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By W. C. Coffin

The refractory linings of open-hearth steel furnaces above the bath line are subject to severe wear not only from the heat caused by the combustion of the fuel and the reactions of the bath, but also from the melting action of the gases when not controlled and directed, and from the scouring of the oxides, etc. with which the products of combustion are charged. The framework that encases or binds the furnace is made up primarily of an iron or steel pan in which the furnace proper is built, side and end buckstays, and tie-rods. The expansion and contraction are so great and variable that the bindings may be subjected to severe stresses unless the tie-rods are carefully adjusted in heating up the furnace, but they are most affected by direct heat and usually become deformed from that cause when the lining is worn thin and, sometimes, when sections of the lining fall in and expose some of the framework. A deformed framework displaces the skewback of the roof arch and tends to distort or crush the roof. Bent buckstays deform the front wall, causing the door frames to stand away from the lining so that the gases burn between the lining and the frames, destroying both of them. Frequently the frames are attached to the buckstays; then when the latter bend the frames usually break. Preventing the distortion of the framework and maintaining the economy of the refractories are real factors in the cost of steel making. Nat only does the cost of general repairs and reconstruction add directly to the cost of steel produced, but the time lost in making repairs cuts down the steel production and increases the overhead expense of both the furnace shop and its allied foundry or mills. Many years ago water-cooled equipment applied to iron blast furnaces made it possible to increase greatly not only the size and production of the furnaces but also the life of the lining. It also cut down the loss from frequent repairs. The open-hearth furnace is a much later invention, especially as a commercial factor; for though it dates from the Fred Siemens patent of 1856, much more progress was made in the Bessemer process until the latter eighties and most of the development

Jan 1, 1920

By Frederick Laist, Howard Aldrich

The object of the construction and operation of the 80-ton leaching plant was to test out the leaching of sand tailings on a large scale and, if possible, determine a definite method of operation, and the best construction for the larger unit which is now being built. It was also of importance to obtain some practical data as regards cost items. The 80-ton plant was not expected to be a commercial success. A leaching process on such low-grade material necessitates the treatment of a very large tonnage. Such a cost item as labor, for instance, is entirely out of proportion in such a small plant. The amounts of acid, salt, scrap iron, and fuel for roasting, however, are the same per ton in an 80-ton plant as in a 2,000-ton plant. These costs were definitely established. Also the percentages of extraction and grade of tailings were definitely determined for a large-sized unit. Following will be found the description of the plant, the method of operation and the- results obtained. A general view of the plant is given in Fig. 1. The bins consisted of one coal bin with a capacity of 30 tons, one salt bin with a capacity of 20 tons, and a "mill tailings" or feed bin which held 70 tons. The coal and salt bins were placed with their floor level even with the firing floor of the roasting furnace. The feed bin, to give it greater capacity, discharged about 12 ft. below this point, to a 12-in. conveyor belt, which in turn discharged into a pug mill. This fed another conveyor belt, which discharged into the top hearth of the furnace. The furnace was an ordinary six-hearth MacDougall roaster, 20 ft. in diameter. It was equipped with two fire boxes, on opposite sides, the flames entering on the third hearth. An induced draft was obtained with a Buffalo blower, worked as an exhaust fan. Just above the top hearth was an annular flue around the whole circumference of the furnace. Slots at intervals of about 18 in. led from this flue down into the top hearth. The slots were 2 in. wide by 6 in. long. This annular flue proved rather unsatisfactory, as it tended to fill up with flue dust and choke the dots, thus cutting down the draft. The volume of gas through

Jan 1, 1915

By J. Gurland, A. Gangulee

The cracking of silicon particles embedded in an aluminum matrix occurs progressively over the range of plastic deformation of the composite specimen. The fracture probability of the particles increases with increasing particle size and decreasing silicon contents. The crack orientation tends to be perpendiculay to the direction of the maximum tellsile strain. An example of a direct association between matrix slip and particle cracking is shorn. ALUMINUM-SILICON alloys of commercial compositions fail by ductile fracture in three stages:' I) initiation of cracks in the silicon particles, 2) growth of cracks into cavities, and 3) rupture of the aluminum matrix separating the cavities. The present work is concerned with the first stage: the initiation of cracks in the silicon particles. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Aluminum samples with 2.8, 6.1, 9.6, and 13.2 vol pet Si, respectively, were cast from commercial al- loys. Machined tensile specimens (2 in. gage length) were annealed in air at 1000°F for 100 hr, and then pulled at a strain rate of 0.025 per min. The grain size (average linear intercept) of the aluminum matrix was 0.24 and 1.6 mm in the 6.1 and 13.2 pet Si alloys, respectively. The particle size of silicon in alloys of one composition (6.1 pet Si) was varied by either modifying the castings with 0.15 pet Na or prolonging the annealing time. The average particle size was measured by linear and planar analysis, assuming spherical particles of uniform size. The particle sizes and compositions of all samples are tabulated in Fig. 8, together with the identifying symbols used in the graphs. The respective numbers of broken and unbroken silicon particles were determined from metallographically prepared longitudinal sections by counting a total of approximately 2000 particles per sample. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 1) Crack Initiation During Deformation as Function of Composition. Nominal stress-strain curves of four specimens of different compositions, but approximately equal particle sizes, are presented in Fig. 1. The fraction of broken particles, P (no. of broken particles/ total no. of particles), is shown in Fig. 2 as function of true stress and in Fig. 3 as function of nominal strain. The last point of each composition line in Fig. 2 rep-

Jan 1, 1968

By HENRY JULLUM

THE ARGONAUT' mill stands at the crest and spreads down the western slope' of a hill, which incidentally covers the' outcrop of the Argonaut vein' at this point. The collar of the main shaft of the mine is situated on the eastern slope of the same hill 120 ft. below the highest ?point. The present mill, built in 1916, was designed to treat 250 tons per 24-hr. day. This capacity has not been attained recently owing to the inability of the mine to produce enough ore while extensive development and underground construction were under way. At present, however, the mine is more than able to take care of the mill requirements.

Jan 1, 1932

By J. M. Stuart, G. D. Bengough, A. R. Lee

Corrosion tests should be designed so as to facilitate as far as possible the interpretation of results, consequently factors which may affect the rate of corrosion should be controlled as far as practicable, and very full data should be given regarding the conditions of the test. Among the most important factors affecting the rate of corrosion is often the rate of supply of oxygen to the metal surface. It is essential therefore to understand the mechanism by which oxygen is transferred from the liquid surface to the surface of the metal. The work of Adeney and his coworkers has thrown much light on this mechanism. They have shown1 that the aeration of deaerated water and salt solutions proceeds much more rapidly than can be accounted for by mere diffusion, and have suggested that downward "streaming" takes place from the surface of the water, due mainly to an increase of density brought about by evaporation. The evaporation reduces the temperature of the surface layer, and also increases the concentration in the case of salt solutions. The effect of evaporation in facilitating the transfer of oxygen to a metal and increasing the corrosion of the metal was shown in some experiments due to Friend.2 He tested the corrosion of mild steel plates immersed in water in glass jars, a steady stream of air being drawn over the surface of the water in the jars. The air passing through half the number of jars was saturated with moisture, that passing through the others was dried with calcium chloride. He found that "in every case the water exposed to dry air was approximately twice as corrosive as that exposed to air saturated with water vapor." Conditions for Quantitative Corrosion Tests These results show that we must either control or prevent evaporation at the liquid surface, if we wish to avoid effects on the rate of cor-

Jan 1, 1929

By A. R. Lee, G. D. Bengough, J. M. Stuart

Corrosion tests should be designed so as to facilitate as far as possible the interpretation of results, consequently factors which may affect the rate of corrosion should be controlled as far as practicable, and very full data should be given regarding the conditions of the test. Among the most important factors affecting the rate of corrosion is often the rate of supply of oxygen to the metal surface. It is essential therefore to understand the mechanism by which oxygen is transferred from the liquid surface to the surface of the metal. The work of Adeney and his coworkers has thrown much light on this mechanism. They have shown1 that the aeration of deaerated water and salt solutions proceeds much more rapidly than can be accounted for by mere diffusion, and have suggested that downward "streaming" takes place from the surface of the water, due mainly to an increase of density brought about by evaporation. The evaporation reduces the temperature of the surface layer, and also increases the concentration in the case of salt solutions. The effect of evaporation in facilitating the transfer of oxygen to a metal and increasing the corrosion of the metal was shown in some experiments due to Friend.2 He tested the corrosion of mild steel plates immersed in water in glass jars, a steady stream of air being drawn over the surface of the water in the jars. The air passing through half the number of jars was saturated with moisture, that passing through the others was dried with calcium chloride. He found that "in every case the water exposed to dry air was approximately twice as corrosive as that exposed to air saturated with water vapor." Conditions for Quantitative Corrosion Tests These results show that we must either control or prevent evaporation at the liquid surface, if we wish to avoid effects on the rate of cor-

Jan 1, 1929

By A. C. England, William F. Haney, Paul B. Crawford, Bobby L. Landrum

The creation of unsymmetrical vertical or horizontal fractures in a producing well will result in a unique distortion of the normal shut-in pressures existing at the four surrounding wells. An electrical model study has been made to show how the shut-in pressures at the wells surrounding the fractured producing well may he used to estimate the size and orientation of vertical or horizontal fractures. The pressure differences at the four surrounding wells are recorded during production from the fractured well. The resulting pressure dato are matched from a table of several hundred possible fracture combinations. The table refers to the figure showing the effective size and orientation of the commercially created fracture. INTRODUCTION The creation of commercial fractures about oil and gas wells has led to considerable speculation as to the size and shape of the fractures. It is important that the size and shape be known in certain instances, especially when pressure maintenance programs are to be initiated. It was shown that if knowledge of a vertical fracture could be found that such information may be utilized in planning a waterflooding or gas cycling program and that in some cases the fractures might be utilized very effectively.' Other work showed that it may be desirable to create "pancake" fractures in certain reservoirs but that they should exist in a desirable range.' If the fractures are too large, they should be plugged prior to initiating a pressure maintenance program. If an irregular shaped "pancake" fracture is created, it is desirable to know the orientation of this fracture because similar but unreported studies have shown that "pancake" fractures may or may not substantially affect the sweep efficiencies and performance of the flooding or cycling program. Consequently, it may be desirable in some instances to estimate the effective size and orientation of the fracture. ANALOG An electrical model was used in making this study. The electrical model consisted of a circular reservoir approximately 8 in. in diameter, 1 in. thick and was filled with a dilute salt solution. A copper band formed the periphery of the reservoir. A vertical fracture was simulated by a copper strip soldered to the wire well located in the center of the reservoir. Vertical copper strips of various lengths and orientation were soldered to the wire well to represent vertical fractures in the reservoir. In studies reported here on vertical fractures it was arbitrarily assumed that two fractures originated at the well and extended out into the reservoir. An electrical potential was imposed between the wire well and the periphery of the tank. Plots of the iso-potentials are shown in Figs. 1 through 9. This model provides the steady-state isopotentials existing in a uniform, homogeneous circular reservoir having a vertically fractured well at its center. The permeability of the fracture is much greater than the permeability of the matrix proper. The effects of gravity are neglected. In preparing Tables 1 and 2, four symmetrically located unfractured wells were assumed to exist around

Jan 1, 1956

By W. M. Peirce

THE PROCESSES USED FOR THE rolling of zinc are not novel or unique in a mechanical sense. There has not been so widespread a tendency toward heavy slabs and mechanical handling, and toward 3-high and continuous mills as has taken place with steel and with some of the other nonferrous metals. Those respects in which the rolling of zinc differs from the rolling of other metals center around two facts. First, the hexagonal zinc crystal has only one plane of easy slip: namely, the basal plane. Fortunately, however, the crystal twins readily on any of the pyramidal planes, thereby creating new basal planes favorably oriented for relief of the stress which has caused twinning. Second, the recrystallization temperature of zinc is little above room temperature and for very pure grades of zinc may in fact, be at room temperature for severely strained material. The practical effect of these two characteristics of zinc will become evident in the later discussion. First, it is necessary to give some attention to the melting and casting of billets for rolling. Reverberatory furnaces are commonly used for melting. These vary over a wide range of capacity from as low as 5 tons to 100 tons or over. Low-frequency electric furnaces have also been used with satisfactory results. Arc Furnaces are, of course unsuited to a low-melting and lute-boiling metal, such as zinc. To minimize oxidation and volatilization losses in the furnace, the temperature should be kept below 500°C. With this temperature in the melting furnace, a suitable pouring temperature in the neighborhood of 460°C can he maintained at the mold when a transfer ladle is used for pouring.

Jan 1, 1948

By Everett H. Graff, Ray H. Misener

THE Sol de Oro mine is in the province of Nazca, 487 km. southeast of Lima, and 60 km. inland from the coast at an elevation of 1200 m. above sea level. From Lima the mine may be reached in 8 hr. by automobile; 472 km. from Lima to Nazca over the paved Pan-American Highway and 15 km. from Nazca to the mine over a good graveled road. The trip from Lima can also be made in 2 hr. via the Faucett Air Lines which make two stops weekly at Nazca. The [Compania] Aurifera Nazca, owning and operating the Sol de Oro mine, was organized in Lima in 1930 by a group of prominent Peruvian mining men, including Ing. Carlos Alvarez Calderon, Dr. Alfredo Alvarez Calderón, Ing. Hector Boza, Ing. Jorge Félix Remy, Ing. Eulogio Femandini, Sr. Fernando Wiese, and Sr. Julio East. The nine claims in the Sol de Oro group owned by the company comprise an area of 52 square kilometers. Development of the property was not started until 1932 and only then under adverse conditions, owing to lack of transportation facilities. Mining machinery and other supplies could be taken as far as Ica by boat and railroad, but to transport them over the 180 km. of hot, sandy desert from Ica to the mine was a problem. There was no road in those days and only a few of the most venturesome truck drivers cared to contract the hauling. Another problem the company had to face was that of securing adequate labor. The Sol de Oro is in an agricultural region, and was forced to look to the near-by cotton plantations for men. Experienced men were imported from the "sierras," but they did not stay. The men are accustomed to high altitudes and cold climate and cannot easily acclimate themselves to the hot and arid coastal region. As a consequence the company has been forced to hire the inexperienced local laborers and train them for mining. The company has established three separate camps at the Sol de Oro property. Each is approximately one kilometer from the other and connected by auto road. The upper mine camp consists of living quarters for 300 workmen and their families, a general mine office, carpenter shop and timber-framing shed, compressor house, drill-sharpening and drill-repair shop, first-aid station, time office, school and store. At the central or "empleados" camp there is a 200-ton cyanide plant, general offices, warehouse, powerhouse, shops, laboratory, hospital, school, guest house, an 18-room hotel for the single staffmen, and 12 completely modern five-room cottages for the married staff employees. At the lower camp are living quarters for 200 workmen and their families, two general stores, a school and a small theater. Below this camp, along the river, are the company wells and pumping plant supplying water for mine, mill, and camp uses.

Jan 1, 1945

By E. H. Lancaster, M. E. Mitchell

A MUD-conditioning program found to be very effective for drilling and completion operations on routine field wells requiring relatively short drilling time involves a moderate alkaline-tannate-bentonite treatment resulting in an ultimate filtration rate of 10.0 cc or less (API test). Mud weight schedules are planned from pressure information on completed wells in producing reservoirs and drill-stem test data obtained on other zones not being produced at present. In general, terminal mud viscosities average 45 sec (Marsh). This value has been found to be sufficient to remove cuttings from the well bore on the average well, with the slush pumps in general use on the rigs. On field wells requiring drilling times in excess of approximately 30 days, an alkaline-tannate-lime-bentonite treatment has been effective in maintaining desirable viscosities and filtration rates with a substantial reduction in chemical costs. This system has shown particular advantage on heavily weighted muds and those with abnormal flow-line temperatures. For the most part, the chemical treatment utilized in wildcat drilling follows closely the program used on field wells, depending on depth and duration of drilling operations. Wildcat mud programs are planned from information available from various geologic and operational sources, taking into consideration the possibility of encountering mud problems of a special nature in the wildcat area. Careful planning of wildcat mud pro- grams has proved to have definite value in avoiding most serious mud problems. An analysis and recommended treatment are presented on several special. mud problems which have been encountered in the area in the past. Those problems discussed are lost circulation, blowouts, sloughing shale, excessive chloride contamination, sulphate contamination, and prevention and correction of cement contamination. Introduction Drilling-mud control in the Southwest Texas area, in general, does not involve the multiplicity of problems encountered in other coastal areas. For instance, it is rare that a mixture of problems such as lost circulation, abnormal pressure, severe sloughing shale, and others, occurs on one well within close enough limits in vertical depth not to be taken care of by a sensible casing program, together with a relatively clear-cut mud program. There are conditions such as the fairly widespread occurrence of abnormal pressure in the lower Frio and Vicksburg zones, and the tendency for sloughing shale in the Jackson section which make for rather expensive mud control. However, the availability of fairly accurate geologic and operational information makes possible a reasonable degree of standardization on mud treatment over a relatively large area. It may be said that, over most of this area where drilling is currently in progress, the natural mud made is very poor in quality, but responds readily to moderate chemical treatment to yield very good wall-building characteristics. AS far as field development drilling is concerned, the mud engineer's principal job, once the routine treatment best

Jan 1, 1949

By C Gunther

In the examination of an undeveloped prospect a decision must be arrived at from an inspection of the outcrops and the exposures in a few shallow pits. Prospects that are offered for sale rarely expose any important quantity of good ore, work having usually been stopped when the immediate exploration no longer yielded favorable results. It should be borne in mind, furthermore, that a great majority of prospects have been examined many times, and if of conspicuous promise, would have been acquired for development. In most cases the problem for the engineer, therefore, is to discover the traces of a valuable mineralization that has disappeared through solution, or the conditions that indicate the possibility, or probability, of underlying secondary enrichments. The available data being meager, every feature should be the subject of careful study-the condition of the outcrop, the structural relationships, the associations of minerals, the alterations of wall rocks, the chances for underlying enrichments, and so forth, as well as the actual assay value of the material exposed. It is frequently advisable to spend the time and money necessary to have trenches dug at various significant points along a promising outcrop; such exposures, even if the depth attained is slight, often disclose conditions that are not apparent at the actual surface, as for example, the existence of soft minerals and the distribution of the various minerals through the mass of the deposit. Trenches also permit samples to be taken from points that were not accessible during former examinations. Strong, persistent outcrops of uniform width may be taken to indicate the probable size and character of the underlying vein,

Jan 1, 1932

By E. L. Raymond

The effect of heat treatment on the microstructure and resultant notch-bar rupture life of ZNCONEL alloys X- 750 and 718 was studied. It was found that the primary effect of heat treatment in rendering these alloys notch-ductile is the elimination of any y' denuded zone adjacent to the pain boundaries. The mechanisms by which such a denuded zone can arise and be eliminated by heat treatment are discussed. InCONEL Ni-Cr alloy X-750 and INCONEL Ni-Cr alloy 718 are age-hardenable austenitic materials. Alloy X-750 is used for its corrosion and oxidation resistance and high creep-rupture strength up to 1500°F. Alloy 718 is used most effectively up to 1300°F. One of the most important areas in their development has been establishment of consistently good rupture properties, especially in the presence of a stress concentration, such as imposed by a notch. A desire to improve these properties has led to extensive studies of the effect of heat treatment on the micro structure of these alloys and their performance in stress-rupture tests. In earlier investigations"~ of INCONEL* alloy X-750, *INCONEL i s a Registered Trademark of The International Nickel Co., Inc. grain boundary carbide morphology was linked with stress-rupture properties. If, during heat treatment, the carbide MZSC was precipitated in the grain bound-ary in a cellular form, poor rupture properties re-

Jan 1, 1968

By E. Buehler, R. H. Willens

A Hew melting technique has hem adapted to the rapid quenching of- alloys from the liquid state. The inelting method has no limitations on the alloys investigated for there is no reaction with crucible materials and the most refractory materials are easily melted. The vate of heating is so rapid that alloys which have a high vapor pressure constituent can be melted with a minimal loss in material. Several new superconductovs have been discoveved by vapid quenching of lolten alloys. THE rapid quenching of alloys from the liquid state has led to the discovery of many new metastable phases. The methods initially used were limited to alloys which did not react with crucible materials.1,2 There was also the unmentioned limitation in tem- perature. Alloys with melting points much greater than 2000°C could not be melted in the rapid-quench apparatus. Recently, there have been successful attempts to rapidly quench reactive alloys by Moss et at. and Matthias Moss et al. injected powdered material (325 mesh) into a high-temperature plasma and the high-velocity molten droplets impinged on a cooled copper plate. The technique innovated by Matthias was to melt the alloy in an arc furnace and splatter it against a copper plate by means of a high-velocity gas jet aimed at the melt. I) FAST COOLING APPARATUS The creation of a metastable phase in a given alloy system by rapid cooling from the melt is contingent on the quenching rate. Some alloys require very slow rates while other alloys require the ultimate in quenching rate. At the present time, the vertical-gun technique of Duwez and willens' has demonstrated, in practice, the highest quenching rates and thus the best

Jan 1, 1967

By Richard V. Hughes, Rudolf J. Pfister

The necessity for getting more water into sands of low permeability in any secondary-recovery water-flood operation in order to recover all the available oil always has been a major problem. In the early days of water-flooding the addition of soda ash and caustic soda to fresh input waters was recommended and tried without success in the Bradford field. The most frequent difficulty was sand plugging. The use of natural and artificial brines often has been suggested for water-flooding, in the belief that laboratory observations of decreasing fresh-water throughput rates in measuring water permeabilities of consolidated sand cores might be partially explained by swelling of clays. A review of available literature bearing on the subject and related laboratory experiments are presented herein, offering an explanation for failure in use of soda ash and caustic soda waters and supporting the recent concept that every water used for input purposes in the secondary recovery of oil should possess such physical and chemical characteristics as to keep the clay content of the producing sands in a permanently flocculated condition. Produced brines meet this requirement. Their use is recommended as a means of increasing intake rates of tight sands and oil recoveries, as a solution to brine-disposal problems, and as a means of conserving a natural resource. Introduction There is a general belief among those engaged in the secondary recovery of oil by water-flooding that one of the most important requirements for the success of any such project is an adequate supply of good, fresh water. Fresh waters have the advantages of being more easily stabilized than salt waters and of being usable about the lease for all purposes. The use of brines for water-flooding never has been given much consideration in the Pennsylvania Grade area. The use of brines in Mid-Continent operations has been considered largely as a substitute for fresh waters, which were economically unobtainable for many operations. Estimated recoveries for some water-drive fields indicate that less of the original oil in place will be left upon abandonment than with the above-average practices used in Pennsylvania Grade water-flood operations. Lower residual oil saturations than 25 pct of the pore space following the water-flooding of Third Bradford sand cores in the laboratory are unusual. In comparison, water-flushed sands surrounding any virgin oil pool are found to be practically devoid of oil. Such lower natural residual oil saturations may be the result of a time factor much longer than economic under artificial water-flood operations, but neither the producer of primary oil nor the producer of oil by secondary recovery can obtain maximum recoveries unless full advantage is taken of all natural forces and

Jan 1, 1947

By Richard V. Hughes, Rudolf J. Pfister

The necessity for getting more water into sands of low permeability in any secondary-recovery water-flood operation in order to recover all the available oil always has been a major problem. In the early days of water-flooding the addition of soda ash and caustic soda to fresh input waters was recommended and tried without success in the Bradford field. The most frequent difficulty was sand plugging. The use of natural and artificial brines often has been suggested for water-flooding, in the belief that laboratory observations of decreasing fresh-water throughput rates in measuring water permeabilities of consolidated sand cores might be partially explained by swelling of clays. A review of available literature bearing on the subject and related laboratory experiments are presented herein, offering an explanation for failure in use of soda ash and caustic soda waters and supporting the recent concept that every water used for input purposes in the secondary recovery of oil should possess such physical and chemical characteristics as to keep the clay content of the producing sands in a permanently flocculated condition. Produced brines meet this requirement. Their use is recommended as a means of increasing intake rates of tight sands and oil recoveries, as a solution to brine-disposal problems, and as a means of conserving a natural resource. Introduction There is a general belief among those engaged in the secondary recovery of oil by water-flooding that one of the most important requirements for the success of any such project is an adequate supply of good, fresh water. Fresh waters have the advantages of being more easily stabilized than salt waters and of being usable about the lease for all purposes. The use of brines for water-flooding never has been given much consideration in the Pennsylvania Grade area. The use of brines in Mid-Continent operations has been considered largely as a substitute for fresh waters, which were economically unobtainable for many operations. Estimated recoveries for some water-drive fields indicate that less of the original oil in place will be left upon abandonment than with the above-average practices used in Pennsylvania Grade water-flood operations. Lower residual oil saturations than 25 pct of the pore space following the water-flooding of Third Bradford sand cores in the laboratory are unusual. In comparison, water-flushed sands surrounding any virgin oil pool are found to be practically devoid of oil. Such lower natural residual oil saturations may be the result of a time factor much longer than economic under artificial water-flood operations, but neither the producer of primary oil nor the producer of oil by secondary recovery can obtain maximum recoveries unless full advantage is taken of all natural forces and

Jan 1, 1947

By J. J. Calaman, D. H. Fleming

DURING 1950 the jet-piercing process was used commercially in the piercing of primary blast-holes in magnetic taconite at the preliminary taconite plant of .the Erie Mining Co., Aurora, Minn. The Erie Mining Co. purchased a jet-piercing machine and associated equipment in 1949, and the machine has been in operation since its installation in the summer of that year. An overall view of the pit with the JPM-1 jet-piercing machine in operation is shown in Fig. 1. During three months of 1949 and continuously since February 1950, production piercing took place under all pit conditions. By the end of October 1950, a total of 15,000 linear ft of hole had been pierced in an open pit handling an average of 1200 to 1800 tons of crude a day in one 8-hr shift. While it is recognized that this output does not approach the millions of tons a year planned for the developing Minnesota taconite projects, the machine as a unit has been operating under conditions probably more adverse than those that eventually will be encountered in the large operations. This pilot operation has permitted evaluation of the piercing problem in the full-scale taconite plant. This paper describes jet-piercing process funda- mentals, important features of the latest jet-piercing burners and machine, actual piercing results obtained, and new developments that give promise of materially increasing overall process efficiency. To produce the blasthole, jet-piercing utilizes thermal energy, as contrasted with the application of mechanical energy in churn drills and jackham-mers. The heart of the process may be termed a tailored flame produced by a rocket-type burner, thermodynamically similar in every respect to that of the giant rockets being developed for military purposes. The heat release in the combustion chamber of the burner is about 50x10' Btu per cu ft per hr as compared with 5x10' for most modern steam generators.* Combustion of liquid petroleum fuels (kerosine, diesel oil, or No. 2 fuel oil) with gaseous oxygen in the burner chamber at pressures of 100 to 200 psi results in temperatures of about 4300°F. Expansion of the hot combustion gases through divergent nozzles produces high-temperature supersonic jets having measured velocities of about 6000 fps. Impinging the flame jets on rock causes a thin surface layer to expand and break away from the base as a result of the thermally induced stresses. This spalling action is aided further in chert and quartzite by the 0.82 pct volume change resulting from the 6 to p quartz inversion at 1066"F.t The dynamic action of the jets whisks the spalled rock

Jan 1, 1952

By H. I. Aaronson

The nucleation of pearlite at proeutectoid ferrite is inhibited, to an increasing extent, at the following locations: At twin boundary-nucleated ferrite, between closely spaced ferrite sideplates, and at intragranular plates. These effects are discussed in terms of the influence of transformation strain energies and of the interfacial free energy of austen-ite:ferrite boundaries on the rate of pearlite nucleation. The growth of pearlite into the interiors of austenite grains from the region of the grain boundaries is markedly restricted when low reaction temperatures and large austenite grain sizes permit the development of interlocking networks of intragranular ferrite plates. PREVIOUS investigators have made extensive studies of the interactions which occur between the proeutectoid ferrite and the pearlite reactions from the viewpoint of the mechanisms through which pearlite interferes with the nucleation and growth of proeutectoid ferrite.1-3 In the present investigation, the processes through which proeutectoid ferrite (hereafter termed simply "ferrite") can reduce the rate of formation of pearlite have been explored in some detail. A steel with a relatively low carbon content, in which the ferrite reaction can compete successfully with the pearlite reaction over a wide range of reaction temperature, and exceptionally coarse-grained specimens, which further emphasize the role of the ferrite reaction, have been employed for most of this work. A brief examination also has been made, however, of the effects of smaller austenite grain sizes upon these processes. Experimental Procedure The steel employed had the following composition: 0.29 pet C, 0.76 pet Mn, 0.25 pet si, 0,007 pet S, and 0.005 pct P. This alloy was homogenized for 48 hr at 1250°C. The investigation was performed

Jan 1, 1959

By William Fink

ALUMINUM forms not only binary compounds with most of the metallic elements but also forms many ternary or more complex constituents. Several of those occurring in the more important alloy systems have been identified under the microscope and the action of various etching reagents has, been carefully studied.' The determination of the structure and composition of these complex constituents is a matter of some difficulty and little information is available. X-ray crystal analysis offers a promising method for the study of such constituents. First, and of considerable importance, is the possibility of recognizing the presence of a given constituent by means more positive than microscopic observation. Evidence can also be obtained concerning the nature and composition of the constituent in question and ultimately it should be possible, at least in some cases, to describe the structure including the relative locations of the various atoms. In this paper some results of an uncompleted study of the constituents of the aluminum-iron-silicon system are given and the methods employed are described. Inasmuch as iron and silicon are the chief impurities in aluminum, the constitutional relations of this system are of fundamental importance in the metallurgy of pure aluminum and its alloys; the system has been studied by several investigators and the more important contributions have been reviewed recently.2 Fig. 1 shows the structure of the aluminum-rich alloys after prolonged annealing at 560° C., in accord with one of the most recent investigations.3 The ternary alloys examined in the course of the present investigation were all annealed at 550° or 560° C.; in fact, some of the specimens were the identical ones used by Dix and Heath, who kindly supplied them for this work. Since the results

Jan 1, 1930

By A. B. Dyes, P. H. Braun, B. E. Cole

This paper presents a reservoir engineering analysis of the performance data for a waterflooding project in the Johnson Lease, South Ward field. This type of engineering analysis adds to the knowledge of the mechanics of water flooding. This study reveals that in general (a) high ultimate areal sweep-out efficiencies (95 to 100 per cent) can be expected, and (b) cross-flow among strata of different permeabilities during the fill-up phase can have an important influence on the behavior and should be dealt with in studying reservoirs for water flooding. The analysis further showed that the recovery predictions based on what was considered a consistent interpretation of core data and logs were low because little contribution was assumed from the low permeability, oil-bearing sand sections which have apparently yielded considerable waterflood oil. This project has yielded in excess of 2 1/2 times as much oil by water flooding as by primary depletion. These very favorable results were achieved without the use of any special injection well completion techniques. However, all of the low permeability material war included in the section open to injection despite its poor estimated primary yield. LEASE PERFORMANCE HISTORY The South Ward field lies in the southeast corner of Ward County near the southern tip of the tremendous Yates trend. Deposition of sand bodies along the seashore reefs during the latter part of the Permian period established what have turned out to be ideal conditions to form a great number of independent productive sands. Probably, these reservoirs in Ward and Winkler counties are providing operators with some of the nation's richest sources of secondary oil reserves through the use of waterflooding techniques. In South Ward field water has been very successfully used to flood oil from the Bennett sand occurring at a depth of about 2,300 to 2,400 ft. About 150 ft above the Bennett sand reservoir, the Grand Falls sand produced gas from a large cap extending over most of the field. The Atlantic Refining Co.'s 320-acre W. D. Johnson lease (Fig. 1) is on the northwest edge of the structure with only gas cap apparently present in the Grand Falls sand. The Bennett sand under this lease is oil productive, however, having a gross sand thickness averaging about 80 ft with a net of 18 ft of fairly clean, highly permeable sand, and about 36 ft of oil-bearing sand with low permeability and high water saturation. The lower permeability sand is interbedded with numerous layers of lime, shale, and anhydrite. Radioactivity logs from 12 wells and cores from two, examples of which are shown in Fig. 2, reveal that the total Bennett sand pore volume is about 71,000 bbl/acre. The estimated initial water saturation averages 41 per cent in the 54 ft of sand considered to contain oil; thus, also considering an estimated 18 per cent oil shrinkage, the lease originally contained about 34,000 bbl of oil per acre. Original pressure was probably about 1,400 psig. PVT correlations indicate that the reservoir fluid was originally saturated with gas. After discovery of the field in 1930, Atlantic completed the first well on the Johnson lease in March,

Jan 1, 1958

By D. W. Philips

THE problem of strata control has of necessity been prominent in mining, and accounts of individual experience and research abound in the literature of most mining countries. Organized research began in Britain by the formation of a committee, upon the recommendation of the Safety in Mines Research Board in 1923, to investigate methods of reducing accidents from falls of roof in coal mines. This committee examined current practice in supporting underground workings in the principal coal fields, and its findings have been published in the Board's publications. Toward the end of these investigations it was suggested by the Chief Inspector of Mines that committees of the several mining institutes be formed to examine the problem in their respective districts. The formation of these committees marked a new phase in research on strata control. The work, though being done in the separate coal fields, followed a scheme outlined by the Chief Mining Engineer of the Research Board, and was coordi¬nated by his office. FACTORS INVOLVED The subject is being considered in Britain from two aspects: I. To provide, by supports, means to prevent falls of fractured ground. 2. To develop methods whereby the strata can be maintained in the least broken condition and thus make falls less likely. The first aspect is the one that will most likely lead to immediate results from the accident standpoint. It depends largely upon the assimilation of already acquired knowledge regarding the proper¬ties of supports and their correct applica¬tion. The second aspect is perhaps more fundamental, and involves also the proper¬ties of the strata and their behavior under the influence of the forces induced by mining. The problem involves many natural factors that cannot be controlled, such as depth, inclination and thickness of seam and nature of the rocks. Other factors, which may be considered to a certain extent controllable, cannot be varied readily and with sufficient fre¬quency to facilitate easy investigation; some of these are: rate of advance of the working face, length of face, direction of the face with regard to cleat and inclination, system and arrangements of rock packing behind longwall faces. In any given case the very many factors present have a mutual influence upon the effects produced in the mine. For example, a study of the effects of rate of advance cannot be done without considering the effects of other factors such as nature of strata, direction of face and quality and arrangement of supports. Conversely, the length and direction of a working face

Jan 1, 1946