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By John Steele

The goal of this project is to detect the presence of objects behind haul trucks and to provide an alarm to the driver if such objects are detected. Objects of interest include people, pickups, other equipment, and large rocks. Another goal is to see if the system can identify the existence of a berm and determine the distance from the truck to that berm, so a safe backup distance can be computed and used as a reference. This paper presents results that demonstrate that such a system is feasible and includes results from work at a local quarry. Architecture of the system is provided and the various subsystems are discussed. Details of the algorthims are included and discussion of the issues involved in developing a fieldable system are also included.

May 1, 2003

By J. L. Huisman

Bio(hydro)metallurgy is the latest development in the ongoing search for efficient and economic metal winning processes. In addition to bioleaching, other biotechnology-based applications are becoming more and more accepted. In this paper the THIOMET process for general effluent treatment is described. With this process, it is possible to produce sulfide on-site and on-demand and to use the sulfide to precipitate metals, even selectively when required. The process is ideally suited as a treatment to remove metals after, for example, an acid regeneration process. Another process is proposed that deals with stainless steel pickling bleeds. Such effluents typically contain nitrate, iron, nickel, chromium(VI) and other species. This one process handles these compounds, as well as other metals.

Jan 1, 2006

By O. F. Carter

"Coniaurum Mines, Limited, hold nineteen claims in Tisdale township, in the Porcupine district, adjoining the McIntyre mine on the east. They extend for over a mile along the strike of the Hollinger-McIntyre 'break'. The property has been explored extensively along the ore zone both laterally and vertically. Workings have been carried to a depth of 5,500 feet, and nearly 50 miles of lateral workings (drifting and cross-cutting) have been driven to date in development and in gaining access to the orebodies.Production started at the Coniaurum in June 1928 and has continued without interruption. To the end of 1946 the plant has treated 2,695,725 tons of ore, yielding gold having a value of $21,989,918.The Coniaurum is controlled by Ventures Limited of Toronto. Mr. John Redington, who has guided all operations since work began on the property in 1922, is Managing Director.GENERAL GEOLOGYAge and Types of RocksKeweenawan- Quartz diabase dykes.Algoman - Quartz porphyry intrusive; the veins are probably late Algoman.Keewatin - Lava flows.Brief Description of Rock Types.Diabase DykesTwo quartz diabase dykes traverse the property in a north-south direction, cutting all formations, including veins.Porphyry IntrusivePetrographically all porphyries in the Coniaurum are of the usual Porcupine type- quartz-feldspar with alteration advanced in most instances to the stage where the feldspars are completely dissolved, leaving a wellsheared carbonate and sericite matrix with embedded rounded quartz 'eyes'. Alteration is most extensive in the smaller bodies and in the narrow protuberances from the larger masses; the cores of the larger masses are generally much fresher, with more or less well defined feldspar phenocrysts."

Jan 1, 1954

By Robert H. Clark

Introduction During the last twenty years, science and industry have been strenuously endeavouring to discover new sources and new kinds of liquid fuels and to work out suitable chemical methods for their production. One of the new possibilities for the production of liquid fuel on a large scale is law-temperature carbonization of various grades of coal. The use of alcohol as motor spirit, in spite of its relatively low calorific value, is being widely investigated. Its production by fermentation of sugars, its recovery from the sulphite liquors of the paper industry, its production directly from wood and also from calcium carbide, have all been considered. At present the most promising line of investigation would appear to be the further development of those technical processes which yield liquid fuels from coal; since science has shown the possibility of preparing all kinds of liquid fuels and even the complete conversion of coal into oils. The present paper will consider briefly: 1. The production of primary tar by low temperature carbonization of coal. 2. The hydrogenation of coal. 3. The synthetic processes of Dr. Franz Fischer.

Jan 1, 1928

By B. K. Mishra, P. Patnaik, B. C. Tripathy, I. N. Bhattacharya

Cobalt is an essential metal considering its numerous industrial applications. The demand for the metal is increasing due to its wide range of use in, for example, rechargeable batteries and as an alloying element in super alloys. Cost effective production of Co is critical. Electrowinning from aqueous sulphate solutions is the preferred technology available for the production of Co. Attempts are being made to produce uniform, smooth and bright deposits of cobalt metal. Use of organic additives in the electrolytic bath improves current efficiency and deposit morphology of the metal. We investigated the effect of quaternary amines TEABr, TPABr and TBABr during cobalt electrowinning from aqueous sulphate solutions. Among the additives studied, TEABr yielded the best results. Smooth and bright deposits of cobalt were obtained at low concentration of TEABr (10 mg/L) maintaining a very high current efficiency of 99.6%. X-ray crystallography indicated that (100) is the most preferred plane of crystal growth.

Jan 1, 2014

By Yin Wang, Lin Li, Zhongwei Bi, Like Wei, Wen Li, Shaogang Li, Bin Zhang, Hongjie Li

Presently,Many long-wall fully-mechanized faces in shallow depth coal seams are below room and pillar goaf in Shendong mining area. When the working face is advanced out of concentrated coal pillar in upper room and pillar goaf, strong strata behaviors often cause support crushing accident. Aiming at a support crushing accident which happened in Shigetai coal mine of Shenhua group in Shendong mining area, this paper analyses the stress transfer process while mining out of concentrated coal pillar by numerical simulation software FLAC3D. According to the feature, simplifying the roof of upper room and pillar goaf as supporting-beam structure explains mechanism of large area collapse in room and pillar goaf roof. Based on the feature of supporting-beam structure, deep-hole blasting concentrated coal pillar technology is proposed to control the strong strata behaviors in Shigetai coal mine. The blasting control effect is confirmed through characteristics of strata behaviors, growth circumstance of ground crack and multi-point extensometer monitoring results. By using control technology, Shigetai coal mine has been successfully avoided support crushing accident.

Jan 1, 2015

By M. Lebeuf, A. Dumais, C. Farsangi, N. Singh

The Nunavik Nickel project began ramp-up of a new ore body (Expo) in November 2014. This new deposit is significantly more competent than the previous ore type milled (i.e., the plant moved from a feed with a BWI of 12.2 kWh/t to predominantly material with a BWI of 19.6 kWh/t). Despite circuit changes made in advance of the Expo ore ramp-up (grinding media size, mill loading/power draw, and cyclone configuration) the throughput of the plant was bottlenecked at 90% of targeted throughput with multiple stoppages to grind-out the primary mill due to excessive circulating loads. During this time, the secondary milling circuit was under-utilised: therefore the focus for debottlenecking plant production became increasing the product size of primary milling. Given the scope of changes already made to the circuit, it was decided to test the mill in open circuit. The milling changes were modelled using the Molycop Tools package to identify potential problems. In the modelling and plant trial it was apparent that the ball size in the secondary grinding circuit was inadequate, resulting in pebbling. The power draw of the secondary mill was brought up to minimize pebbling and the average ball size was increased. The switch to open circuit primary milling permitted a significant augmentation in plant tonnage. While the overall grinding efficiency decreased using the open circuit configuration, the ability to increase throughput made it the clear operating choice.

Jan 1, 2016

By B. Crane, S. Schwartz

"IntroductionThe Cape Breton Development Corporation (CBDC) located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada, was established in 1967. Its mandate at that time was to facilitate a phased downsizing of the coal industry and developing viable replacement industries. The oil crisis in the early 1970s changed CBDC’s mandate and focus was modified to increase coal production to support Nova Scotia Power Commission’s “off oil” policy for their power generators. In the late 1980s the mandate to develop viable replacement industries was eliminated and CBDC became primarily a coal mining company. CBDC presently operates two underground coal mines, Phalen Colliery and Prince Colliery, using a retreat longwall method of mining. Both mines operate beneath the Atlantic Ocean. CBDC also operates associated infrastructure — central workshops, a railroad, coal preparation plant, and international pier. The Need For Substantial ChangeOver the last few years, CBDC has been facing some challenging issues, including improving labour management relations and achieving financial self-sufficiency and profitability. Recent achievements with regard to human resource issues, especially in the areas of collective bargaining, absenteeism, and attendance, show noticeable improvements. All participants should be commended for successfully concluding the collective bargaining process with all four CBDC unions, CUPE; CAW; IAM&AW; and UMWA. However, although these changes are encouraging, even critical in the short term, they are not sufficient to ensure the long-term viability of the company. Market ForcesShort- and long-term financial realities are drawing the need for further substantive changes. The corporation has a mandate to achieve financial self-sufficiency by the year 1999. This goal can only be achieved through a combination of cost reductions and productivity gains, specifically, a reduction in the workforce of 658 and an increase in production of 800 000 tonnes annually. This increase in productivity requires CBDC to re-think the way it does things.In the longer term, CBDC faces even greater challenges. The energy market is becoming more competitive. The electrical utilities across Canada are anticipating deregulation and are positioning themselves for the resultant competition. As primary fuel supplier to Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI), the corporation will have to become ever more competitive to stay in business."

Jan 1, 1997

By C. H. Sleeman

"The Iron Ore Company of Canada constructed a beneficiation complex in Sept-Iles, Quebec, to concentrate and pelletize earthy red hematite iron ores from the Knob Lake area. The plants were scheduled for initial production during the first quarter of 1973.Many problems have been experienced to date. Difficulties in controlling the process, excessive mechanical failures, design deficiencies and manpower-staffing problems have caused an extended start-up. The problems are now essentially solved and, with the completion of some additional minor modifications, it is expected that the plants will be producing premium iron ore pellets at or near rated capacity within the next immediate period."

Jan 1, 1976

By A. C. Stevenson

"The most common theory is that, since thyristors, diodes, and insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) are “solid state” they will live forever. This is not so. They have wear-out mechanisms (e.g. insulation) and other mechanical parts such as motor bearings. These wear-out phenomena can be easily calculated. In this paper we will look at some of the failures and the failure rate of thyristors in power converters to see what affects them and to see what improvements can be made. If converter failures do occur, some simple forensic engineering steps will show if this is the root cause of the problem.IntroductionLook at the general failure rate curve for thyristors, diodes, gate turn off devices (GTOs) and IGBTs shown in Figure 1. We see that there is an initial high failure rate due to manufacturing defects, application problems, and drive start-up stresses that lasts for a few weeks. This is followed by a long period of (hopefully) several years with a relatively low but very slowly rising failure rate. At the end of this period, the devices start to wear out and the failure rate suddenly starts to increase rapidly over a few months. This signals the end of life for the devices in the system. We will start by looking at this end of life area."

Jan 1, 2000

By A. Flemming

"As the next century draws near, new mine properties must be brought into production to replace existing operations that are approaching their economic life. This paper presents some of the critical technical issues being addressed by Manalta Coal Ltd. as they strive to bring the Telkwa Coal Project near Smithers, BC into production during the year 2000. The mine is planned to produce between 1.0 to 1.5 million tonnes per year of medium volatile coal for export to overseas thermal and PCI markets. IntroductionManalta Coal Ltd. (Manalta) is proposing the development and operation of a surface coal mine and associated infrastructure approximately six kilometres southwest of the village of Telkwa, British Columbia (Fig. 1). The infrastructure consists of a coal washing facility, tailings disposal area, clean coal haul road, access road and rail loadout facility. Over a 25-year period, the mine is expected to produce between 25 and 37 million clean tonnes of coal primarily for the export market.To achieve public and governmental approval for the development, the project will be reviewed under British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Act. Manalta entered the formal Assessment process in February 1, 1997 with the submission of an Application for a Project Approval Certificate for the Telkwa Coal Project."

Jan 1, 1997

By Samuel O. Akande

"Gold occurs as native metal, in electrum, and in a telluride mineral in quartz carbonate veinlets of three vein systems at the Ross Mine, northern Ontario. The 14 Vein System is made up predominantly of concordant veinlets within layered ankeritic dolomite stratabound by, and conformable with, andesite tuff Individual veinlets contain pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite, tennantite, pearceite, proustite, native gold and electrum in a matrix of quartz, dolomite, ankerite and calcite. The 2B Vein System is made up of both concordant and discordant veinlets within andesite tuffs. The veinlets contain pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, bornite, tennantite and free gold in quartz, calcite and dolomite. The 18 Vein System is comprised of stockwork veinlets in and around intrusive syenite which has both sharp and gradational contacts with enclosing andesite tuff The veinlets contain pyrite, chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite, native gold and calaverite. Sulphide and silicate minerals in veinlets and wall rocks are stable assemblages for the regional metamorphism of greenschist rank. ,The 14 Vein System is interpreted as a metalliferous siliceous carbonate chemical sediment, the components of which were leached from the underlying volcanic rocks by convecting sea water and subsequently deposited on the sea floor between the extrusion of flows and pyroclastic rocks. Subsequent regional metamorphism and intrusions remobilized and redistributed the syngenetic stratabound material into dilatant fractures in adjacent tuff, as in the 2B and the 18 vein systems."

Jan 1, 1982

By S. Harshaw, C. Doyle, A. E. M. Warner, D. Stremlaw

"In the Utility Nickel furnaces, the hearth and sidewalls are lined with high-Al2O3 bricks. During charging and thermal cycling (more so as the linings on these reverberatory furnaces age), pieces of brick spall or abrade from the refractory and collect on the top of the bath. These pieces are removed using a non-corrosive slag toward the end of the heat when the bath temperature is ~1600°C.This benign liquid can be generated by two methods. First and most obvious, suitable ingredients can be pre-mixed so that the flux (flux A) is isochemical with the non-corrosive slag. All that is needed to produce this targetted slag is heat. Second, in other proportions (flux B), the pre-mixed ingredients generate a corrosive slag that melts completely at -1200 °C and corrodes some but not all of the brick particles on the bath surface. As the reaction progresses, the slag changes composition eventually attaining the targetted benign composition. Using this option, additions are monitored to avoid overfluxing. In both cases, the generated slag/brick mixture can then be rabbled from the furnace. This practice has been successfully used for over two years and has been a factor in extending Utility Nickel furnace life to its current levels (about25% increase)."

Jan 1, 1993

By Brian Rausch

Agenda ?? Refresher: Victor Project Execution ?? Operations Capability roadmap: ? Operations staffing starter group: design participation ? Operations staffing build up for production start-up ? Training and commissioning integration ? Turning OPSCAP ramp-up into a project ?? Go Live! The Results

May 1, 2009

By D. Tao

Froth flotation is widely used in the coal industry to clean -28 mesh or -100 mesh fine coal. A successful recovery of particles by flotation depends on efficient particle-bubble collision and attachment with minimal subsequent particle detachment from bubble. Flotation is effective in a narrow size range outside which the flotation efficiency drops sharply. A fundamental analysis has shown that use of picobubbles can significantly improve the flotation recovery of particles by increasing the probability of collision and attachment and reducing the probability of detachment. A specially designed column with a picobubble generator has been developed for enhanced recovery of fine coal particles. Picobubbles were produced based on the hydrodynamic cavitation principle. Experimental results with one metallurgical coal and one steam coal have shown that the use of picobubbles in a 2" column flotation increased fine coal recovery by 10-30%, depending on the feed rate, collector dosage, and other flotation conditions. Picobubbles also acted as a secondary collector and reduced the collector dosage by one third to one half.

Jan 1, 2006

By M. T. Shehata, R. W. Revie, M. Elboujdaini

Environmentally assisted cracks in linepipe steels are initiated either as a result of stresses in combination with environmental effects, as in stress corrosion cracking (SCC), or as a result of trapped hydrogen in the steel, as in hydrogen-induced cracking (HIC). To understand better the mechanism of the crack initiation process, key metallurgical and environmental elements that can affect the cracking phenomena were investigated and are reviewed in this paper. The complexity of both cracking phenomena results from the dependence of SCC and HIC on multiple metallurgical, mechanical, and environmental parameters that may all influence both crack initiation and propagation; e.g., composition, microstructure and non-metallic inclusions in the steel, applied stress, water chemistry in the field, and ionic concentrations in the groundwater near the pipe surface to name a few for SCC. In addition, for HIC phenomena, one can add the concentration of H2S in the fluids transported in the pipe as well as concentration of CO2, pH, etc. In this paper, cracking of linepipe steels is analyzed critically, with particular attention to the crack initiation process. The paper is divided into two parts: The first part covers SCC and the second covers HIC.

Jan 1, 2005

Background ArcelorMittal?s (formerly QCM?s) Port Cartier iron ore pelletization operations 2 side-by-side induration furnaces each producing 578 t/h of cured pellets Firing No. 6 fuel oil and coke breeze (in bed) Very large heat losses to be addressed primarily by gas recirculation

May 1, 2011

By G. S. Barry

INVESTIGATIONS to date have shown that, should there be the need or the appropriate economic stimulus, Canada's mineral resources are sufficiently extensive to allow considerable expansion of its non-fuel mineral industry, during the remaining part of this century and possibly beyond (1, 2). The availability of sufficient capital will be one of the critical factors which will determine whether this potential will be fulfilled. The following analysis centers on the capital requirements of the Canadian non-fuel mineral industry under one set of basic assumptions of capacity growth, cost of new and replacement capacity, rates of depletion and depreciation of mines and plant, and the cost of exploration and infrastructure. Mindful of the fact that exploration and development will not thrive in Canada unless a very positive approach is taken, the writers make no apologies for being "optimistic" about long-term production prospects. Furthermore, in the event that world demand does escalate as anticipated and the forecast realistically attainable levels of Canadian production are not reached, then Canada will not have reaped the full range of economic benefits available, and opportunities will have been lost. Projections for Canadian production between 1976 and 2000 are essentially based on the forecast published in the 1974 paper, "Towards a Mineral Policy for Canada - Opportunities for Choice (3), with some updating on the basis of recent developments.

Jan 1, 1977

This paper outlines the position and capabilities of Western Canada's bituminous coal industry, and indicates the increasing importance of Japan as an export market. The use of coal in Japan is reviewed, especially as regards future trends, and an appraisal is made of Canadian coal in comparison with domestic Japanese coal and imports from other countries. The importance of maintaining a solid nucleous within the Canadian bituminous coal industry is emphasized. I N RECENT years, Japan has emerged as a valuable market for Canadian exports. The first major product exported in volume to Japan was wheat, which has become very successfully established in Japanese markets. Following this, iron ore gradually found a market in Japan, with exports usually based on long-term contracts. This iron ore was produced entirely in British Columbia In 1958, the Western Canadian bituminous coal industry -jointly with the Dominion Coal Board -sent an official mission to Japan to investigate the

Jan 1, 1964

By Paul-Henri Girard

La Mine Agnico-Eagle division Laronde situé à Cadillac, est un producteur d?or, d?argent, de cuivre et de zinc. Cette propriété est situé dans les cantons Bousquet-Cadillac le long d?une des ceintures géologiques les plus productives au monde. La mine Laronde a débuté la production en octobre 1988 à un rythme de 1360 tonnes par jour. Ensuite, elle a augmenté son rythme de production successivement à 1800 TPJ en 1990, 3300 TPJ en janvier 2000 et 4500 TPJ en octobre 2000. Agnico-Eagle, fondé par feu Paul Penna, a toujours eu comme politique la participation des employés aux décisions de la compagnie pour le déveleppement de celle-ci. Cet écrit va permettre de mieux comprendre la façon dont la division fût développé.

May 1, 2001