. Gulbransen, K. F. Andrew

Thermodynamic information on the solubility of hydrogen in exothermic metals is limited. Thus, the overall solubility decreased as the temperature rose, which suggests the heat of solution of hydrogen in the metal is negative; yet the terminal solubility in the metal phase increased, which suggests an endothermic reaction. A thermodynamic analysis, therefore, was made of the several equilibria involved when hydrogen dissolved in the metal. Equations were derived expressing the solubility, terminal solubility, and decomposition pressures of hydrogen in terms of the heat, entropy, and free energy of solution of hydrogen in the given phase. The relations between the thermodynamic functions for the a-zirconium and 8-hydride phase were developed. The thermodynamic quantities were determined experimentally by the measurement of the decomposition pressures over a broad composition and temperature range. Two new methods of analyzing the experimental data were developed for determination of the terminal solubility. STUDIES', ' of the impact strength of zirconium at room temperature indicated that small quantities of hydrogen, of the order of 10 parts per million, embrittles the metal. Micrographic' and X-ray diffraction' studies showed this embrittlement to result from the precipitation of a second phase upon slow cooling. These studies suggested that the terminal solubility of hydrogen in the metal phase increased with increase of temperature. This behavior appeared to contradict the effect of temperature on exothermic hydrogen occluders such as zirconium. For these metals, the solubility of hydrogen should decrease with increase of temperature. Before these facts could be understood, a thorough analysis of the several equilibria was essential. It was the purpose of this paper to consider the several equilibria involved when hydrogen was reacted with zirconium from both the theoretical and experimental points of view. Since the overall solubility of hydrogen in the metal has been considered by a number of workers, it was proposed to study the composition range 0 to 6 atomic pct H in detail. Literature Schwartz and Mallett' determined the terminal solubilities of hydrogen in the metallic phase from diffusion studies. They extrapolated concentration-penetration curves to the boundary between the solid solution phase and the hydride phase at the surface. Their results showed values of 2.6 atomic pct at 400°C and 5.2 atomic pct at 500°C. Extrapolations of the data to room temperature suggested very low values for the terminal solubilities. This study confirmed the hydrogen embrittlement results and indicated that the terminal solubilities increased as the temperature was raised. The solution of hydrogen in zirconium over the complete concentration range was studied by Hall, Martin, and Rees3 and by others. The results showed that hydrogen was absorbed up to a maximum composition of 66 atomic pct or ZrH This composition represented the t-hydride phase. The maximum amount of hydrogen absorbed increased with pressure and decreased with temperature. Due to this temperature behavior, zirconium was classed as an exothermic occluder." In 1930 Hägg studied the crystal structures of the Zr-H alloys over a broad composition range. Four hydride phases were found. However, the range of homogeneity of the several phases was not studied. Gulbransen and Andrew" recently studied the phase diagram of this system by X-ray diffraction methods and by a thermodynamic method based on decomposition pressure measurements. The results showed that only two hydride phases existed for low temperatures, the 6 and the .-phases of Hagg.' Both phases had broad regions of homogeneity. The lower limit of the two-phase region of a and d-phases suggested a terminal solubility of 4 atomic pct at 500°C. This value was in agreement with the results of Schwartz and Mallett.' To avoid hydrogen embrittlement at low temperatures, it was necessary to heat the metal in high vacuum at elevated temperatures. To choose the conditions of temperature and high vacuum, it was

Jan 1, 1956

By J. J. Forbes

Probably the newest thing in mining safety, or safety for mines, is the apparent dissatisfaction on the part of the mineral industries, as represented by both management and labor, and the general public of the Nation, with the safety record of the mining industry. This is reflected by published comments and papers in the technical press;1-8 in labor periodicals, 10 11 in popular journals and periodicals,12 13 and in the daily press; also by discussions of the Safety Committees sponsored by the National Safety Council, 9, 14-15 the American Mining Congress, 1, 16 the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 2, 4 the Mine Inspectors' Institute of America,6,8,17,18 the Coal Mining Institute of America, 5, 19, the American Standards Association, and others.20,21

Jan 1, 1949

THE first session was held in the rooms of the American Philosophical Society, on Tuesday evening, February 26th. The President, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, called the meeting to order, and after a few introductory remarks concerning the importance of theoretical and speculative science, which often involves principles of the highest economic value, and, more than all that, serves to enlarge our conceptions of the universe, and ennoble us, by the cultivation which it affords to our most exalted faculties, proceeded to discuss some points in the chemistry of the atmosphere. It is known that there is in the crust of the earth a great amount of oxidized carbon, not only in the shape of coal, but also in the graphite or plumbago of the crystalline rocks, in the various bituminous shales or pyroschists, which are found in all succeeding rock-formations, and also in the forms of bitumen and petroleum. All the analogies of nature lead us to conclude that these various carbonaceous substances have had an organic origin, and have been generated by the deoxidation of carbonic acid, a process effected by the growing plant, and attended with the liberation of oxygen. He showed that the carbon of a layer of coal covering the whole earth's surface to the thickness of one meter, would, in its production from carbonic dioxide, liberate an amount of oxygen equal to that now present in our atmosphere. But bituminous coal contains also a large amount of hydrogen, derived from the deoxidation of water, which implies the liberation of a farther portion of oxygen. The amount from this latter source would equal, for the various coals and asphalts, from one-eighth to one-fourth, and, for the petroleums, one-half of that set free in the deoxidation of the carbon which these hydrocarbonaceous bodies contain. From what we know of the composition of the stratified rocks, it is probable that they include an amount of deoxidized carbon and hydrogen many times greater than that contained in a layer of coal one meter in thickness, and, consequently, that the disengaged oxygen in past ages must have far exceeded that now present in our atmosphere. To this must be added

Jan 1, 1878

The first session was held in the rooms of the American Philosophical Society, on Tuesday evening, February 26th. The President, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, called the meeting to order, and after a few introductory remarks concerning the importance of theoretical and speculative science, which often involves principles of the highest economic value, and, more than all that, serves to enlarge our conceptions of the universe, and ennoble us, by the cultivation which it affords to our most exalted faculties, proceeded to discuss some points in the chemistry of the atmosphere. It is known that there is in the crust of the earth a great amount of oxidized carbon, not only in the shape of coal, but also in the graphite or plunlbago of the crystalline rocks, in the various bituminous shales or pyroschists, which are found in all succeeding rock-formations, and also in the forms of bitumen and petroleum. All the analogies of nature lead us to conclude that these various carbonaceous substances have had an organic origin, and have been generated by the deoxidation of carbonic acid, a process effected by the growing plant, and attended with the liberation of oxygen. He showed that the carbon of a layer of coal covering the whole earth's surface to the thickness of one meter, would, in its production from carbonic dioxide, liberate an amount of oxygen equal to that now present in our atmosphere. But bituminous coal contains also a large amount of hydrogen, derived from the deoxidation of water, which implies the liberation of a farther portion of oxygen. The amount from this latter source would equal, for the various coals and asphalts, from one-eighth to one-fourth, and, for the petroleums, onehalf of that set free in the deoxidation of the carbon which these hydrocarbonaceous bodies contain. From what we know of the composition of the stratified rocks, it is probable that they include an amount of deoxidized carbon and hydrogen many times greater than that contained in a layer of coal one meter in thickness, and, consequently, that the disengaged oxygen in past ages must have far exceeded that now present in our atmosphere. To this must be added

Jan 1, 1879

By F. F. Aplan

Mineral processing engineers have recorded an- other year of active research and development work. Most gratifying was the broadly based attendance at the Mineral Processing Fundamental (formerly Basic Science) Committee sessions at the 1968 Annual Meeting of the AIME. Because of the availability of good papers, the active discussion and the growing attendance, sessions have grown from one to three at the annual meeting. Prof. M. C. Fuerstenau of the University of Utah will chair the Mineral Processing Fundamentals Committee for the next two years and we may thus be assured of continued active leadership. The name change from "Basic Science Committee" to the more descriptive "Mineral Processing Fundamentals Committee" approved by the MBD executive council is a welcome improvement. Our profession continues to attract the interest and cooperation of those in other professional groups. The 1968 Engineering Foundation Particulate Matter Conference, under the chairmanship of John Karpinski of Bethlehem Steel, was devoted exclusively to comminution this year. It attracted conferees from five continents and served as a particularly stimulating source of interchange of knowledge from many technical fields. Next year's conference will be under the chairmanship of Professor L,. G. Austin of The Pennsylvania State University. This conference plus the Symposium on Wettability and Flotation to be held at the annual American Chemical Society meeting in Minneapolis in April indicates the success achieved in the inter-disciplinary approach to problems. Other evidence of this spirit of professional cooperation is the forth- coming book on Size Reduction edited by D. W. Fuerstenau. This is the outgrowth of an AIChE symposium on size reduction held in 1965.

Jan 2, 1969

By J. L. Brimhall, R. A. Huggins

The structure of deformed internally oxidized alloys of siluer- cotztcrining magnesium and copper-containing aluminum in was studied by thin-film transrrzissiotz electron microscopy. With low to moderate amounts of stvain, the deformation structure in t11e dispersion-hardened alloys was found to consist of a high density of dislocations arranged it a random distribution or in a very fine, but poorly defined, cell stucture, depending on the fitness of the dbsbersion and amount of deformation. 112 contrarst, both pure copper and silver show relative1y Large, distinct cell structures. The particular structures in the alloys are believed to result from particles acting as both dislocaliot~ sources and deflector-s. The Inck of a pvorzolrr~ced deformation texture tr~ regiotzs qf' seoere loctll plastic curvature after heavy deformation can also be traced to the formation of clislocntions on many slip systemes and a lack 01 local concentrations of dislocations of predominantly one sign. THE presence of fine dispersions of a second phase has long been known to have a strong influence upon the mechanical properties of solids. Until recently, the influence of particles on the deformation mechanisms has been assumed to be solely that of barriers to dislocations. This is seen in the classic models of edge dislocations being restrained by the particles.1 4 There is, however, considerable evidence that this is not their primary effect, and that the particles can have a large influence on the defect structure generated by plastic deformation. The presence of particles causes changes in the surface topography observed after deformation. In overaged precipitation-hardened materials containing hard, noncoherent precipitates, fine intersecting slip lines are found after deformation of single crystals. indicating the activation of many slip systems. This has been extensively observed in the A1-Cu systen;, both by optical microscopy and replica electron microscopy.'"13 In some of the observations. the slip lines were seen to extend between the particles. Similar observations of extremely fine slip lines or the apparent absence of normal slip lines have also been found in A~-M~."

Jan 1, 1965

Jan 1, 1920

By R. G. Fleck, W. R. Webb

The concentrate produced from the Adirondack magnetites is, of course, too fine for direct use in a blast furnace and must be agglomerated before it can be considered a blast furnace ore. The four operations in the area use sintering -three, including the Jones & Laughlin operation, employing the Dwight Lloyd continuous type machine and one operation using the Greenawalt batch type process. Each operation uses fine anthracite coal, either No. 4 or No. 5 buckwheat size, for the mix fuel.

Jan 6, 1950

By Wm. D. Owsley, R. E. Moeller

In the petroleum industry, the process known as oil well cementing is the equivalent of pressure grouting in the mining and construction industries. The science of oil well cementing has been known and practiced for many years. At the present time it has been brought to a high degree of perfection in the handling of many different types of jobs, all of which are known as oil well cementing. In order to understand more easily these processes, we will discuss briefly several different types of oil well cementing jobs, the purposes for which they are performed, and the methods of their accomplishment. It is believed that some of .these procedures, in a modified form, can be applied to pressure grouting projects in general. Originally, oil well cementing consisted of placing a neat cement slurry about a steel casing set in a bore hole. Cement is used about these casings to protect them from the corrosive effects of ground waters, to protect the oil and gas zones from encroachment of undesired water from other levels, to prevent the blowing out of high pressure oil and gas zones from shallow levels, and to strengthen generally and support the casing being placed in the bore hole. After the bore hole is completed to the desired depth, casing is run into the well, pumps are attached to this casing and circulation of the mud fluid in the hole is established; this circulation being from the inside of the casing into the annulus about the casing, and thence back to the surface. Next, a cement slurry is mixed and pumped into the inside of the casing string, A plug, which acts as a piston within the casing, is placed above the cement slurry. This is to separate the top of the cement slurry from mud or water which is used to shove the cement down through the casing and out into the annulus. This plug further serves the purpose of shutting off against a baffle in the bottom end of the casing string, thus stopping the flow of cement out of the casing and leaving the shoe, or lower end of the casing, surrounded by cement and also filling the annulus there above. Casing strings cemented in the above described manner may vary in length from a few feet of large diameter pipe to very long lengths of smaller pipe. As of the present date the longest string of casing which has yet been cemented is some 16,600 ft deep. As a general rule, the deeper the well and the more cement slurry used, the higher the pressures which are required to place the slurry. In parts of West Texas, it is not uncommon to use 4000 sacks to cement a single string of casing in place. Machinery used to mix the cement and place it into the casing is mounted on heavy duty, powerfully equipped trucks which are capable of negotiating any type of highway or country roads. These trucks

Jan 1, 1949

By J. Robert Van Peli

IT was a strange but highly fruitful marriage-that union of hardy explorers, seeking the rich treasures of copper in the Lake Superior wilderness, with Boston's aristocracy of brains, capital, and enterprise. This historic wedlock, which has continued happily to the present day, was the means by which the wealth of Lake Superior's copper was won for the use and benefit of an expanding America. One branch of this family tree, the western branch, begins with prehistoric Indian miners, embraces the early French explorers of the Upper Lakes, and finally includes the British and American pioneers who reduced the vague rumors of copper to known fact and actually began the mining of copper in the wilderness. The other branch, the New England line, begins

Jan 1, 1948

By Charles W. Bloomquist

The profitability of miscible flooding in a hypothetical target oilfield is examined. The major costs, including Windfall Prof it Tax, are identified and their re1ative importance are discussed. The sensitivity of profit to important physical and economic variables is evaluated and discussed, including variance in oil recovery, oil price, injectant requirements, injectant cost, and capital requirements. Economic sensitivities to important development and operating decisions such as timing, Spacing, Slug size, and gas recycling are also analyzed. The Windfall Profit Tax (WPT) as it applies to gas miscible EOR projects is reviewed. The effect of WPT on each of the various project cases is analyzed and the effect of reduced WPT on remaining production from existing operations is evaluated. Tax implications are compared for integrated vs. "independent" controlled projects and the alternative of expensing vs. capitalizing tertiary injectants is also evaluated. The impact of the Net Income Limitation in reducing WPT. during early and late project life is determined and discussed.

Jan 1, 1982

By A. Gatti

A dispersion of AI2O3 was produced within chromium by the hydrogen reduction of a solid solution of Cr2U3-A1203. The yesulting powder. was compacted, extruded, and the material tested in tension at various temperatures and in creep at 1800°F. The material is ductile above 1200°F and is at least twice as strong as electrolytic chvomium at all temperatures. Its creep resistance, rupture strength, and ductility at 1800°F warrant further work to improve its Low -temperatutre properties. BECAUSE of its high melting point and excellent corrosion resistance, chromium has long been considered as a base for high-temperature alloys. Most chromium base alloys, however, are extremely brittle at low temperatures. Elements such as nickel and iron lower the melting point of chromium and thereby limit its high-temperature usefulness. Chromium-alumina materials made by othersl, 2 have shown good high-temperature creep resistance but poor ductility and thermal shock resistance. Pure ductile chromium3 is weak at high temperatures and reverts to a brittle state if exposed to nitrogenous atmospheres. In sintered aluminum powder (SAP)4 and internally oxidized alloys of silver, copper, and nickel, fine dispersions of oxide phases can control hardness, recrystallization, and yield stress. The possibility of formation of a ductile, high-strength material by precipitating dispersions of alumina in a chromium matrix appears worthy of investigation. MATERIAL Powder Production—Chromium oxide and alumina in amounts to produce a final alloy of Cr + 16 pct AI2O3 by weight were colloid milled, filtered, dried and high fired for 16 hr at 1600°C in air. The resulting solid solution of oxides was ball-milled to a fine powder and the chromium oxide reduced to chromium by heating in pure dry hydrogen for 64 hr at 1400°C. Final Materials Produced by Powder Metallurgy Techniques—-Chromium powder, containing a disper-sion of alumina, was pressed into 1 1/8-in. diam slugs at 25 tons per sq in. and sintered 16 hr at 1400° C in pure dry hydrogen. The sintered slugs were encased in a stainless steel can, 2 in. in diam, and extruded at 1200° C through a 1/2-in. die. The 16 to 1 extrusion ratio produced a final chromium-alumina rod 1/4 in. in diam about 30 in. long. Samples of the rod were plunge-ground to small rupture bars of 0.82-in. gage length with a 0.01-sq-in. cross section. RESULTS Microstructure Studies—Fig. 1 is the microstruc-ture of the material in the as-sintered condition while Fig. 2 is the microstructure of the material as-extruded. Comparison of the as-sintered and as-extruded micrographs show the redistribution and realignment of the alumina inclusions by the extrusion

Jan 1, 1961

By C. H. Burgess

ON June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall in a speech at Harvard University outlined a plan for the economic recovery of Europe. The plan contemplated that the United States should provide assistance which would enable the European nations better to help themselves and to help each other to reconstitute from their war-torn lands conditions which would make possible decent standards of living. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1948 was passed in April of that year, and established the Eco-

Jan 10, 1950

By Frank Fahrenwald

INTRODUCTORY A COMPLETE list of the elements as given for 1915 includes 18 that melt above 1,700° C. There does not exist one complete thermal equilibrium diagram for any pair of these 18 elements. Several of these elements have been combined, in relatively small proportions, with metals of lower melting point: e.g., tungsten, molybdenum, and vanadium, in steels, or with nickel and cobalt; but of this refractory group, platinum is the only one that has been extensively studied in this connection. When one considers that, with few exceptions, the industries have made use of alloys to the exclusion of pure .metals, it is reasonable to expect that alloys of this refractory group will invade fields in which the pure metals have found little application. The past neglect of this class of metals has, no doubt, been partly due to the rarity of some of them, for even though alloys of very valuable properties should be developed, their cost, unless in exceptional applications, would be prohibitive. There is also a well-founded reluctance to undertake research involving very high temperatures which, in the case of most of these elements, must be accompanied by an inert atmosphere as well. This combination of high temperatures* and control of atmosphere within the heating chamber of any furnace of present design is a difficult problem. It is the purpose of this paper to give results,1 of an investigation of one binary series of this group, in which methods were employed that avoided the usual difficulties accompanying high-temperature alloy investigation.

Jan 6, 1916

By Craig S. Hartley

Expressions are obtained for the energy changes associated with the reaction of (a& (111) slip dislocations on intersecting (110)planes in anisotropic bcc metals. An energy criterion for assessing the likelihood of dissociation of the products of such reactions is also presented. It is found that the "burrier reactions" which form a(100) dislocations at the intersection of two active {110) slip planes are more energetically favorable in metals which exhibit a high value of Zener's anisotropy factor, A, than those which have a low value. The results are presented in a form which permits the stacking fault energy to be obtained from a measurement of the separation between par-tials in a dissociated configuration. However, until accurate calculations or measurements of the stacking fault energies involved are available, it is not possible to assess the physical importance of dissociated dislocations. In a recent paper,' the energy changes associated with several types of reactions between two slip dislocations, (a/2)(111){110), in bcc structures were calculated.* Isotropic elasticity and the approxima- tion v = -3- were employed. The purpose of this work is to present calculations of the energy changes for many of the same reactions using anisotropic elasticity. The problem of dissociation of a(100) and a(110) dislocations is also considered, and maximum fault energies for which dissociation will be energetically favorable are calculated for several bcc metals. Two general types of reactions are considered; those for which the reactant (a/2)(111) dislocations have long-range attractive forces and those for which the reverse is true. An example of the former is: (a/2)[lll] + (a/2)[lll]-a[l00] while the latter are typified by: (a/2)[lll] + (a/2)[111] -a[011] Only reactants lying in different slip planes are considered; therefore, the products must lie along (111) or (100) directions, which are the intersection of two {llO} planes. It will be assumed that the reactants and products are infinitely long parallel dislocations, since in this case the energy change associated with the reactions is a maximum.' THEORY The self-energy per unit length of a straight mixed dislocation in an anisotropic medium can be written? where b is the Burgers vector, K is an appropriate combination of the single-crystal elastic constants, and R and ro are, respectively, outer and inner cut-off radii of the elastic solution. The energy given by Eq. [I] does not account for any variation of the core energy with orientation. This could be manifested by an orientation dependence of the core radius or, equivalently, the Peierls width, of the dislocation. However, the energy contribution due to this source is expected to be small, and current models of the dislocation core are not sufficiently accurate to justify such a refinement. It has already been shown that for the isotropic case the energy contributions due to nonzero tractions across the cores of the reactants and products exactly cancel one another in the reaction.' Accordingly, it will be assumed that this contribution to the total energy change in the anisotropic case is small. In the subsequent discussion it is also assumed that the core radii of the reactant and product dislocation are the same and that, where stacking faults are formed, the faulted region is bounded by the centers of the partials. Consequently only changes in elastic energy due to the reactions will be considered. When the dislocation is parallel to either the (111) or the (100) directions, K may be written:375 K = (Ke sin2 a + Ks cos2 a) [2] where K, and Ks are the combination of elastic constants corresponding to an edge and screw dislocation lying along the same direction as the mixed dislocation, and a is the angle between the direction tangent to the dislocation line and the Burgers vector. Eq. [2] should not be confused with the isotropic approximation to the variation in energy with line Orientation.6 It should be noted that the essentially isotropic expression for K is a result of the characteristic symmetry of the (111) and (100) directions and is not, in general, valid for other dislocation directions in anisotropic cubic metals. The energy* change for a reaction in which the re- actant and product dislocations are parallel perfect dislocations can be written: where Ep and E, refer to the self-energies of the products and reactants, respectively. For dislocations parallel to (100) and (111) directions, Eq. [3] becomes:

Jan 1, 1969

NEW YORK LOCAL SECTION Executive Committee Louis D. HUNTOON, Chairman ARTHUR S. DWIGHT, Vice-Chairman THOMAS T. READ, Secretary, Woolworth Bldg., New York, N. Y. E. MALTBY SHIPP, Treasurer GEORGE F. KUNZ W. DE L. BENEDICT Meeting, Jan. 16, .1914 A meeting of the New York Local Section of the American Institute of Mining Engineers was held at the Engineering Societies Building, 29 West 39th Street, New York City, Jan 16 1914 the Chairman, -L. D. Huntoon, presiding. Forty members weld present. In the absence of the Secretary, C. A. Bohn was appointed Secretary pro teen. N. H. Darton, Geologist of the U. S. Geological Survey, delivered an address on. The Occurrence of Gas in Coal, illustrated by lantern slides of charts, curves, and tables showing various features of gas occurrences. J. W. Richards, J. T. Beard, W. L. Saunders, L. D. Huntoon, and Mr. Darton participated in the discussion which followed the address. THOMAS T. READ; Secretary.

Jan 3, 1914

By Clemens Catesby Jones

One of the achievements of the present century has been the development of brick-making from the crude and humble handicraft of the individual to a potential industry employing machinery, requiring immense capital, and now demanding that scientific direction which will finally raise it to the importance and dignity of a modern industrial process. It is as yet in the first stages of progress in this direction. The constant obstacle to a fully developed process has been the treat-

Jan 1, 1901

By Walter C. Holmes

IN the recently published book entitled "Man in a Chemical World," by A. Cressy Morrison, the several pages discussing explosives were included in the chapter on "Serving Industry." Such a classification is entirely correct, as blasting explosives function only as a tool for accomplishing certain useful work, a tool which is completely destroyed in one use. Explosives are so important to industry and to modern society, in fact, that it seems impossible to imagine the existence of civilized nations without access to commercial explosives as ready servants. Two main types of explosives are now in use, the low-velocity or deflagrating type, such as black powder, which is adapted for use in coal mining and other applications where a slow, heaving effect is desired, and high explosives of the dynamite type,

Jan 1, 1938

By D. M. Bondurant

AT the present time, the coal industry is greatly interested in any method or machine that will cut the cost of producing a ton of coal, while at the same time producing a product of quality and grade suitable to the customer. Comparatively new and, as yet, little known, auger mining is proving a profitable method of coal recovery. It may be used for the production of low-cost, high-quality coal with equal success from both the hard-to-mine seams, those with banded impurities and bad roof conditions, and the more easily mined seams as classified according to conventional mining methods. A number of units are now in operation and production information is available that should be of particular interest to coal operators and of general interest to anyone associated with the coal-mining industry. Auger mining refers to coal extraction with large size augers capable of drilling to great depths and having a high capacity. Consideration of the equipment and methods used in drilling an ordinary shot-hole will give a picture of auger mining on a smaller scale. At present, auger mining is used largely for recovery of coal from the highwall after strip mining becomes uneconomical because of the type and the thickness of the overburden which must be moved. Coal augers have many of the advantages of present continuous mining machines, along with many more. The four distinct operations of conventional mining-—cutting, drilling, shooting, and loading— are eliminated and replaced by the combined operation of boring and conveying of the coal. The coal recovery auger is an adaptation of the horizontal rock drill used for drilling shot-holes to shatter and loosen overburden in strip mining operations. During the war the Becker County Sand and Gravel Co. of Summersville, W. Va., experimented with drilling coal with 6 and 9-in. rock augers. The results led to the successive development of the 20, 24, 30 and the 36-in. machines, the latter having appeared in the coal fields within the past six months. Because of the great success of the smaller size

Jan 1, 1952