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By J. Elderton

"The combination of A C induction motor and flu id coupling, of either the fixed or variable filling type, constitutes a simple, low cost, highly reliable drive unit, with many applications in the mining field.The paper will, however, concentrate on the variable filling fluid coupling in three principal applications-conveyor starting, infinitely variable speed control for slurry and slimes pumping and dewatering pumps for deep mines. Fluid couplings can be used with standard or custom-built control gear equipment, ranging from the most simple, time-based open loop types, to those having the latest microprocessor techniques.IntroductionThe first industrial applications of fluid couplings included their use in the mining field as hydraulic slip regulators for flywheel generating sets. These installations, usually rated at around 1700 to 2500 hp, were located at mine shafts where the electrical grid transmission lines were not strong enough to cater for the peak power demands of the cage winding cycle. In Canada, the first two significant examples of variable filling fluid couplings for mining were on conveyor drives, at Steep Rock Mines Limited, closely followed by the major iron ore handling term inal on the St. Lawrence River at Sept-Iles. Successful and reliable operat ion of the fluid couplings at these two sites set the pattern for use on many subsequent mining projects throughout the Canadian Continent."

Jan 1, 1986

By V. Silins, J. Tameling, R. C. Cook

"A general review of the wear problems encountered in the mining industry is presented and current practice for wear protection systems is reviewed.A new concept in wear protection is described and compared to alternative systems. Utilization of conventional stud welding technology and abrasion-resistant wear studs is shown to be a useful supplement or substitution for conventional techniques. Operating life of many consumable components can be increased by up to four fold. The technique is highly portable for on-site field application or can be used in shop environments.Details of the wear protection model and metallurgical properties of the wear component are also reviewed. Laboratory wear test data are reported to supplement field test performance or to screen potential alloy compositions for application in specific environments.A Review of Wear Problems and Wear ProtectionThe emphasis on wear protection has increased in recent years because of the increasing impact of the potential savings in time, materials and energy. A 1974 German study concluded that attention to tribology, the study of friction and wear, could save approximately $3 billion, and a study in the U.S.A. at the same time put the figure at $100 billion of which $20 billion was for materials. A more recent American study put the energy component of the potential savings at $16.2 billion per year. A recent British study estimated the total potential savings in the U.K. as $1 billion per year, with the largest savings coming from lower maintenance and replacement costs ($500 million), lower breakdown costs ($250 million) and increased machinery life ($200 million). These three major contributions are all potentially accessible in the mining industry."

Jan 1, 1982

By Javier Linares García

At then end of this year will be 10 years of producing concentrate for Antamina. This is a summary of what occurred over the last decade to increase production and tonnage above the design tonnage of 70,000 tonnes per day, up to an average of 100,018 tonnes per day in 2010, an increase in production of 42.9%. Equipment currently in use is the originally installed equipment, signifying a meaningful increase in capacity without capital. In this paper, the different phases of improvements and the realization of their impacts in chronological order will be outlined. Figure 1 below shows the average daily tonnage processed each year (tonnage throughput each year/calendar days), as well as the percentage increase over the tonnage of design.

Jan 1, 2012

"In numerous meetings, conferences and discussions over the past year, the Conference Board of Canada has been impressed with the efforts of Canadian organizations to improve their competitive position. The attempt should be made to try to pull together and synthesize what has been heard. The topic of this paper, however, is even more daunting. The task is not only to analyze and discuss what is happening now, but also to look into the future—to the year 2000.The future seems to have an endless capacity for surprises, often unpleasant. This is one of the lessons learned in the twentieth century, particularly over the last 15 or so years.This paper covers three areas of managing in a changing com¬petitive environment: (1) the major global and domestic trends that will influence the ways in which Canadian organizations are managed (2) how Canadian companies are responding or will need to respond to these trends; and (3) the implications of the preced¬ing for human resource management and human resource professionals."

Jan 1, 1991

By Desmond M. Levins, Reginald K. Ryan

"Removal of radium from uranium tailings would substantially lessen their environmental impact because it would eliminate, or greatly reduce, the hazards arising from radon emanation, leaching of radium, dust dispersal and gamma radiation. A process is described to extract radium from tailings by leaching in 3M Nael solution. The radium can be rapidly leached at ambient temperatures by either multi-stage contact in agitated vessels or washing on a tailings filter cake. Extraction efficiencies ranging from 80 to 94% have been measured for tailings derived from a number of Australian ores.Methods for radium recovery from the leach solution by precipitation, ion exchange and adsorption have been examined. Precipitation as barium/radium sulphate appears to be the most suitable approach. A possible flow diagram for the process is proposed which involves recycle of the saline leach liquor.IntroductionDisposal of mill tailings is the most contentious environmental issue facing the uranium mining industry. The conventional approach to managing tailings is to store them in a dam above ground. Attempts have been made to stabilize some tailings piles by physical or chemical methods. In a few cases, the tailings have been covered with earth and revegetated. However, most tailings piles from abandoned mills are in a neglected state and subject to the erosive and dispersive forces of nature. The cost of remedial action is high. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has estimated that it will cost up to $130 million to rehabilitate abandoned mill sites in the U.S .A..Environmental authorities are now insisting that uranium mining companies improve their methods of tailings disposal. In the United States, the preferred approach is burial, either in mines or in specially excavated pits. Tailings retention systems as operated in Canada are regarded as storage facilities until an acceptable method of disposal is found. In Australia, the Fox Commission recommended that tailings from the Ranger project should be returned to the open-cut mine. Returning tailings to the mine has considerable merit, but it is not always a viable option. In many underground operations, it is not physically possible to fit all the tailings in the worked-out mine. In other cases, the groundwater hydrology of the mine may be unfavourable."

Jan 1, 1980

By A. H. C. A. Zimmerman

WE have just heard what must be regarded as a thoughtful, constructive and somewhat painful analysis of the financial function of our industry. While thinking about this, it is interesting to reflect on the conditions which have stunted the growth of the financial side of our affairs. Mining must be regarded as a wealthy business. •while immeasurable grub takes and development budgets have been lost, there can be little argument that a productive ore-body nearly always produces the type of wealth that breeds some extravagance. I recognize that this statement can be attacked from many sides, but an historical comparison with a commercial enterprise involving similar investment will demonstrate what I mean. However, these old times are be-ginning to disappear for a variety of reasons. High amongst these are: ( l) Increased costs of exploration. (2) Remoteness of many new finds. (3) Fixed or declining metal prices (particularly when expressed in constant dollars). ( 4) Constant demands for higher wages.

Jan 1, 1962

By J. W. Matousek

The heat content of the waste slag from a typical smelting operation methods for estimating the thermodynamic properties of smelting slags, to include: -- heats of formation -- heat capacities (specific heats) -- heat contents -- melting temperatures -- heats of fusion The techniques are illustrated with the analyses of a nickel reverberatory furnace slag from Copper Cliff, an iron-making blast furnace slag, and a "lateritic" slag from a ferronickel operation in Colombia.

Jan 1, 2007

One Data Set for the Lifecycle Complete data captured at the logging stage benefits the entire life cycle Exploration Technical Studies Production and Milling Visible Light Spectrum Hyperspectral, put simply, is the interaction of light with matter based on the nature and chemical structure of the specimen. SpectrumWe develop the library to match the liberation size fraction Analyses every 1mm2 1 meter of NQ core = 35 000 analysis data Crystal size detection : 0.1 micron

May 1, 2013

By A. A. Tytko, T. S. Golosinski

"The paper discusses the accuracy of magnetic inspections of corroded hoist ropes. It quantifies the error of measured LMA (loss of metallic area) caused by presence in the rope of ferromagnetic products of corrosion. The paper concludes that in mining practice this error is not significant. Hoist Rope Corrosion and its AssessmentCorrosion is one of the most common forms of wire rope wear. For ropes working in wet mine shafts, ropes used by the fishing industry and, in general, ropes working in humid and chemically active environments, corrosion wear is usually the prime reason for rope discard. In most mining applications, rope corrosion is accompanied by fatigue cracking of wires, abrasion of external wires, internal nicking and other forms of wear.Quantification of corrosion damage in ropes using standard inspection procedures and examination methods is very difficult. Qualitative comparisons are sometimes used to describe the degree of rope corrosion to compensate for the lack of quantitative measures (SABS 0293, 1996). If available, the results of magnetic examinations of ropes may be of help in assessing their corrosion weakening.Magnetic rope examination requires that the rope first be magnetized. After that, the rope magnetic flux and the leakage flux along the rope are measured. The first is assumed to be directly proportional to rope metallic area (LMA) and its changes are indicative of the rope’s loss of breaking strength (LBS). Existence of the second indicates existence of local faults (LF) in the inspected rope. As the corrosion of rope results in development of corrosion cracks and in loss of rope metallic area, both the LF and the LMA should be used to quantify the level of rope corrosion. More specifically, the changes to the amplitude of the LF signal are considered to provide qualitative information on rope corrosion (Hansel et al., 1990), while those of the LMA signal are believed to provide quantitative information (Geller and Rousseau, 1990; Golosinski, 1996)."

Jan 1, 1999

By O. W. Borgeson, D. K. Honsberger, R. T. Bell

The Scully Mine, situated in the Labrador Trough near the Quebec-Labrador boundary, is one of the world's largest continuous ore deposits. This paper outlines the sequence of the mining operations from the planning stages to the delivery of the ore to the crusher at an average rate of 50,000 tons per day, 7 days per week. The principal equipment required to maintain this production rate includes four 12.\1.1-inch rotary drills, seven 8-cu.-yd electric shovels and a fleet of large haulage trucks. Particular attention is given to grade control, programmed by computer, drilling and blasting techniques and operational aspects inherent with open-pit mining in Canada's North.

Jan 1, 1969

By P. G. Claridge, G. P. Holmes, M. A. Redfearn

"IntroductionThe purpose of this chapter is to describe current practices in operation and maintenance of flotation circuits in Canadian mineral processing plants. The chapter consists of five sections covering description of equipment, typical flow diagrams, operating practice, instrumentation and maintenance. The approach to this subject matter is intended to be practical in nature, hence no deeply technical treatment of flotation theory will be included.Flotation is an extremely common method of beneficiation of ores. Reasons are the relatively low cost of flotation compared to many other processes, the wide range of minerals to which flotation may be applied and the high efficiency of separation which can usually be achieved. The flotation process as we know it today has been developed within this century and it has had a major impact on the mining industry. While flotation is commonly considered to be important because it provides a relatively simple method of separating minerals in complex ores, the availability of flotation has also made a multitude of mineral deposits in Canada into economically viable mining operations because it allowed production of a concentrate of valuable minerals from the ore. These concentrates could then be transported from geographically remote locations to centraHzed plants for further processing, although the existence of the remote and perhaps small ore body alone would not have justified installation of metallurgical processing plants on site and the grade of ore would not have justified direct shipment of ore.Some of the more common minerals concentrated by flotation are sulphides of copper, nickel, cobalt, iron, zinc, molybdenum, lead and arsenic, as well as non-sulphides such as sodium chloride, potassium chloride, phosphates, silicates, chromite, fluorite, limestone and coal. Precious metals are also recovered by flotation, generally in association with another sulphide mineral."

Jan 1, 1989

By F. G. Boehm, T. S. Golosinski, P. M. Tucker

"In an earlier paper(1) the visits to several European mines using the bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) technology were described. It was during this trip that information was gathered on some interesting developments related to this type of mining, taking place elsewhere. It was learned that an across-the-pit system (XPS) comprised of a BWE and stacker has been operating successfully in a Hungarian mine for some time. Also the use of stackers with 225 m long booms and draglines with 125 m booms and 125m3 buckets in Soviet mines was indicated. Such equipment could be of great value to some Canadian strip mines, in particular the equipment proven useful in severe climatic conditions of U.S.S.R., similar to those of the Canadian prairies.To follow up on this information a field trip to Hungary and the U.S.S.R. was organized by the Department of Mineral Engineering, University of Alberta, to study the applications and performance of the systems in question. Visited were the Thorez mine near Visonta, Hungary, U.S.S.R. Ministry of Coal Mining and Skotchinski Institute in Moscow, Karagandashakhstoi Institute (designers of Ekibastuz mines in the Kazakh Republic) and Kostenko mine in Karaganda, Vostsibgiproshakht Institute (designers of Irsha Borodinski, Kharanovski, Moguntski and Tugnuski mines in Siberia) and the eastern Siberian Unit of the U.S.S.R. Coal Mining Ministry in Irkutsk as well as Azeiski mine located some 250 km northwest of Irkutsk. The findings of this field trip are presented."

Jan 1, 1985

By T. E. Smith

"This paper describes the application of a motor-driven flywheel unit, known as a peak shaver, to compensate for the cyclic load fluctuations of a large electric dragline installed at Pine Point Mines, near Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. Of particular interest in this application is the fact that the power system supplying the dragline is a relatively small isolated system, with the major generating source approximately 170 miles from the mine.The cyclic load fluctuations of the dragline are theoretically capable of producing a maximum swing of up to 11 megawatts, which approaches nearly 50% of the installed generating capacity. To reduce these load fluctuations to acceptable limits various alternatives were considered, leading to a decision to install a peak shaver to optimize the operations of both the mine and the power system. Without the peak shaver, the dragline operations would be severely curtailed and additional diesel generation would have to be run at considerable expense, otherwise the power system frequency fluctuations would be totally unacceptable. With the peak shaver, power and frequency fluctuations are kept within tolerable limits, and optimum economic operation of the diesel generation is obtained.The paper outlines the steps leading to the selection of the peak shaver as the compensating device, describes the equipment installed and gives details of operating experience with the dragline/peak shaver combination since installation early in 1979. This .peak shaver is the first of its kind in North America, the only other peak shaver installation being in Australia.IntroductionPine Point Mines Limited owns zinc-lead mining and milling operations located at Pine Point, Northwest Territories, 5 miles south of Great Slave Lake (Fig. I). The company is staffed and managed by Cominco Ltd., which has a 69% interest in Pine Point Mines.Mining activity in the Pine Point area was first recorded in 1898, when the Yukon gold rush was on, but when the zinc/lead showings in the Pine Point area did not yield much in the way of gold, interest in the area soon waned. Cominco Ltd. first acquired some claims in the Pine Point area in 1928, but interest was sporadic until the early 1950s, when extensive exploration indicated rich pockets of zinc/lead ore near the surface. Pine Point Mines Limited was formed in 1951, with Cominco acquiring a majority interest in the company."

Jan 1, 1980

By F. Grant

"General *The mining experiences of the coal mining industry in Western Canada have been extremely varied, with the mining companies having to adjust their operations or fail due to the harsh economy of the country in the first part of the century. The bituminous or mountain mines had the railways as main consumers with, at times, optimism that potential steel producers would require metallurgical coal. The prairie and foothills mines mainly provided household fuels, with the fine coal sold to local thermal power plants at discounted prices. In practically all cases fuel competition was very keen, and the less successful mines ceased operations in short-time spans. Knowledge of the parameters that governed the success or failures of the past coal operations should be of value to the present and future mining companies. The initial coal mines were small and were started to supply local demand. These mines had little in the way of capital machinery, engineering, or transportation equipment; therefore the mining methods and mine plans were very simple. The first industrial-sized mines imported most of their management and mining methods from other mining areas, mainly Great Britain. It took time to change the bias of management and mining methods to the requirements of strata characteristics, with rapid closure to those mines that were slow to adapt working methods. The main markets for coal were for household fuel, thermal power plants and railways, with very few other industrial markets developed. The economy of the period was harsh and cyclic and the coal mines were affected more than most industries by these boom and bust periods. It led to the survival of the fittest or the most efficient. Due to the economy, mechanization was introduced to the mines very slowly, with the inability to sell coal fines at a profit being another reason for the delay. Manual labour with hand tools was the main means of production. The work was heavy and arduous, and the pay was based on contract coal tonnage; therefore both men and management paid close attention to details so that nonessential work could be eliminated. Mine openings were dimensioned so that coal could be loaded easily by hand and support requirements were kept to the minimum. Transporting and handling the timber supports required heavy labour; thus the most efficient dimensions were chosen to suit the strata. On the other hand, during the main production seasons the mines tried to make the strata stress work for them so that the pressure was kept on the coal face to keep the coal loose while the strata, a short distance back, was induced to cave to minimize the abutment stresses. This caused mining to be an art, using skills developed by experience with the strata. This led to the development of efficient mine layouts with the openings dimensioned to the strength of the strata and the type of support available. The lack of capital and mechanization, and the manual labour, induced the mines to correlate their service and haulage systems with their mining methods. This caused many innovations that proved very practical."

Jan 1, 1985

By M. Pesowski

"Certain environmental problems can substantially alter the physical properties of the subsurface. In such cases, geophysical methods can be used to map the distribution of subsurface contamination or buried wastes prior to drilling or sampling. For example, inorganic contamination by acids, bases, salts, or metallic ions can be detected by instruments that measure ground conductivity; metallic objects such as buried drums, pipelines, etc. can be located by magnetic survey, and radioactive mine waste can be mapped by radiometric techniques. Geophysical methods can also be used to characterize site geology. If carried out prior to development, they can assist in identifying areas of high- and low permeability and sources of natural contamination. The methods can also be used to establish baseline values and to locate stable areas for development of environmentally sensitive facilities. Application of geophysical methods to environmental problems is illustrated with examples from base-metal mines, uranium operations, and potash and oil-sands operations. Particular attention is given to the problem of acid mine drainage. =IntroductionGeophysical methods have been used for many years by the mining industry in exploration and geotechnical investigations. The basic techniques for mapping variations in physical properties of the subsurface have been adapted to meet the special needs of resource exploration and development in the coal, potash , oil sands, industrial minerals, precious metals, and base-metal industries. Now the mining industry is facing another challenge: to operate the mining cycle, from discovery to closure, with minimum impact on the environment. This involves the rehabilitation of abandoned mining sites, the minimization and effective containment of pollutants at operating and developing sites, and the longterm containment and monitoring of sites after mine closures.Some of the most difficult aspects of environmental control and monitoring relate to the location of buried waste and contaminated fluids in the subsurface. As in the search for buried ore deposits or in geotechnical investigations, geophysics can be a valuable aid in subsur face environmental investigations. Investigations can be remedial , involving the location or monitoring of existing problems, or preventative, where problem areas are identified or background values are established before site development. In either case, geophysical methods should not be considered as a substitute for drilling. Geophysical interpretations in general do not provide the detail required for a complete environmental or geotechnical investigation. They are most useful as rapid reconnaissance methods for targeting subsequent drilling or for interpreting subsurface condit ions away from drill holes. Table I lists the common geophysical methods and the physical properties to which they are sensitive."

Jan 1, 1993

By G. W. Poling, G. W. Hawthorn

"""Unassayable gold and platinum group metals"" have come into vogue in the 70sand 80s in certain jurisdictions as a means of perpetrating fraud. Usual arguments are that a particular ore is not amenable to ""conventional fire assaying"". Explanations for unassayable gold usually revolve around: evaporation of micron-size gold; vaporization of organic gold complexes; volatization of gold halides; alloying of gold with PGM's which prevents fusion or alloying which prevents collection .This paper reviews several of the myths and truths of gold and PGM assaying with the knowledge that not a single mine operatesin thefree world producing gold from unassayable ore.INTRODUCTIONAccurate analyses of exploration data and estimation of ore reserves are two of the most important functions of professional geologists and engineers in mine development. The problems encountered become particularly acute when dealing with precious metal values where very low grade deposits (in the range of 0.0 I Troy oz per ton or - 0.2 ppm (g/t) by weight) sometimes are economic or constitute ""ore"". To emphasize this ""scarcity effect"", a gold assay of 0.4 g/t (0.01 T oz/st) would result from the presence of a single 420 J.tm (35 mesh) gold flake (which weighs I milligram) in a 5 kilogram siliceous sample.The current high gold price and the prospects of high profit margins awaiting exploitation of even very low grade gold deposits, has spawned a sizeable group of incompetent or fraudulent gold assayers. These ""assayers"" will often report significant precious metal values where no such values occur. Failures of legitimate assay labs to confirm these ""significant"" assays are often attributed, by the charlatan, to their capability of detecting ""unassayable gold"" while the check assayer cannot. Geologists and engineers lacking detailed knowledge of sampling and assaying techniques are often hard-pressed to convince a gold-fever aroused company executive or investor-client to abandon a property on which attention-grabbling values have been reported, often by more than one laboratory. Professionals engaged in such evaluations must acquire an understanding of contemporary precious metal sampling and assaying techniques . Only then can they determine whether misrepresentation of values have been perpetrated"

Jan 1, 1989

By H. Dean

"Mine hoisting machinery, of which wire rope is an essential part, is developing, in Canada as well as in other parts of the North American continent, into highly sophisticated equipment. Heavier payloads are now required to be raised from steadily increasing depths at higher rates of speed and production. These hoisting conditions have, of necessity, brought about a major change in the production of steel roping wires and the wire ropes manufactured from them.Operators and designers of hoisting equipment are requesting a very much more efficient ratio of strength to weight in hoisting ropes, so that heavier loads may be raised from greater depths by ropes which will provide a predeterminable life span on which the operator may depend.The cost of wire rope to the operator is very low indeed, usually less than $0.01 per ton of payload, but the cost of unexpected shutdown periods, due to rope maintenance or change, can be extremely high -particularly in operations where a continuously high rate of production is an absolute necessity. Mine hoist ropes with a higher strength to weight ratio are now being made and used in some areas of Canadian mining, and a general understanding of the performance we may expect from them is required."

Jan 1, 1968

By B. R. MacKay

Introduction During the past six seasons the writer has been engaged in semi-detailed investigations on the coal areas lying along the front of the Rocky mountains between the Brazeau river and the Smoky River Coal Reserve (see Map, Figure 1). The purpose of this paper is to present some observations pertaining to the stratigraphy and structure of the district, touching especially upon the lithological units into which the Lower Cretaceous sediments have been divided, the thicknesses of the formations at different localities, the number, thicknesses and horizons of the principal coal seams, and the structural conditions which exist in the various fields.

Jan 1, 1930

By C. J. Newman, D. J. Kemp, R. M. Sweetin

"The smelter is described by area; feed preparation, continuous furnace line, gas handling and auxiliary systems, blister refining, Hazelett casting of thin anodes, and scrap remelting. Early smelter campaign data is presented and compared to design. Some modifications to the basic design of the furnaces and gas trains are indicated, with their respective impacts on improving smelter performance.Plant compactness, the use of jumbo tanks, and a highly automated electrode handling system are featured in the refinery description, with brief coverage of the liberator and slimes leaching sections. Early experience in refining thin regular Hazelett anodes, and submersible pump recovery of raw slimes are relayed, together with automatic stripping from titanium blanks.Refinery tonnages and operating parameters are given showing the relatively trouble-free attainment of refinery design performance.IntroductionPrevious papers and articles ( 1), (2) ,(3 ) have described the metallurgical facilities serving the copper-zinc-silver Kidd Creek orebody located near Timmins, Ontario. For convenience a brief review of their mid-1983 operating status is presented.The concentrator, originally designed for 9,000 short tons, was commissioned in late 1966. It can now comfortably process over 13,000 metric tonnes per day largely as a result of the addition of a fourth circuit in 1978."

Jan 1, 1984

By R. F. Tylecote

"The closure of the iron and steel making plant at Consett in Durham in 1980 marked the end of an era-a long era in the world's iron and steel making history. Iron had been smelted in the Tyne-Wear area of the United Kingdom since before the Roman period, but apart from evidence of smithing in the Roman period, the historical evidence for iron production on a large scale dates from the 14th century.The paper describes sites in the area that first worked the bloomery process and then, in the 16th century, as did most of Europe, graduated to the blast furnace process. The main emphasis is on the early introduction of coal to iron making at the end of the 18th century and the use of the steam engine to render integrated sites possible.IntroductionIron has been smelted in the Tyne-Wear area of the United Kingdom since before the Roman period, but apart from clear evidence of smithing in the Roman period, the historical evidence for iron production on a large scale dates from the 14th century. Like many other countries, the United Kingdom benefitted from the visits of foreign observers, such as Jars, Svedenstierna, de la Houliere and Dufrenoy, who left detailed records. In modern times, information gained from excavations of iron and steel making sites has supplemented the historical record.Natural ResourcesUp to the end of the 19th century, the industry was wholly dependent on its own resources. Iron ore, limestone, wood, coal and water power were all found a short distance away from the main valleys of the Tyne and Wear. The main sources of iron ore were the coal measures, with rider ores from the lead vein s in Alston and Weardale, and carbonate ores from shale horizons in the Carboniferous limestone. Good coking coal was available from West Durham and reasonable coal from the Tyne valley and Northumberland limestone. Limestone was plentiful."

Jan 1, 1983