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By M. L. Jeremic

Observations of ground behavior in mining the Choka Dulkan ore body have been described. Ore recovery was limited to approximately 60% because unconsolidated hydraulic fill did not permit either the widening of stope spans nor secondary ore recovery from pillars. Stope undercutting induced high stress concentrations. However, as extraction progressed, ground conditions improved but before extraction was complete they deteriorated again. After completion of a stope, the remnant rib and crown pillars continued to be deformed by other stresses for some time.

Jan 1, 1979

By M. Muskat, H. H. Evinger

A METHOD has been developed whereby one may calculate the productivity factors of producing formations from a knowledge of the reservoir conditions. Account is taken not only of the heterogeneous character of the gas-oil flow system but also of the detailed variations with pressure of the shrinkage and viscosity of the oil, the solubility of the gas in the oil, and even the variability of the gas viscosity and the deviation of the gas from ideal behavior. Curves are shown giving the results of numerical calculations on the production rate as a function of the pressure differential for a high-pressure and a low-pressure system, three values of gas-oil ratio being treated in each case. Curves are also given showing the variation with distance from the well of the pressure, oil saturation, and permeability. The effect of connate water is briefly discussed in relation to the apparently large discrepancies between the calculated and observed productivity-factor values. INTRODUCTION The significance of the productivity factor as a measure of the capacity of an oil-bearing formation to produce is well recognized; for it is the composite and integrated resultant of the physical properties of both the porous medium and the fluid stream passing through it with respect to the ease with which the particular petroleum fluids present in the formation can flow through it and into producing wells. The most direct method of determining the productivity factor of a well consists, as is well known, in the simultaneous measurement of reservoir-pressure differentials and rates of production and the expression of the data in terms of rate of flow per unit pressure drop.1 Actual measurements carried out in this manner on producing wells have given factors that generally lie in the range of 0 to 100 bbl. per day per pound pressure drop. This wide range arises not only from variations in permeability but also from the varying sand thickness of producing formations. One of the aims of developing a theory of the mechanics of oil production obviously is that of predicting what the productivity factor should be from a knowledge of the individual characteristics of the producing formation and the fluids produced. For homogeneous fluid systems passing through a porous medium into a producing well, it has been known for some time that the steady-state rate of liquid flow Q is given by the formula:* [ ] where k is the sand permeability, h its thickness, µ the liquid viscosity, [Ap] the pressure drop between the well and the distant parts of the reservoir, in particular that at a radius [ro ]and [r ] is the well radius. This gives the productivity factor: [ ] which will have a numerical value for a liquid of I centipoise viscosity of 0.9316 or

Jan 1, 1941

By G. S. Scott, G. W. Jones

ECONOMIC waste caused by mine fires may become considerable,15 especially if a fire is allowed to spread or temporarily to get beyond control. It is important, therefore, to act promptly whenever a fire is suspected and to make every action count. To contribute toward its extinction effectively it is necessary to know at the earliest possible moment, and continuously thereafter, what is happening at the seat of the fire, which may be in a remote or inaccessible area, and also to recognize what may be expected as a result of any proposed combative measure. In combatting a fire the mining engineer and the chemist should cooperate, first deciding upon the course of action to be taken and then drawing upon the mining engineer's intimate knowledge of the physical structure of the fire area, the cost and time required to carry out proposed operations, and the probable efficiency with which these operations could be performed, and upon the chemist's knowledge for the results to be expected therefrom. After the initial steps to be taken have been decided, it devolves upon the mining engineer to see that they are carried out and upon the chemist to evaluate the results and to keep the mining engineer continuously informed in regard to a variety of matters-such as the composition and toxic or asphyxiating properties of the atmosphere in which the men may be working, whether the fire is increasing or decreasing in intensity and its probable temperature, the quantity of air leakage and the explosion hazards of the fire area. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what the chemist can and cannot contribute as a member of the fire-fighting personnel. The technical literature contains several hundred papers relating directly and indirectly to mine fires, and this fact alone is testimony to the complex nature of the phenomena involved in the birth, life, and final demise of a fire. A fire may be stopped (I) by preventing oxygen from reaching the coal or (2) by removing the conditions necessary for the rapid reaction of coal with oxygen; i.e., decreasing the temperature. All methods of prevention or control. necessarily must be based upon one or the other, or both, of these two principles. . The chemistry of a fire may be understood readily if the low-temperature oxidation of coal is considered as a starting point; then oxidation at higher temperatures (or combustion) ; and with these, the composition of the solid and gaseous products resulting from the oxidation or from the effects of the heat liberated. This discussion refers particularly to Pennsylvania anthracite, although much of the material applies equally well to coals of lower rank. OXIDATION OF COAL Oxidation of coal fundamentally is confined to the surface; that is, the rate at which oxygen penetrates into the interior of a solid block of coal is so slow that it may be ignored.6,16 Oxidation starts when a fresh surface is exposed, and the rate is

Jan 1, 1942

By F. C. Sturges

For some time mining engineers have been interested in the possibility of using small diameter shafts, sunk by core drilling, as aids to ventilation and as emergency escapeways. The possibilities are interesting to contemplate, but new methods involve unknowns, and interest tends to remain passive until these unknowns are, solved. Recently we have completed two 36-in. diam core drilled shafts, and wish to make the data on these available to the industry. Both shafts were drilled for the McLain Fire Brick Co., one at its Buckeye mine and the other at its Colonial mine. Both mines are in the fireclay underlying the Lower Kittanning coal. Both mines have been in operation for a number of years and have required expensive maintenance work on return airways. It was decided that considerable savings could be effected by short-circuiting the air to the surface through small shafts. It was also realized that these holes, located near the present workings, would be of added value as emergency escapeways. Originally, 48-in. diam shafts were considered, but actual computations showed 36-in. diam shafts were more than ample at both mines. The shaft at the Buckeye mine is 240 ft deep, and that at the Colonial mine 258 ft deep. Both holes were started in the lower part of the Conemaugh formation and penetrated Conemaugh and Allegheny strata. The holes were started through the unconsolidated materials overlying bedrock by constructing a concrete collar with a wall thickness of 8 in. Then the shafts were drilled by the shot-core drill method. An annular groove was cut in the rock by the abrading action of chilled steel shot run under the shoe of the core barrel. The drilling was done in stages, the core barrel drilling the groove for a certain distance depending on conditions encountered, and then the cores broken off and taken out in sections. The core barrel had a 36-in. o.d. and the finished diameter of the shaft measured almost 37 in. The major questions that could not be answered until the completion of the first shaft were, (I) how much ground water would be encountered, how would it hinder the drilling, and how difficult would it be to seal off, and, (2) how would the walls of the hole stand up. The holes of course could .be cased or lined, but that is considerable added expense in any shaft.

Jan 1, 1949

By C. H. P. Lupis, R. Hocine, G. Bernard

The necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of a multicomponent phase with respect to infinitesinzal fluctuations are derived and transformed to be written in terms of activity coeffcients and mole fractions rather than in terms of the customary second deritlatives of the free energy. NECESSARY conditions for the stability of a multi-component system were derived by Gibbs as early as 1876.' However, as the usefulness of these conditions is greatly enhanced by the simplicity of their translation in terms of functions of common usage, the present contribution establishes these conditions in terms of activities or activity coefficients-and mole fractions. It was shown in another article2 that not only may these conditions be used for the prediction of the appearance of new phases, but they may also provide a check on the orders of magnitude of the interaction coefficients involved. "Spinodal" decomposition is said to occur when, at constant temperature and pressure, the system is unstable with respect to infinitesimal fluctuations in composition. As a result, the "phases" which appear may be attained through continuous changes in the system rather than discontinuous ones, and, consequently, the free energy of these phases may be described by a unique continuous free-energy function. For a binary system, the familiar curve of Fig. 1 illustrates the case we wish to extend to a multicom-ponent system. The conditions to be written pertain to the decomposition of a system of n moles into moles of phase moles of phase v, ...hen moles of phase 9, where the phases a, ...v, ...9 are—at least initially-arbitrarily close in composition to that of the original phase. Each A, is positive and since the total number of moles n in the system remains constant: Each phase v contains hv(nl +dnY) moles of component (I), ...xV(ni +dny) of component + dnk) moles of component (m). The total number of moles ni in the system remaining also constant, it is clear that:

Jan 1, 1968

President MRS. HARRISON SOUDER Smith Paramus Road Ridgewood, N. J. First Vice-president MRS. ROBERT HURSH 10 Kilburn Road Belmont, Mass. Second Vice-president MRS. ERLING L. JORGENSEN 95 Knollwood Rd. Short Hills, N. .1. Third Vice-president MRS. PERCY E. BARBOUR 1R(; Riverside Drive New York, N. Y. Fourth Vice-president MRS. C. B. MURRAY 2040 Stearns Rd. Cleveland, Ohio

Jan 1, 1938

By J. C. Smock

The primitive mode of mining clay by open workings, in which the overlying beds of earth (commonly termed the " bearing ") were removed, and the clay then dug out by sinking shallow pits, is still the prevalent and almost universal mode of extraction. This is particularly true of our cretaceous and tertiary clays, which are generally earthy in character, and but slightly covered by drift and alluvium. The most accessible beds in many of our clay districts have been worked out, and clay miners are compelled to search for new outcrops, or to remove thicker beds of top dirt or bearing. Under this stimulus subterranean working, or mining proper, has been suggested. A brief notice of this new mode, as employed by Mr. Otto Ernst, near the head of Chesquake's Creek, three miles south of South Amboy, New Jersey, is here presented for your consideration. Previous to mining, the old mode of extraction, digging pits, was found to be too expensive, in' consequence of the heavy amount of top dirt and the excessively large amount of water in these overly

By A. S. C. Owili-eger

Coal mining is one of the major activities that may affect the natural or existing hydrologic equilibrium of a basin. Consequently, the mining industry is committed to the conservation and protection of the hydrologic balance within and around mining environments. This commitment embodies thorough and careful consideration of the quantitative and qualitative variations and, in general terms, the environmental impacts of mining activity on the natural water systems. A research program was undertaken to study the impacts of full extraction coal mining on the ground water systems at one of the coal basins in the Appalachian region. The primary objective was to provide reliable information for determining the local and possibly the regional effects of longwall mining on well yields, and the hydraulic and hydrogeochemical parameters of the immediate surface and subsurface water resources.

Jan 1, 1985

By E. A. Khopunov, V. I. Revnivtsev

The process of triboelectric separation from the point of view of its potential for selective separation of various mineral particles can be described as "dry flotation." Large scale practical applications of this technique are limited because suitable models which can describe contact charging of mineral particles have not been developed. Among the various concepts a promising one is an attempt to change development in dielectric minerals within the limits of contact phenomenon in semiconductors. Experimental investigations reported in this paper indicate that the charge development is mainly a result of contact electrification of dielectric minerals characterized by "donor" and "acceptor" type energy spectra due to lattice defects.

Jan 1, 1980

By K. V. S. Sastry, S. C. Panigraphy, D. W. Fuerstenau

The batch balling behavior of hematite, magnetite and limestone was found to depend markedly on the grinding method used for feed preparation. Wet ground materials require higher moisture for balling than do dry ground materials. Further, as the fineness of the wet-ground material is increased, the overall rate of agglomeration decreases, whereas the opposite is true for dry-ground materials. In contrast, the resulting pellet size distributions are not affected by the nature of the feed material preparation. These differences and similarities in the agglomeration behavior between wet and dry ground materials may result from the hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature of the surfaces, the formation of pre-agglomerates during dry comminution, and possible variations in the packing density of particles in the agglomerates.

Jan 1, 1978

Electrical requirements in surface mining can be divided into three categories: main substation, plant power, and pit distribution. A main substation may vary from a 500-kva transformer supplying 480-v power to motor-driven pumps and conveyors, to a 50,000-kva substation serving a large beneficiation plant or a large strip mining operation. Regard- less of size, it should be designed with the realization that a failure of the main substation will totally shut down the operation. Location of a main substation usually is a compromise between expense of running the incoming high-voltage transmission lines and the voltage drop of long secondary runs. Based on a geological survey for immediate and future areas of excavation, the main substation should be located as near to the center of load as possible.

Jan 10, 1967

By S. M. Bishoff

The disturbance of surface land to support the underground mining of coal requires several hundred acres to produce easily in excess of $1 billion in sales at a moderately sized mine over 20-30 years. Due to the recent influx of environmental legislation, these surface operations must now undergo complete reclamation upon permanent cessation of production. This reclamation procedure has become so complex that the cost of reclamation must be a major consideration in the design of a new mine. This presentation will discuss these costs as they may be methodically evaluated and surcharged as a percentage of the product price. When placed in the proper, logical perspective, it is anticipated that the obstacles involved in this process may be minimized.

Jan 1, 1985

By William B. Phillips

It would be hard to find a mineral region that has been more beset with " processes" for the extraction of gold from auriferous sulphides than North Carolina. And it would be hard to find a mineral region less sought by capital. So many promising mines have come to grief here (perhaps because they were too "promising"), SO many "processes" have been tried and abandoned, so much expensive machinery has been bought and thrown aside, that to invite money here for investing in gold mines is almost sure to cause a smile of incredulity, or a sigh of disappointed hopes. Within the writer's personal knowledge, at least five disastrous failures have followed the introduction of as many processes. It would seem as

Jan 1, 1889

By J. C. Smock

THE primitive mode of mining clay by open workings, in which the overlying beds of earth (commonly termed the "bearing") were removed, and the clay then dug out by sinking shallow pits, is still the prevalent and almost universal mode of extraction. This is particularly true of our cretaceous and tertiary clays, which are generally earthy in character, and but slightly covered by drift and alluvium. The most accessible beds in many of our clay districts have been worked out, and clay miners are compelled to search for new outcrops, or to remove thicker beds of top dirt or bearing. Under this stimulus subterranean working, or mining proper, has been suggested. A brief notice of this new mode, as employed by Mr. Otto Ernst, near the head of Chesquake's Creek, three miles south of South Amboy, New Jersey, is here presented for your consideration. Previous to mining, the old mode of extraction, digging pits, was found to be too expensive, in' consequence of the heavy amount of top dirt and the excessively large amount of water in these overly-

Jan 1, 1875

By J. A. Herbst, D. W. Fuerstenau

An analysis of the kinetics of dolomite grinding in a dry ball mill reveals that the following approximations apply for the parameters of the batch grinding model: (1) the size discretized selection functions are proportional to the specific power input to the mill, and (2) the breakage functions can be taken as invariant. These approximations are shown to provide the basis for accurate predictions of product size distributions obtained for several mill speed, ball load, and particle load combinations within the normal ball mill operating range. The engineering implications of these findings are discussed.

Jan 1, 1974

By K. F. Unrug

Eastern coalfields have been extensively strip mined. In the past, contour mining left vast areas of post-mining highwalls and benches. Thin seams, which cannot be feasibly mined with conventional methods, quite often contain substantial reserves of high quality coal. Unconventional secondary recovery methods may permit economical production of that coal, increased use of reserves, and provide resources for restoration of orphaned land. Technical and rock mechanics implications of secondary mining methods are discussed to determine their limitations and the objectives of required research.

Jan 1, 1986

By R. P. Aikman, F. G. Miller, J. M. Podgursky

In response to the growing demand for low-sulfur coking coal for iron-making, the coal industry is continually striving to perfect methods for cleaning coal to acceptable ash and sulfur levels while maintaining maximum product yield. By present standards the industry has adequate processes for cleaning coarse coal, (i.e., +28 mesh) at almost any desired specific gravity. However, in the case of fine coal (i.e., -28 mesh) neither of the two existing processes-froth flotation and hydrocycloning-in its present state of development yields products that are comparable in ash and/or sulfur content to products normally obtained from coarse coal processes. The work outlined in this article is part of a larger study directed toward maximum exploitation of froth flotation for fine coal processing. The concepts and data presented are now serving as a basis for designing fine-coal circuits in which improved efficiency is obtained by optimum use of froth flotation with other fine-coal processing methods.

Jan 7, 1967

By Howland Bancroft

The writer has observed that some confusion is experienced by many mining engineers in making vertical sections of ore deposits in mining properties which they have examined. Having much examination work calling for the correct interpretation of vein structure and the subsequent platting of the same on sections, it has occurred to the writer that the accompanying diagram may be of use to others who at times may be called upon to prepare numerous sections. For example, a great mass of data on strike and dip of ore bodies is collected underground in separate

Jan 1, 1915

By M. Katzer, R. Klimpel, J. Sewell

The effect of using selective dispersants as wet grinding aids for ores is demonstrated on laboratory scale batch and continuous grinding equipment. A complete characterization of behavior is performed on a given ore to demonstrate correlations involving torque, % solids, net production rate, and slurry weight and volume loading. The relationship between such laboratory data and industrial scale testing results is very consistent.

Jan 1, 1982

By S. Singh, R. C. Deshpande

RECENTLY metallographic studies of copper slugs recovered after firing shaped charges in deep containers of water were reported.' The present note describes the metallographic examination of a steel

Jan 1, 1960