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By John V. Beall

Since the U. S. Metals Refining Co. works was established, around the turn of the century, near the town which is now called Carteret, N. J., it has grown to be a major producer of refined copper and the main source of that special brand known as "oxygen-free high-conductivity copper." Owing to the complex metallurgical problems arising from handling a variety of raw materials such as copper concentrate from Matahambre, Cuba, copper and brass scrap from the New York area, and domestic blister copper, the organization is geared from top management down through its 2000 employes to maintain a high degree of flexibility in plant operation. The Company is a subsidiary of The American Metal Co. Charges for the smelter furnaces, one reverberatory furnace and one blast furnace, are made up in. bedding bins so that they may be tailored to the production of a constant grade of blister copper. The reverberatory furnace smelts the .sulphide charge, which may be a blend of ten different materials but principally the Cuban concentrate, and the matte from the process is poured into a converter. This reverberatory is 80 by 20 ft, silica lined with a slag bottom, fired by pulverized coal, and continuously side-charged from the top by bottom-dump cars which keep the side walls covered. It produces a 40 to 50 per cent copper matte. The fuel-charge ratio is 4.35 tons of solid charge per ton of coal. The furnace has a capacity of 10,000 tons of charge per month and produces from 5000 to 6000 tons of slag per month which must be disposed of. About 5000 tons of converter slag is produced monthly and returned molten to the reverberatory furnace. The converter gases go through a spray chamber to a Cottrell precipitator and thence to the flue system. Smoke from the

Jan 1, 1948

By R. M. Brick

EDUCATIONAL benefits for veterans of World War II have largely removed one of the two former barriers to a college education for everyone, namely financial means and intellectual capacity. This latter limita¬tion has not kept privately endowed institutions from increasing 50 to 100 percent in size of student body, even after applying moderately rigid entrance standards. Growth of some land-grant universities, which cannot well exercise such restrictive judgements, has been even greater. After a weary board of admissions, subject to student, alumni, faculty, and even political pressures, has admitted double the former number of freshmen, the university's worries really begin: to find laboratory, classroom, and instructional facilities. If this were a one- or two-year problem, the answer would be simple: double up, hold night classes, particularly of laboratories, rent space, and have instructors work 24 class or contact hours a week instead of twelve (it takes usually two to three hours of outside work by the instructor for one hour in class). However, most engineering school faculty men are worn out now from four to five years of "accelerated" (frequently downward!) programs and they couldn't continue teaching in a way satisfactory to their own consciences on

Jan 1, 1947

By J. F. Myers, F. M. Lewis

The paper reports the development of a large, slow speed ball mill closed circuited with a hydroscillator. This increased grinding efficiency 28 pct over conventional units.

Jan 1, 1950

By Robert S. Nichols

Fording Coal Limited's mine in the Rocky Mountains near Elkford, B.C. has produced 21.8 million clean tonnes of metallurgical coal from 1971 to 1980, inclusive. This production has come from several pit areas and required the removal of 149.1 million bank cubic meters of waste rock and overburden by truck-shovel and dragline operations. Waste dumps from 30m to 200m in height have been successfully constructed on natural slopes, generally between 10° and 26°. Design considerations for the dumps include foundation and soil conditions, natural slope angles and containment of weak overburden or rehandle materials. Dump control is maintained by monitoring the crest and the face of an active dump area. Crest movement is measured by extensometers locally termed "Spoil Monitors". When crest movement rates progressively increase above normal, dumping operations are temporarily relocated. Some unstable conditions and mass failures have occurred as the result of natural foundation slopes being in excess of 26°, failure of weak water saturated foundation soils or weak material being placed on the dump.

Jan 1, 1983

By F. T. Davis

Many contributors have added to the fund of knowledge in the basic sciences related to mineral dressing during the past year. During 1964, the French edition of the Proceedings of the VIth International Mineral Processing Congress together with discussions was printed. Also, complete Preprints of papers delivered at the VIIth IMPC were published in September1. Over a third of the papers presented at VIIth IMPC dealt with fundamentals. COMMINUTION It has been postulated by Ponceleta that flaws need not exist before a stress is applied but rather the flaws are created at the tip of a propagating crack at a stress well below the theoretical breaking stress.

Jan 2, 1965

By AIME AIME

H OWEVER extensively water-lines may be laid in the mine for fire fighting purposes, there are still, usually, points being worked temporarily, development, stoping or other work of a temporary or incidental nature where it is considered that the expense of laying fire-lines is not warranted. While the laying of water-lines in some sections of the mine may not be warranted, in most metal mines it is necessary to lay an air-line to all working places. In the mine of the United Verde Extension Mining Co., at Jerome, Ariz., advantage has been taken of this fact by providing a means of by-passing the water at the end of the water-line into the air-line in case an emergency arises. By this means the 2-in. air-line can be quickly converted into a water-line for fighting fire which might otherwise be beyond the reach of the water-lines.

Jan 1, 1930

By H. H. Campbell

MANY attempts have been made to write a formula by which to calculate the strength of steel from its chemical composition, but most of these endeavors have failed because there were too many disturbing conditions. It is idle to collect from the pages of trade-papers, books, or the proceedings of scientific societies, a multitude of observations. The combination of such results will simply show that steel of the same composition will vary in tensile strength through wide limits-a fact that has been known for generations. That cold-working, overheating, and many another form of heat-treatment alter fundamentally the strength of steel, is ancient history, although it is only recently that the microscope has pointed out the road to an explanation of the phenomena. It may be urged that the microscopic structure must be taken into consideration in any formula giving the ultimate strength, but from the standpoint of the present investigation this is unnecessary. We are trying to determine primarily, not what changes in ultimate strength may be made by variations in the condition of carbon, but what effect is produced by changes in the amount of carbon, when its condition remains constant. For such an inquiry, in order that the condition of the carbon should remain as nearly uniform as possible, it is essential that all test-pieces be made under the same conditions; and it is be¬lieved that the tests described in this paper satisfy that require¬ment. The investigations were made at the works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company,. Steelton, Pa.; the ingots from which the tests were made were 6 in. square in every case; they were heated in the same furnace and forged at the same ham

Jan 1, 1905

By S. Frederick Ravitz

JUDGING from the inquiries that are constantly being received by the Utah Engineering Experiment Station as to the "Why," so to speak, of the flotation process of concentrating minerals, it occurred to me that perhaps a brief statement of the more important theories might interest those who have not followed the technical literature. Like many other industrial processes, flotation has hitherto been developed on an almost purely empirical basis, with relatively little practical contribution from the fundamental chemistry and physics on which the phenomena are based. In fact, its development by the trial - and - error method has been perfected to such a high state that it is becoming generally thought that further important advances can be brought about only by a thorough understanding of the actual mechanism of the process. Natur¬ally, such a complicated process has brought forth numerous theories, most of which have failed to withstand the test of time. It is significant that no theory has yet been advanced which is universally accepted.

Jan 1, 1933

By John Fritz

MEMBERS of the American engineering societies who were in London and Paris during the last days of. June and early July were present at many interesting gatherings. The official delegates of the Founder societies were the specially honored guests of the foreign engineering societies, but other American engineers took part in the meetings. The members of the delegation were: Arthur S. Dwight, Charles F. Rand, William Kelly, representing A. I. M. E.; Ambrose Swasey (general chairman of deputation), Ira N. Hollis, Jesse M. Smith, representing A. S. M. E.; F. B. Jewett, A. E. Kennelly, G. O. Squier, representing A. I. E. E.; Charles T. Main, Robert A. Cummings, John R. Freeman, D. C. Henny, representing A. S. C. E.

Jan 1, 1921

The Institute has prepared a list of Societies' publications, magazines, . etc., which were duplicates and were discarded at the time of the consolidation of the libraries of the three Founder Societies. These books will be disposed of about March 1, 1916 by the Board of Directors of the Institute through the Library Committee. If, meanwhile, members who have incomplete sets of these books, or for any other reason desire to secure some of them, they are asked to communicate immediately with the Secretary, as this is in unusual opportunity to secure books at a very low price. American Gas Light Journal, viols. 31 to 39. American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Transactions, vols. 5 to 26. American Machinist, vols. 3 to 20, 22 to 29. American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions, vols. 2 to 10, 21 to 24, 26 to 33, 39 to 49, 52, 55, 58, 74. Index, viols. 1 to 21. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Transactions, vols. 1 to 28. Index, vols. 1 to 20, vols. 1 to 25.

Jan 1, 1916

By Robert H. Richards

Tuns truly remarkable machine was built on a preliminary scale in May, 1895. The first full-sized table was built by Mr. A. R. Wilfley, and was used in his own mill in Kokomo in May, 1896. The first table sold for installation was placed' in the Puzzle mill, Breckinridge county, in August, 1896. The mill enthusiasts at first hailed it as the cure for all the ills that flesh is heir to in the milling line. A little later it was found to make losses which were serious, and on this account the table succeeded only to a limited extent in displacing the vanners of the gold-mills. Still later, mill-men in a number of districts throughout the country made special studies of the faults of the machine, and devised a number of ways of grouping supplementary machines to overcome as far as possible the losses, and at the same time retain the benefit of the extraordinarily large capacity accompanied by the production of clean concentrates for which the machine has become so justly famous. I hope to make an exhibit of some of these methods in an appendix to my book on ore-dressing which is now in preparation. These experimenters have not written up the subject, and if they possess all the facts they have not given them out for the benefit of the mining profession at large. The object of this paper is to obtain the facts and to pre¬sent them so clearly that their bearing can be seen by all. To this end two complete series-'of tests have been planned. One (the present paper), to study concentration of galena in presence of quartz; the other (to follow shortly), to study concentration of chalcopyrite in presence of quartz. Some authorities claim that the table does its best work when treating natural products; by this phrase I mean products which have been crushed to pass through a limiting

Jul 1, 1907

By C. R. Wohrman

A melt of pure electrolytic iron with about 0.4 per cent. sulfur and 7 per cent. manganese was prepared in connection with a study of inclusions in iron. The alloy darkened rapidly when etched with a 10 per cent, alcoholic solution of nitric acid, and microscopic examination revealed the presence of a semimartensitic, semi-Widmanstättian structure (Figs. 1 and 2) closely resembling the structures found by Benedicks in his artificially prepared "meteoric iron."' The structures found by Benedicks were readily explained by the presence in his alloy of the two well-known iron-nickel solid solutions, taenite and kamacite, and of their eutectoid (?) aggregate, plessite. By analogy, one would infer the existence of similar phases in the iron-manganese alloy just described, such an inference being strengthened by the similarity displayed in many ways by nickel and manganese in their effects on iron. Iron-manganese Alloys are Regarded as Homogeneous Heterogeneity of iron-manganese alloys has not been recognized heretofore, judging from the data of standard metallographic books and those of original papers. In fact, iron and manganese are quite generally regarded as completely miscible in the solid state. Dr. Rosenhain,2 for example, writes: Alloys of group (a), of which those of gold-silver, iron-manganese, and copper-nickel are examples, when allowed to crystallize sufficiently slowly to attain their condition of final equilibrium, present a microstructure exactly similar to that of a pure metal—the homogeneous character of the molten solution is in that case so completely maintained that the microscope cannot detect the presence of any second constituent. Guillet and Portevin3 refer to the iron-manganese system as an example of the "case of metals completely miscible in the solid state."

By Sherwin F. Kelly

SINCE we used Chief Buehler's name last year to give our annual report a semblance of respectability, we can follow the good precedent thus established by telling of the work his Missouri State organization has been carrying on, as reported by H. S. McQueen. Considerable value is set upon their magrletorneter working which has covered over 13,000 sq. mi.), for the indications it gives of the major structural features of the region. Numerous geological problems have been tackled Ly resistivity techniques, among which are the locating and outlining of filled sink deposits of sulphides, of iron ore, and of fire clay; tracing of faults and solution channels; mapping of the preglacial structural pattern; measurement of depth of overburden; and

Jan 1, 1937

By D. J. Weintritt, J. C. Cowan

Methods of studying oilfield mineral .scale deposition in the laboratory do not work for barium sulfate because only small nonadhering crystals ore formed. On the other hand, barium sulfate scale found in down-hole or surface equipment is strongly adhering and may contain very large crystals. Results suggest that most of the difference derives from the extremely low .solubility of barium sulfate. Firm adherence of scale and the consistent development of oriented crystals 100 microns and larger suggest a relationship between scale adherence and crysta1 growth. Data from this study indicate some reasons for barium sulfate's occurring as a deposit in oilfield waters. The unique characteristics as well as the associative properties of barium sulfate scale as related to calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate ere shown. INTRODUCTION The first observed deposition of barium sulfate scale in oilfield production equipment is unknown but probably coincides closely with the beginnings of the oil industry itself. Moore' described barite oolites in some producing wells in the Saratoga field, Tex., in 1914. Currently, positive identification of barium sulfate deposition is recorded in most of the major oil-producing areas of the United States. As efforts continue to identify the composition and functions of the materials found in scale deposits, the geographic and economic importance of the part played by barium sulfate will become even more important. This belief is based on the following Facts. 1. Many oil fields in the U.S. are in or entering their mature phase and the volume of produced water is increasing; thus, the cumulative effects of low-solubility minerals become more significant. 2. Secondary recovery techniques and increased emphasis on waste disposal systems require controlling the behavior of all constituents of water to prevent formation plugging. 3. The more general use of instrumental analysis has reduced the time and improved the accuracy of complete scale and water analysis. 4. Once formed, barium sulfate scale is resistant to present methods of chemical removal; therefore, costly mechanical methods are necessary. Thus, new methods of prevention and control will require specialized chemical techniques and better knowledge of the causes of scaling. Consider the results of some simulated field deposition studies illustrating this need (Fig. 1). The studies utilized a Scale Deposition Test Cell* and each coupon was exposed to 8,000 ml of a 300 me/liter solution of the various types of mineral scale. All tests were conducted at 140F. Only the calcium sulfate and calcium carbonate deposited scale. The solution containing 300 me/liter of barium sulfate exhibited copious amounts of precipitate, but none of the precipitate adhered. The fluids from the effluents were also allowed to impinge on glass slides. Fig. 1 shows the relative adherence of the three types of scale on unetched glass. The barium sulfate failed to deposit in the same manner as the calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate solutions.

By George W. Powel

IN the nation's effort to raise its magnesium metal supply to meet the ever increasing demand, the Government is relying not only on standard established practice but has extended its support to developments not so well proved-at least, not commercially proved. Within the past few months considerable progress has been made, not only in the definite output of metal but in the exploitation of new processes, the successful adaptation of which should, in a reasonably short time, assure an adequate supply of magnesium. Recent months have also witnessed a reshuffling of the favored methods as well as of the likely raw materials, with the mineral dolomite gaining in interest over its richer but less abundant competitor, magnesite, while the lowly sea water appears to be losing ground to the higher magnesian brines of Michigan and western Texas. Every month sees a new alignment and there are signs that still newer methods or raw materials will be in use before the industry finally stabilizes itself.

Jan 1, 1942

By H. M. Howe

THIS paper presents an experimental verification of some of the predictions made by one of us' concerning 'the influence of certain conditions of casting upon the size and position of the pipe', and the position of the segregate, in steel ingots. The predictions which we have been able to verify are the following A. That the pipe is shortened and the segregate raised 1. By slow casting; 2. By casting with the large end up instead of down; 3. By retarding the cooling of the top, e.g., by means of a sinking-head. B. That the pipe is shortened by slow cooling. C. That the pipe and segregate lie in the last freezing-part. Our procedure was to cast ingots of wax (commercially pure stearic acid) containing a little bright green copper oleate (usually 1.5 per cent.) under varying conditions; to saw each ingot open along a longitudinal plane passing through its axis ; and to examine the longitudinal section thus laid bare. In order to make the segregate or enriched part more distinct in color from the impoverished part, a very little red cerasine was added. An experiment which will be described later showed that the cerasine itself does not segregate markedly, if at all. Hence we may assume that the strong contrasts between the green and red shown in so many of our ingots are due, not to segregation of cerasine, but to that of the green oleate, in the wax which in itself is uniformly reddened with cerasine.

Jul 1, 1907

By Charles T. Malcomson

In the United States, improvements in methods of combustion have made possible the use of the smaller sizes of anthracite. This coal is now being reclaimed from the culm banks accumulated by the miners in the more prodigal years. To-day the freshly mined "slush" is segrega,ted and stored against the time when, through briquetting or some other means, it may be utilized as a commercial fuel. For many years Europe has achieved enviable results in the conservation of her small coal by briquetting. This profitable industry, first placed on a commercial basis in France in 1842, has grown to such magnitude that the production during 1913 exceeded 36,000,000 short tons. Briquets produced in Great Britain are used principally for steam purposes and the greater part of the output is either exported or taken by the Admiralty. On the Continent the briquets are sold in all branches of the coal trade. The French railways consume from 16 to 40 per cent. of their fuel in briquet form, and in Germany the lignite briquets (of which 20,000,000 tons were produced in 1913) are as familiar and interesting to the American traveler as the huge porcelain stoves in which they are burned. It is not strange, therefore, that aggressive and far-sighted promoters heralded this means of converting our ubiquitous coal waste into revenue. To the superficial student the briquetting process seemed so simple as to make success easy. It is for this reason principally that the path of the industry in America has been strewn with failures. The rash enthusiast had either not worked out the mechanical problems involved or had failed to grasp the local conditions under which the briquets must be made and sold. It may be confidently stated, however, that in spite of the many vicissitudes through which it has passed, coal briquetting is now an accomplished economic success in this country, and as a profitable adjunct to the coal industry it has come to stay. Several valuable contributions relating to coal briquetting are found in the Transactions. Charles Dorrance, Jr., has sketched briefly the history of the anthracite briquetting plants from the time of Loiseau's pioneer plant down to that of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. at Lans-ford. Since then this phase of the industry has remained practically at

Jan 1, 1915

By G. M. Ritcey, A. W. Ashbrook, E. G. Joe

Solvent-in-pulp extraction of uranium from acid leach slurries of flotation concentrates is described. Solvent extraction was carried out in a 10 in. diam pulsed-plate column. The extractant was a 0.1 M tertiary amine (General Mills Alamine 336) in a kerosene diluent containing isodecanol as an emulsion suppressor and third phase inhibitor. In pilot plant operation at the Beaverlodge mill of Eldorado Mining and Refining, Ltd., slurry feeds containing up to 35% solids were processed at a throughput rate of 13.5 tpd of dry feed. Uranium extraction obtained was as high as 98%. Amine losses to the raffinate were approximately 0.07 lb amine per ton of original dry feed. The Beaverlodge Mill of Eldorado Mining and Refining employs a carbonate leach for the extraction of uranium from the ore.',' Prior to carbonate leaching sulphides are removed by flotation to reduce reagent consumption. This flotation concentrate containing some uranium is then leached with sulfuric acid, filtered, and the uranium precipitated with magnesium hydroxide. The precipitate is then returned to the carbonate leach circuit. Although the tonnage of flotation concentrate treated by acid leaching is low, reagent costs are relatively high. Also maintenance costs on the acid leach filtration circuit were beginning to show significant increases. The choice of solvent extraction-in-pulp as an alternative to the present circuit was influenced by the following factors: 1) elimination of acid pulp filtration, 2) increase in overall recovery because of soluble loss elimination, 3) reduction of reagent cost (mill sodium carbonate solutions are used as strip), and 4) production of higher purity precipitate at the mill site. Because a solvent-in-pulp process would be difficult to test on a bench-scale, the Eldorado experience in the use of pulse columns,3-5 mixer-settlers,6 and solvent-in-pulp operations in particular7 was applied directly to the initial pilot plant carried out during the summer of 1965 and followed by the second pilot plant in 1966. The latter work, which is presented in this paper, determined the following factors for anticipated scale-up to plant production: 1) overall uranium recovery by this process, 2) tonnage throughput expected, and 3) solvent losses anticipated for the full-scale plant. The equipment used consisted of a 10 in. diam extraction pulse column and three mixer-settlers for scrubbing, stripping, and acid equilibration. All equipment was designed by Eldorado and much of the pilot plant was built at the mill site. PROCESS CHEMISTRY Feed to the acid leach plant consists of a sulphide flotation1,2 concentrate containing mainly pyrite, uranium and graphite, with a particle size of 90%

Jan 1, 1968

By G. M. Lee

SEVERAL improvements have been made in Granby smelting practice since the company abandoned the direct smelting of raw ore in the blast furnaces in June, 1927, in favor of sintered concentrate. These improvements have been made in several fields, but the most novel and outstanding change was the development of a process of concentrating most of the gold, and a somewhat smaller fraction of the silver present, in a small portion of the blister copper produced. The practice of making "copper bottoms" is usually associated with the reverberatory smelting of copper ores containing high percentages of impurities, or of copper matte high in precious metals. It has for its object, in the one case, the production of a major part of the copper relatively free from impurities and, in the other case, the production of a small per¬centage of the copper carrying the major part of the precious metals. Although the blister copper produced at the Anyox plant of the Granby company is remarkably free from deleterious impurities and normally contains no great amount of precious metals, certain economic considerations made it advisable to concentrate the existing precious metals into a relatively small percentage of the blister copper produced. The process devised took advantage of principles and reactions of the usual bottoms processes, but was carried out in the converters instead of in a reverberatory furnace.

Jan 1, 1935

By CHARLES M. A. STINE

IN fighting a war the all-absorbing intent is to win. There is little time to analyze the rush of events or to appraise their consequences beyond the war's end. The united objective is, rightly, success for our arms. Yet under the pressures of a great war there may be compressed scientific, economic and social developments that might have taken many decades to achieve under less urgent conditions. Their effects on our lives and all civilization may be more wide-reaching and lasting than any military conquest. They constitute one of the must imperative incentives to victory. No American, least of all any scientist worthy the name, conceivably could endorse war as a justifiable means to progress. The destruction of life and property wrought by the present war far exceeds the havocs of a century's earthquakes. Most of mankind is burning itself on an altar of paganism. Nonetheless, one fact is inescapable Despite the recurrent malady of war history's overall course is forward. Mankind has the habit of rising phoenix-like from its own ashes to attain greater heights. Progress is immortal.

Jan 1, 1942