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By G. Nino de Guzman, L. C. Woollacott

The isotherms that are usually taken to represent the force 'driving' the adsorption in carbon-in-pulp processes may change from contactor to contactor. This paper reports on an investigation into the extent to which this Isotherm shift is Influenced by the changes in oxygen and cyanide concentration that occur in operating plants. The impact of the isotherm shift on the reliability of simulation results is examined.

Jan 1, 1993

By Tom Bruington

This paper discusses the accuracy of determining the quantities of gold and silver on activated carbon in various stages of process for typical precious metals flowsheets. Accurate plant performance evaluation depends upon reliable estimates of carbon and precious metals inventories. The sources of sampling error are identified and methods of reducing them discussed. Several case studies illustrating the sensitivity of flowsheet performance to sampling error are presented.

Jan 1, 1991

By Jiang Shuguang, Zhang Huicheng, Wang Xingshen

Based on the experience about determination of properties of the main fan in mine shaft, this paper relates at length how to reasonablly select test system, test methods and test instruments, how to appraise the reliability of determination results, and how to effectively control the adjusted air etc. The merits and demerits of the two methods of determining air with Nine- Anemometer and Pitot meter are compared.

Jan 1, 1991

By John A. Reeves

The unit-train concept of moving raw materials .is considered by many railroad men as the most signifigant contribution to reducing rail freight costs since the introduction of the diesel locomotive. The idea, which involves assigning railroad equipment to only one haul and keeping the equipment rolling results in the maximum utilization of equipment. For example before the unit train was plaged in servige on coal hauled to one of Mid. Continent's customers, about 900 cars and 9 locomotives were needed to move the coal requirements for this plant, compared with. 250 cars and 6 locomotives used by the present scheduling of unit trains. If the economics of unit-train movements are to be achieved, coal companies no longer can use railroad cars as small storage bins on wheels to accumulate their coal in trainload shipments, but, rather, must build large bins which incorporate facilities for the rapid loading of railroad cars in a minimum length of time. In this manner railroad equipment is operated at a high degree of efficiency 'with consequent dollar savings. After negotiations between Mid-Continent, the customers and the Railroad, it was decided a unit train loadout and storage facility at Carbondale was required in order to reduce the delivered price of coal to the customers and thereby contribute to the reduction in the cost of manufacturing steel. Carbondale was selected as the bin site location, because the cost of constructing a railroad to Redstone could not be justified for the tonnages anticipated.

Jan 1, 1969

By B. Cavender

Mining managers trying to rapidly reduce production costs tend to implement a traditional set of topdown managerial practices: reductions in production volume, employee layoffs, renegotiation of supplier contracts, cancellation of employee training, restrictions on travel, reductions in office supplies, and so forth. While these practices do reduce costs, the benefits are often limited in both magnitude and duration, and the workforce is usually left demoralized. Successful cost-cutters take a different approach. They make the continuous reduction of costs a priority for all members of the organization, whether managers or workers. The culture of these firms emphasizes the commitment, voluntarily given, of individuals and work groups to this goal. Cost-cutting practices often reject all of the traditional methods mentioned above, but are far more numerous, innovative and successful. This culture of cost reduction is the result of a set of leadership competencies that establish direction for the organization, align the organization's various constituencies with this direction, and motivate and inspire the organization. Cost reduction then becomes a routine task rather than a heroic achievement.

Jan 1, 2002

By H. Cui

Rapid technological development has caused an increase in the demand for rare earths. Ancylite, a strontium rare earth carbonate, is a potentially significant source of rare earths. In this research paper, essential aspects of the magnetic separation and flotation processes for Bear Lodge ore are presented. A flowsheet is proposed based on an optimization of the variables and flotation simulation. The economic feasibility of the proposed processing operation is analyzed.

By Yazn Khasawneh Ph. D. P. E., Will Tjaden, Spencer E. Ness P. E., Mohammed Nasim Ph. D. P. E.

Wind turbine components undergo many loading cycles during their operational life. Additionally, wind turbines may undergo extreme loading conditions from natural hazards, mechanical failures, or emergency stops. Current design practice for the foundations of wind turbines accounts for these complex loading conditions through a simplified pseudo-static approach based structural loading combinations. A rotational stiffness for the foundation is estimated from the pseudo-static analysis and then compared to an acceptable minimum rotational stiffness provided by the turbine manufacturer. These minimum rotational stiffnesses are based on dynamic analysis of the tower and nacelle system with the foundation represented as linear springs. This approach provides a reasonable approach to the foundation design but does not accurately capture the true dynamic performance of the entire soil-foundation-tower-nacelle system. This becomes especially important for pier-type foundations, which are being more commonly used to support modern and future generations of larger turbines. Additionally, the dynamic performance of the foundation will vary as the adjacent soil undergoes a large number of loading cycles of varying strain magnitudes. In this study, the full turbine-tower-foundation-soil system was modeled using finite element methods. An advanced non-linear soil constitutive model and dynamic loading time histories were used to investigate changes in stiffness of the soil, and the possible impact on the dynamic response of the system. Results were compared to conventional design methodologies with the goal of reducing foundation capital costs while avoiding increases in O&M costs and which can lower the LCOE of wind energy.

Oct 1, 2022

By M. Marinov

The Bulgarian deposits of quartz-kaolin raw materials are localized in the NE Bulgaria. For many years, the quartz-kaolin sand separation has been performing by water washing technology. After wet separation the raw material yields two products ? washed kaolin (different grades) and quartz sand (different grades). Research and development program has started to improve the quartz-kaolin sand separation. The program has undertaken an increasing of processing capacity, to decrease the losses in the tailings and to provide production of new quartz sand grades. The kaolin-silica raw materials from Vetovo open mine and the technological tailings from Vetovo processing plant were characterized. It was established that there are a lot of losses of quartz in final tailings. New approach on kaolin-silica raw material separation was tested in laboratory scale. The test work was performed on Derrick Stacksizer screening machines. The results of laboratory experiment show that there are possibilities to increase the quartz sand recovery and to start the production new grade sand. The full-scale pilot test was performed including the following units: two Derrick Stacksizer screening machines equipped with 0.430 mm and 0.150 mm opening Derrick Urethane Panel, respectively; Flat bottom DN 500 Hydrocyclone and DN 100 Hydrocyclon. The pilot test data clearly demonstrate that the Derrick Stacksizer screening machines are suitable for Bulgarian silica-kaolin raw material. Based on the test data a new quartz-kaolin separation technology was developed. The new technology was introduced in Vetovo processing plant increasing processing capacity and decreasing the losses of quartz in final tailings. Additionally the production of silica sand grade PK 0.16 is increased and starts the production a new grade PK 0.10.

Sep 1, 2012

"How Wall Street Darling Molycorp Undermined the U.S. Economy, Degraded our National Security and Distorted the Global Economic Balance and How These Falsehoods Continue to be Promoted Even Today INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY In 2007 the Molycorp Mountain Pass rare earth mine was resurrected from its desert-grave in California by its then-owner Chevron Mining. Responding to elevated rare earth prices Chevron began processing on-site rare earth concentrates left over from past mining operations that were terminated in 1998i. Chinese demand had sparked what was being described as a commodities super-cycleii. Commodity prices were on the move. Wall Street smelled opportunity. In 2008 Goldman Sachs, Pegasus Partners, Resource Capital Funds, Traxys North America LLC and Carint Group LLC acquired the mining assets from Chevron. In an environment of ever-declining ethical standards and regulatory consequences the private capital group and their investment bankers would bring Molycorp to market. Molycorp, with its high powered investment banking team of Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morganiii, easily dominated the contest. Molycorp promoted itself, largely based on its past operating history and proven reserves, as the best company to challenge China’s monopoly control over the production of rare earths: a group of elements critical to most advanced technologies and U.S. defense systemsiv. Most of Wall Street’s hottest investment sectors were dependent on these materials: alternative energy, green technologies, computing, personal communications, advanced electronics and defense systems. By late 2010 there were dozens of prospective rare earth start-up ‘mining companies’ seeking capital. Eventually the number of prospective rare earth mining companies seeking capital exceeded 400, despite the reality that supply requirements of this market were disproportionally small when compared to other natural resource sectorsv. In the world of finance ‘smart money’ picks the winners. Consequently just twovi projects attracted nearly all of the capital (Molycorp and Lynas). Wall street picked Molycorpvii. This paper will primarily focus on Molycorp. By early 2010 the words “Molycorp” and “Rare Earths” electrified many people in the mining industry, most non-Chinese manufacturing technology companies, U.S. & allied defense contractors, technocrats in the U.S. national security community and eager investors across most of the world’s stock markets. It was the hottest story of the yearviii. The financial, technology and defense press coverage verged on euphoric: heaping fuel on fuel until the highly combustible Molycorp-pyre cast a long shadow over all of its rivalsix. When the IPO match was lit the spectacular flaming pyre sucked all of the oxygen out of the rare earth spacex. Molycorp was ranked the most lucrative IPO of 2010, resulting in record breaking profits to its private investors and massive returns for its early stock holding investors."

Jan 1, 2017

By G. K. Nimal Subasinghe

The performance of Knelson Concentrators (KC) used in gravity gold circuits often rely on manufacturers recommendations for selecting operating parameters such as, fluidising water flow rate and cycle time. These parameters are not only dependent on the machine parameters but also on the feed characteristics such as, size distribution of the gold and gangue particles and the composition of its constituent minerals. Particles entering a KC experience a centrifugal acceleration due to the high bowl rotational speeds. The required centripetal force to maintain a circular orbit is provided by the fluid drag force created by inwardly moving fluidising water and the Bagnold?s force arising from the particle/particle collisions. When the fluidising water flow rate is low particles move towards the outer rim of the bowl forming a packed bed within the grooves. On the other hand, if the fluidizing water flowrate is high the bed expands and some particles would move towards the centre of the bowl and gets carried to the tailings stream, thereby reducing the amount of material retained within the grooves of the bowl. Based on a force balance on a particle captured within the KC, a criterion which can be used to predict the amount of material recovered in the bowl has been derived and validated by experimental data. It has been shown that this criterion may be used to demarcate the transition of the bed from a packed-bed state to a fluidised state depending on the fluidizing water flowrate. By identifying the conditions for the optimal expansion of the bed comprising different constituent mineral particles, it is possible to estimate the optimal fluidising water flow rate that would maximise gold recovery while minimising gangue recovery. It was also observed that the accumulation of valuable mineral in the bowl takes place by the displacement of the gangue particles in the bed by the incoming heavy mineral particles. The kinetics of this segregation process was also studied using synthetic mineral mixtures. The experimental data suggests that this process follows first order kinetics and that the build up of heavy mineral reaches a maximum which could be used to identify the optimal cycle time. In this work, the suitability of the above model in optimizing the performance of a KC have been reviewed. Also the necessity and merits of testing an unaltered feed samples in a larger KC as op-posed to the commonly adopted GRG test has been discussed.

Jan 1, 2014

By P. A. Wasson

Drill cores from 15 holes in the West Central Mesabi Range were studied as part of the Lake Superior iron resource investigation begun in 1957 by the Bureau of Mines. Chemical, petrographic, and metallurgical analyses were made to determine grade, mineralogy, magnetic characteristics, and response to beneficiation. Data in this report were developed to provide a better under-standing of the nature and character of low-grade iron ore occurrences, to measure potential of usable ore, and to provide a basis for comparison with bank samples previously taken in the same general area. The average iron content of 4,445 feet of core was 31.8 percent. Iron oxides present were hematite, goethite, and magnetite; the gangue minerals were chiefly quartz, iron silicate, and iron-bearing carbonates.

Jan 1, 1962

By Eduardo R. Rodrigues, Ankur Narang, Roberto Federico Ausas, U. T. Mello, Jose Maria Segura Serra, M. R. Lakshmikantha, Ignacio Carol, Kamal C. Das

"Modeling of big faults or weak planes of strong and weak discontinuities is of major importance to assess the Geomechanical behaviour of mining/civil tunnel, reservoirs etc. For modelling fractures in Geomechanics, prior art has been limited to Interface Elements which suffer from numerical instability and where faults are required to be aligned with element edges. In this paper, we consider comparative study on finite elements for capturing strong discontinuities by means of elemental (EFEM) and nodal enrichments (XFEM) for Geomechanical applications. For general fracture scenarios, Oliver et al. (2008) have demonstrated advantages of EFEM over XFEM for including: (a) ease of modeling in any standard finite element code due to the possibility of static condensation, (b) higher accuracy in some cases for coarse meshes, and, (c) a reduced computational cost. However, there has been no work that considers cohesive fractures in Geomechanics. We present a numerical analysis based on a linear constitutive model and linear triangular elements for the bulk and a linear constitutive behaviour for the fault for a representative set of fault planes in a circular tunnel made in rock mass. In the numerical examples we consider both well-traced and bad-traced meshes. We focus on traction profile analysis for both EFEM and XFEM, since that is crucial to understand the cohesive fracture behaviour specially rock joint. Therefore in each case, shear, normal and stress ratio are compared across the two methods along the fault plane. This is the first such work that compares XFEM and EFEM behaviour for Geomechanics problems.For the considered class of problems and the sharp penalization approach without regularizations adopted, it can be observed that accuracy and robustness of EFEM may strongly depend on the fault orientation with respect to the element edges, while, XFEM is independent of fault alignment with element edges. It has been also observed that, with mesh refinement model, stress oscillation completely removed with XFEM however EFEM fails to provide oscillation free results with finer mesh in case bad-traced model. We also performed error analysis and found that in case of bad-traced mesh the average error in the XFEM is 84% smaller than of EFEM and for XFEM the error goes to zero with increasing mesh resolution, while for EFEM the error increases with mesh resolution. Thus, we experimentally demonstrate that, XFEM performs better than EFEM in terms of accuracy and rate of convergence with marginal increase in computational cost. This work hence provides novel insights on the application of XFEM and EFEM in Geomechanics."

Jan 1, 2015

By M. Moats, I. E. Paschalidou, K. Awuah-Offei

Tellurium (Te) is a rare metalloid that is predominantly produced from the treatment of anode slimes formed during copper (Cu) electrolytic refining. The US Government lists Te as one of the 50 critical minerals, partly, because of its use in thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology. Given policy initiatives to increase Te production, it is important to evaluate the life-cycle environmental impacts of Te recovery as a by-product of Cu processing. The literature contains a few specific life cycle assessment (LCA) studies of groups of metals that include Te without proper regard to impacts per life-cycle stage of Te production or the effect of allocation on the results. This study builds an LCA model of the production system of Te from anode slimes treatment to evaluate the effect of allocation on life-cycle impacts. We build life cycle inventories using data from the Ecoinvent v3.7.1 database, literature, and engineering calculations and allocate impacts in proportion to products’ mass and economic value. The results show that economic value-based allocation yields greater impacts than mass-based allocation indicating the significant effect of the allocation approach on life-cycle impact estimates.

Feb 1, 2023

By Geoff Whebell, Dianne Coulthard

Sampling studies of high silver (+70%), gold dore led to the development of mine site sampling techniques and superintend­ing for the collection of samples for assay and bullion weights for settlement of shipped material. Data is presented which con­firms the reliability of the procedures against the traditional remelting and sampling at the refinery. The advantages to both mine and refiner are significant and are discussed.

Jan 1, 1998

By J. K. Wilmshurst

Absorption, emission and reflection techniques for the study of [molten] inorganic materials at high temperatures have been critically examined. In general, the reflection technique is the most satisfactory for tine study of pure materials, while the absorption, and possibly also the emission techniques, may be useful for studies of certain dilute solutions. In the present investigation infrared emission spectra for sodium nitrate and silver chloride were obtained together with absorption spectra derived from reflectivity data by the method of Robinson and Price for sodium nitrate, silver chloride, lithium and potassium fluoride and their 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1 mixtures and for solutions of zirconium tetrafluoride in lithium-potassium fluoride (1:1) and sodium-potassium fluoride (1:1). It is concluded that vibrational spectroscopy cannot give unambiguous information concerning the existence of complex ions in fused salt, mixtures.

Jan 1, 1963

By Rodolfo Dal Alva Pinto

Uma linha contínua não só melhora o conforto aos usuários, mas também melhora as condições de desgaste, fadiga e manutenção dos equipamentos ferroviários. Porém os parâmetros de soldagem devem ser bem especificados e controlados de forma a obter uma junta soldada adequada. Neste trabalho foi desenvolvida a análise dos resultados obtidos anteriormente e implementadas melhorias de desempenho no processo de soldagem aluminotérmicas de trilhos.

Aug 16, 2017

By James F. Neill, O&apos

Investigation of the Gilley fluorite deposit was based upon examinations made by several of the Bureau's mining engineers. Fluorspar was found in the dump talus of sloughed and water-filled trenches and shafts, and there were indications that faulting or other dynamic distortions favorable to deposition of this mineral in minable quality and quantity might exist. The inference was based upon a field study of the area and its comparison with fluorspar deposits in Kentucky. The proximity of this deposit to the iron furnaces at Gadsden and Birmingham was a factor that influenced its investigation, as the demand for metallurgical grades of this critical mineral is acute. The present supply for the district is obtained from out-of-State sources, and the value of any local deposit would be enhanced by the saving in freight charges. The Gilley fluorspar deposit is 17 miles east of Gadsden and 50 miles northeast of Birmingham, Ala. Mineral deposits occur as thin veinlets and small bunches of fluorite in upturned bode of siliceous limestone. The ore-bearing structure is a reverse fold, and the mineral deposit appears as a replacement along crumbled zone fractures of the contorted limestone.

Jan 1, 1950

By Chengliang Jliang, B. K. Parek, Xuxin Shao

Of the impurities present in phosphate ore, dolomite is the most difficult to remove due to the similar chemical compositions of the impurities and also adsorption of dissolved species of dolomite onto phosphate. A new amphoteric surfactant was found to be a suitable collector for separation of dolomite from phosphate. Flotation results showed that the new amphoteric collector had a high flotation selectivity for dolomite in wide pH ranges. The flotation study of francolite and dolomite in each other's supernatant demonstrated that the dissolved ions had little effect on the selectivity of the new collector, but were detrimental to the flotation separation using sodium oleate as collector. A phosphate concentrate with 35.2% P2O5 with 90% recovery was obtained using 290 g/t of the amphoteric collector from a mixture of francolite and dolomite containing 26.2% P2O5. The rejection of MgO was 81.41%.

Jan 1, 1999

By Mengxiong Guo, Xuxin Shao

The recent depressant research is summarized, and a new kind of depressant (SCO) has been put forward in this article. Using Na-oleate as a collector and SCO as a depressant, separation of dolomite and phosphate was studied. When SCO was added in the concentration range of 80 g/t to 2kg/t at pH 9.5 ± 0.2, dolomite was absolutely depressed, and apatite kept its floatability. Interestingly, in the mixture of phosphate and dolomite, the dolomite floated. The reasons for such a behavior are investigated through flotation and electrokinetic studies. It was found that the adsorption of dissolved species on dolomite and phosphate resulted in reverse flotation. A concentration of 31.59% P205 and 83.87% recovery of P205 was obtained from the mixture of phosphate and dolomite (2:1) with 26.6% P205 using 210 g/t SCO and Na-oleate 4.93*10-5 M at pH 9.

Jan 1, 1989

By Zhang You-di

A comprehensive model has been set up for surface mine long range planning. It is a system simulation model based on the oriented graph theory. Via this model, a series of mining results such as mineral and waste volume, mineral quality, mining intensity, material haulage distances, dumping area parameters and mining coat for different mining alternatives, can be derived and optimized. This model has been applied to 37 mining alternatives in several surface coal mines and proved mathematically correct and results reliable.

Jan 1, 1986