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By H. Link

"The extremely low permeability of the water-carrying beds in the nevonian formation of the potash district of Saskatchewan does not permit the injection of cement or chemicals to seal off sufficient water from the shafts to guarantee the safety of the mine. Based on many years of experience with wet shafts in the German and French potash mining industry, Alwinsal Potash of Canada Ltd. decided to have their potash mine shaft near Lanigan, Sask., which was completed in September of 1967, lined by means of an absolutely watertight lining of combined concrete and steel-plate construction.This shaft lining, consisting of two steel shells of welded construction with concrete filled in between, has proved itself before in the German coal mining industry. It guarantees a permanently dry shaft. With this type of lining, time-robbing and very often abortive injections are superfluous and the regular repair and adjusting work as well as the corrosion of conveyances and ropes can be avoided. Above all, however, the danger of a water inrush into the shaft is abolished completely."

Jan 1, 1971

By Richard B. Stein

Section 25 has been assembled to give the geological, mining, or metallurgical engineer an overview of some of the important downstream operations that typically follow mining activities. This subject is obviously too broad and complex to be covered in detail within this Handbook. However, the engineer will be interested to learn about the basic fundamentals, and especially how they might affect the economics of the total project from prospecting and mining through to metals recovery and marketing. In this way, it is hoped that the engineer will have a better overall appreciation for the technical and commercial prospects of a mining and metal-producing project.

Jan 1, 2008

By F. R. Hensel

P. R. Kalischer.*—I should like to amplify a little one of the points made by Dr. Hensel, and rather violently disagree with him at the same time. He brought out the point that when the higher forming pressures are used on the green compacts there is a marked decrease in the density as sintered. We found that to be true and, of course, many of you notice that that is true with copper compacts also. But, in my opinion at least, it is not true that the expansion is due to entrapped air. We have vacuum-pressed both silver and copper compacts and obtained almost exactly the same numerical expansion as we secured by pressing in air. The powder, however, that is vacuum-annealed does show a slight decrease in expansion on sintering, but almost the entire increase on expansion can be overcome by very slow rates of heating. And it is our opinion that a majority of the expansion is due to dissolved oxygen in the discrete metal particles themselves rather than to entrapped gases. Another interesting observation that we have made is that often with silver or copper compacts it is desirable to silver solder or braze the compact into some part of a piece of equipment after completing powder metallurgical operations on it. If such a compact is sintered and coined, say a silver compact, given an initial forming pressure of 10 to 15 tons per square inch, and sintered, there is an adequate amount of shrinkage and it can be coined at about 50 or 60 tons per square inch and bring up the density nearly to theoretical. If, then, that compact is silver-soldered into some part of a fixture or a machine, it will expand very beautifully, and the only way that this can be overcome. as far as we know, has been to reanneal after the coining operation at a temperature higher than is to be used in any subsequent operation. In that way, a density very nearly theoretical can be achieved, but the coining operation cannot be carried to the excessively high pressures or expansion and bubbling of the compact will occur again.

Jan 1, 1945

By E. O. Abrokwah

Directionally solidified (DS) Rene 80 Superalloy was tested in thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) over the temperature range 500-900°C and plastic strain levels from 0.2 to 0.8% using a DSI Gleeble thermal simulator. Thermo-mechanical testing was carried out on the parent material in the conventional solution treated and aged condition (STA), as well as gas tungsten arc welded with an IN-738 filler, followed by solution treatment and ageing. Comparison of the base TMF unwelded alloy with that of the welded and heat treated alloy showed that varying crack initiation mechanisms, notably oxidation either by stress assisted grain boundary oxidation, or associated with grain boundary MC carbides fatigue crack propagation along grain boundaries and creep deformation were operating, leading to different "weakest link" failure initiation points.

Jan 1, 2011

By M. Botz

For leach solutions containing primarily free cyanide, the silver nitrate titration method is a rapid and acceptably accurate means of analyzing for cyanide. However, in leach solutions containing elevated levels of copper, the titrimetric method significantly over-estimates the concentration of free cyanide and under-estimates the concentration of weak and dissociable (WAD) cyanide. The authors have developed a modified potentiometric titration method for determining WAD cyanide that overcomes issues with high copper levels in solution. The new MP-WAD method involves addition of a chemical ligand to the sample prior to silver nitrate titration to fully release cyanide bound to copper. Once released from copper, cyanide in solution is no longer affected by the presence of copper and titration results are quantitative rather than empirical. In multiple laboratory trials with synthetic solutions and complex actual leach solutions, accurate WAD cyanide measurements were achieved using the MP-WAD method. Analyses obtained with the new method were found to be within about ±10% of analyses obtained with the USEPA OIA-1677 WAD cyanide analytical method.

Feb 27, 2013

By E. O. RHODES

Germany's' wartime coal-tar industry had two main branches, which can best be considered individually because their raw materials, operations, and distributions were almost completely separated. One branch, old and well-established, was concerned almost entirely with processing coal tar produced by the high-temperature carbonization of caking bituminous coal. Carbonization was effected principally in byproduct- coke ovens and to less extent in vertical, horizontal, and inclined retorts. The high-temperature tar was all processed in tar-distilling plants that handled high-temperature tar almost exclusively.

Sep 1, 1947

By Jan E. Nesset

It is just over 100 years since the practice of blowing small bubbles into a mixture of ground ore and water revolutionized the mining industry, resulting in uneconomic deposits becoming highlyprofitable mines, along with the inevitable lawsuits over this new technology called froth flotation. To this day, the viability of many mining projects rests largely with the ability of flotation to effectively capture the valuable minerals and reject wastes. Remarkably, bubble behaviour in flotation has not been well understood until very recently with the advent of new sensor technologies that can be brought directly into the operating plants. This presentation will review the importance to the mining industry of understanding bubbles, highlight these new technologies and illustrate, with examples, how paying attention to your bubbles will pay off.

Jan 1, 2009

Council for 1999/2000 President M.H. Rogers President Elect Dr L.A. Cramer Vice Presidents Senior A.A.B. Douglas Immediate Past President J.R. Dixon Junior S.J. Ramokgopa Honorary Treasurer J.A. Cruise

Jan 1, 2000

By C J. Pitzer

The prevention of fatal risks is a key objective for the global resources industry, especially considering poor performance with regard to fatality rate reduction and the continued occurrence of mine disasters globally. However, the industry has a credible history, over several decades, of the development and deployment management systems to control potential Serious Injury, Fatal and Catastrophic (P-SIFC) risks. While these systems have had a significant impact on the thinking and approaches to the prevention of fatal risks, fatal accident rates have not shown the desired reduction. Recent fatal and serious injury events in Australia have led to the establishment of several enquiries to further identify improvements that could be considered. Globally, fatal accident rates remain stubbornly high or plateaued in many jurisdictions, and several catastrophic events have occurred, such as tailing dams disasters in Brazil and South Africa, and the recent coalmine disaster in Turkey. Apart from the apparent lack of progress, it is evident that the deployment of critical risk systems has introduced more bureaucracy, slower response systems and additional burdens on already overloaded middle and supervisory levels of management. Organisations are rarely able to effectively tap into the risk source of risk knowledge of the frontline worker and supervisor, for various reasons discussed in this paper. To establish a valid and valuable channel of critical risk information flow from the frontline employee, Debmarine Namibia instigated the development and deployment of a system called SafeSENTRY, where the focus is on the ‘dynamic identification of dynamic risks’. This paper outlines the system, the principles of the design, the range of risk metrics that can be derived from the observations of the frontline operators, and demonstrates how a range of posited shortcomings in critical risk management is addressed how features of the High Reliability Organization (HRO) have been developed.

Mar 29, 2023

These proceedings consist of papers presented at three Bureau of Mines Technology Transfer Seminars on ergonomics in the mining industry. These seminars were held in December 1981, and covered topics relating to ergonomics and mining in the areas of the man-machine interface, and design of the work environment. This area of research is directed toward reducing accidents traditionally associated with human error.

Jan 1, 1981

By W. H. C. SIMMONDS

The mining, metallurgical, and petroleum industries can be viewed as financial or as social institutions or both. The differences between these two conceptions of their businesses will influence their environmental 'and social actions. During the next 10-20 years western industry will be subject to a drop in the growth of a more highly educated labour force and to the emergence of holistic economics, new national goals, and a new ecological perspective. The profitability of the mining industry may therefore be influenced by the human side of its business to a greater degree. The increasing human, social, and environmental responsibilities can be discharged by improving the miner's equipment; by learning to look at situations through the eyes of all those involved; by developing common 'languages' which governments and the public can understand; and by mediating where feasible on the international scene.

Jan 1, 1978

By Catherine Aimone-Martin, Mary-Alena Martell

Whole-structure and mid-wall responses of 33 non-traditional structures to surface coal mine blasting were characterized. Eighty-nine blasts were conducted at 11 mine sites throughout the U.S. to measure blastgenerated dynamic response of structures typically found in the proximity of surface coal mining. Structures selected for this study include log-type, manufactured (single- and double-wide trailers), “mine camp”-type, adobe, and stone. Traditional acoustic microphones, t&axial (ground) and single component (structure) velocity transducers were used to record airblast, ground motions, and structures response time histories with a common time base. Wall crack displacement gages were used to record static and dynamic movement of existing drywall cracks. The relative responses of selected “atypical” structures to blast vibrations and nonblasting causes of structural stress, including natural forces, environmental effects, and human habitation, are compared. The purpose of this study is to document and compare vibration characteristics of structures that were not included in previous studies conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and others in establishing the widely adopted safe level blast vibration criteria in the U.S. An important objective of this study is to outline an evaluation process including structure uniqueness relative to cracking susceptibility.

Jan 1, 2002

By R. W. Smith, A. M. Raichur, M. Misra

Mycobacterium phlei has very good potential as a hematite flotation collector. The flotation recovery of hematite is dependent upon the solution pH and concentration of the microorganism. The critical pH for maximum recovery of hematite is around three, which corresponds to the point of zero charge of the microorganism. An excellent correlation between the flotation recovery and bacterial adhesion on hematite is observed. The adhesion of Mycobacterium phlei on hematite can be described by the potential energy of interaction calculations using an extended DLVO theory.

Jan 1, 1994

By Robert F. Pettit

This paper on methods and costs of mining and milling iron ore at the Iron Mountain mine of Ozark Ore Co., St, Francois County, Mo., is one of a series of Bureau of Mines reports on methods, practices, and costs of mining and milling throughout the United States. The Iron Mountain operation is notable for its successful transition from open-pit to underground mining, for use underground of large earth-moving equipment, and for development of a multilevel room-and-pillar mining method. Milling methods also have undergone transitions - from hand sorting and log washing in the early days to gravity concentration. Milling ultimately may include flotation to recover additional iron from products now discarded as tailing,

Jan 1, 1957

By Karl J. C. Harries

"10.1. INTRODUCTIONDefinitions are a necessary part of every agreement. Their purposes are to assist the reader in reading and understanding an agreement and to attempt to avert potential confusion and, therefore, disputes. In some circumstances, they may be critical in deciding a dispute. As they are often substantive, they should not be treated lightly.It is far easier and less confusing for a reader to read “the Company” or “the Recipient” than to be faced with “the party of the First Part”, or to see the “Jones Property” than “that part of the property hereinbefore described in paragraph 1.01 hereof”. It is also advisable not to use “-ee” and “- or”, as in payee and payor.One thing must always be remembered: once a word has been defined in an agreement, it will always have the defined meaning unless the contrary is clearly indicated or is required to make sense of a provision.2 It can be confusing for a reader if commonly used words are defined in other than ordinary terms. Unique words that will stand out in the text are more likely to be recognized as having special meaning. It is also good practice to identify defined terms by capitalizing them in the text of the agreement. Boldfacing of definitions is also sometimes used for this purpose but, as boldfacing is not easily identified in handwritten revisions, it can be missed in the press of negotiations, especially when several typists are involved. Lack of consistency in identifying defined terms is not a fatal mistake, but it can create confusion, especially if the reader is new to the agreement or is reading it in a highly technical manner, such as when there is a dispute.If definitions used in the main text also apply to a schedule, they need not be included in both. Omitting them from the schedule makes the agreement look shorter, which to some people is a benefit. If definitions are not repeated, make certain that the schedule clearly indicates that words defined in the main text have the same defined meanings in the schedule3 and are clearly identified as defined words. In considering whether or not to repeat in a royalty schedule definitions appearing in the agreement proper, think of definitions as an aid and a reminder to the reader. Repeating them will help a reader, if only by saving the nuisance of remembering where to find them in the main text and constantly turning to it. All the definitions needed to read the schedule will be right there, so that the schedule is a self-contained document. Just make certain that, if you do repeat a definition, you repeat it in identical terms. If you have to change any defined term to make it fit the royalty provisions, use a different word or phrase as the defined term to warn the reader that he is dealing with a different concept.4"

Jan 1, 2003

By J. van Deventer

Testwork was done with two different adsorbents, Dowex-Minix gold-selective resin and activated carbon, to detemine their relative performances with regard to gold recovery from clarified low-grade solution employing a fixed-bed operation. The mill discharge from the milling-in-cyanide operation at a Witwatersrand gold mine was used as feed to the adsorption columns. A small amount of gold was leached during the milling process, so that this solution simulates, to a certain extent, a low-grade solution representative of a heap-leach operation. A speciation of the feed solution was done to establish which metal complexes were present in the milling-in-cyanide solution. This information was necessary to interpret metal loadings on the resin, as base metal cyanide species and their respective charges have an effect on the final gold loading capacity of the resin. Equilibrium isotherms were established for both adsorbents to estimate the rate of adsorbent flow anticipated for this specific feed solution. Breakthrough profiles were obtained at two different superficial linear velocities for each adsorbent. Mass transfer zone heights determined from the test work and the elution/regeneration time requirements were used to size a 150 m3/h full-scale plant for both adsorbents. A counter current configuration of adsorption columns, using three columns, should be suitable to recover gold effectively and to produce an effluent with a gold concentration below 0.01 mg/l. Based on the results obtained from the breakthrough tests, a preliminary techno-economic comparison was done between the resin-in-solution and carbon-in-solution options for the recovery of gold from low-grade solutions. This study indicated that the capital expenditure for a carbon-in-solution plant would be about 33 percent higher than that of a resin-in-solution plant. The operating expenditure for a resin-in-solution plant is expected to be only 60per cent of that for a carbon-in-solution plant. Keywords: resin-in-solution, carbon-in-solution, heap leach.

Jan 1, 2000

By E. H. Wells, A. Andreas

Greater progress than in any previous year was accomplished by the oil industry in New Mexico in 1936. The total number of completions in the state was 631, of which 549 were oil wells, 21 were hydrocarbon gas wells, three were carbon dioxide gas wells, and 58 were dry holes. The total oil production for the year was 26,804,446 bbl. Compared with the production for 1935 of 20,228,947 bbl., this represented a gain of 32.5 per cent. Of the total production, 25,337,382 bbl. came from Lea County. The average daily nonmarginal well allowable for that county was 115 bbl. the first of the year and 86 bbl. at the close. Production was regulated by the New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission,

Jan 1, 1937

By S. Sarac

Solving ventilation networks of natural splitting is a basic problem in mine ventilation. Several mathematical techniques are used to solve this problem. This paper proposes a new method which combines the advantages of both classical Hardy Cross method and unconstrained optimization techniques. The trials carried out on model networks have shown that the method offers some facilities in the analysis of mine ventilation networks. Keywords: Ventilation network analysis, Hardy Cross method, Steepest Descent method.

Jan 1, 2000

By A J. Broome

Since 2003, there has been an unprecedented growth in the demand for engineering, technical and project services in the mineral industries. This demand for services became evident in Australia earlier than many other markets and has since spread globally. This growth has created significant issues for the strategic direction and planning by the service provider. Such strategic questions include:- how fast to grow, how to recruit, train and integrate new staff, what market sectors to service, the selection of targeted customer sectors and managing strategic growth with short term demands and commercial reality. These factors are discussed using in depth experiences and examples that illustrate these strategic approaches. The relevance of this new industry environment to New Zealand services will be highly discussed.

Jan 1, 2007

By R. J. Durrheim

The DEEPMINE Collaborative Research Programme was established to create the technological and human resources platform that would make it possible to mine gold safely and profitably at depths of 3 to 5 km. The DEEPMINE Programme has four goals: to acquire knowledge of and develop appropriate technology for new ultra-deep level mines, to stimulate education and training, to establish a culture of innovation, and to encourage rapid technology transfer and implementation. The research programme was launched in July1998 and will be completed in March 2002, with the final year focusing on the transfer of knowledge to the industrial partners. DEEPMINE represents a new model for conducting mining research: it is driven by industry needs; emphasizes collaboration between industrial partners, research organizations and tertiary education institutions; and has a novel joint-funding mechanism. DEEPMINE has employed a range of vehicles to transfer knowledge to its industrial partners. Novel aspects include: (a) electronic publication of Summary Reports and Guideline Handbooks that seek to consolidate the huge body of knowledge comprehensively and concisely, (b) a series of DEEPMINE Schools designed to enable industry practitioners to apply the knowledge to their current work situation, and (c) Consultancy Reviews, where DEEPMINE specialists seek to apply knowledge to specific real problems on mines.

Jan 1, 2002