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The Institute is custodian of funds for support of numerous gold medals and prizes and has representatives on boards awarding still others. Details regarding the Institute Awards are given be- low. The Institute is represented on the boards of the John Fritz Medal, the Hoover Medal and the Washington Award, in connection with the three national societies of Civil, Mechanical and Electrical engineering; and, also, in the case of the Washington Award, with the Western Society of Engineers. The Institute is represented with these four societies on the committee in charge of the Alfred Noble Prize.

Jan 1, 1934

POSITIONS VACANT (Under this heading will be published notes sent to the Secretary of the Institute by members or other persons.) Metallurgist wanted for research in iron and steel. Man with experience in mills preferred. Salary $4,000. No. 13. Opening for a few technical graduates to act as instructors in mining to men at the mines under the supervision of the State mine inspector. Salary $1,800 per year. No. 14. ENGINEERS AVAILABLE (Under this heading will be published notes sent to the Secretary of the Institute by members or other persons.) Mining engineer and metallurgist open for engagement, as superintendent of mines or constructing engineer. Technically educated, with 14 years' experience in United States and Latin America in concentration, amalgamation, cyaniding, constructing. Just finished building large modern all-sliming cyanide mill in Central America. No. 18.

Jan 4, 1914

By Lawrence Adler

A lag apparent in the mining engineering field. While mining will continue as an essential industry, a revitalized profession will be required for national well-being. Specific problems facing the profession include: - a conflict between its design, production and management components, which affect the engineers on a daily basis; - a credibility gap in public matters that is so extreme, government action approaches punitive in degree, and - historical decreases in the number of degree-offering departments in the face of an increasing demand for graduates. A turnaround in these areas could result in attracting into the industry, highly creative, capable, and socially concerned engineers. By improving the quality of undergraduate education, the effectiveness of each entering engineer would be multiplied. This is another way to combat the chronic shortage of trained mining engineers. At the same time, it would set a significant example for other professions in the throes of overspecialization. A revival of the mining profession can be accomplished only during the formative training years of its future practitioners. An educator's role would be pivotal in this effort.

Jan 3, 1975

By T. M. Morris, R. M. Edwards

Digital and analog computers are being used at an accelerated rate for the control of processes. A digital computer can store information concerning a process and when it is fed certain information concerning the material to be processed it can rapidly scan its "memory" and put out information concerning the settings on the plant controls to be used to handle the feed material. An analog computer does not ordinarily store information. It uses an electronic analog to simulate part of a process and the electronic analog can detect changes in the process, and by actuating controls, it can keep the process operating under desired conditions. In order to utilize the speed at which these computers operate it is desirable to obtain information concerning the behavior of feed material as near the head of the process as possible so that changes in operation of the process can be made before the material has passed through the processing equipment.

Jan 8, 1964

Although the Suggestions to Institute Authors, as revised and amplified over the years to meet changing conditions and experience, have had as their primary objective the guidance of the author who is preparing a paper for record in the TRANSACTIONS, there are in this current version many excellent suggestions for the preparation of any material for publication by the Institute In this connection it should be emphasized that in a sense, and to a degree determined by the editors, the Institute has in its journals "a place for everything," especially a place for the article of practical nature that is of immediate but not necessarily permanent interest Such articles may be referred by the Institute Technical Publications Committee to the editors or submitted directly to them , [Papers (TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS and TECHNICAL NOTES) authorized for the TRANSACTIONS are, with the discussion, gathered together at the end of the calendar year and with a table of contents and index, bound, according to Branch classification, as volumes of the TRANSACTIONS

Jan 1, 1952

The following communication was recently sent President Wilson by J. Parke Channing, Chairman of the Engineering Council: The transportation systems of our country are largely the creations of its professional Engineers. This statement can be made without disparagement to the statesmen, the financiers, the manufacturers, the lawers, the educators, the mechanics, the laborers and many others, who, with the Engineers, have contributed to the development of transportation. Through all stages of preliminary exploration, final survey, construction, upkeep and operation, in financial management, and in adjustment of the relations of transportation to the public, the genius and knowledge of the Engineer are essential. Not only in technical physical matters, but also in determinations of policy, his contributions have supplemented and must ever supplement those of other men. These declarations hold good for all the carriers of commerce, by rail, by highway, by water, by pipe-line, by wire, or by air. Hence, it follows that the body established by Government to regulate the commerce, the carriers and the ways of communication, embracing so many engineering features, should number among its nine members, men of engineering training and experience. Engineering Council, being aware of a vacancy on the Interstate Commerce Commission, begs leave to request the Chief Executive that in filling this vacancy, he give earnest thought to the selection of a man who, to his other qualifications, adds the training and experience of an engineer familiar with transportation problems.

Jan 9, 1919

By James E. Gingrich

The new Track Etch technique for uranium exploration has been utilized in several survey programs conducted during the last few years. The results from these programs have been very encouraging, and new uranium ore bodies have been discovered by using this new technique. The method is being used in several exploration programs in various locations around the world. This exploration technique utilizes small pieces of special radiation-sensitive plastic film to detect the presence of radon gas which is released by uranium ore bodies. Because of the selectivity and sensitivity of the technique, ore bodies not normally detected with other surface or airborne monitoring methods are found. Since no large equipment or special training of personnel is needed, the technique is easily used in field operations. The basis for the Track Etch method, its application in field exploration programs, and the results obtained to date in locating uranium ore bodies are discussed.

Jan 1, 1976

By C. O. Babcock

In this Bureau of Mines report, the authors present the results of laboratory tests on the burst proneness of coal. Many researchers have studied the violent breaking of large coal masses in underground mines, called bursts, but the causes remain uncertain. They have often assigned to geology and gas pressure the causative roles. The objective of this work is to show that stress can produce bursts in many coals if constraint is necessary for pillar survival and is suddenly lost. We tested coal samples from 15 mines, in 11 coal seams, in six states in the laboratory, and 13 were made to burst. These bursts were produced in several ways, but segmented steel platens were used in the tests reported. Two parameters analogous to the momentum and kinetic energy were used to rank the burst proneness of the coals tested. Tangential strains over the lower surface of the model coal pillar were measured to reveal a periodic slipping prior to the burst. High-speed motion pictures (350 frames per second) reveal the burst behavior in slow motion. We propose a modified Mohr-Coulomb stress-failure criterion to describe the burst behavior. When the horizontal constraint is suddenly lost with little change in the vertical stress, the Mohr stress circle increases in size dynamically, exceeding the static failure condition. When the inertia of the coal mass is overcome, a burst occurs. We conclude that most coals can be made to burst and that such bursts can be expected in mining at increasing depths.

Jan 1, 1984

By John Roberts

THE Federal income tax law permits as a deduction in determining net income "in the case of mines, . . . a reasonable allowance for depletion and for depreciation of improvements, according to the, peculiar conditions in each case, based upon cost, including cost of development not otherwise deducted: Provided, that in the case of such properties acquired prior to Mar. 1, 1913, the fair market value of the property (or the taxpayer's interest therein) on that date shall be taken in lieu of cost up to that date." The law provides for a reasonable allowance but the regulations provide for a definite method of computation that possesses more the virtue of simplicity than that of reasonableness. Article 210 of Regulations 45. reads: "When the cost or value as of Mar. 1, 1913, or within 30 days after the date of discovery of the property shall have been determined, and the number of mineral units in the property as of the date of acquisition or valuation shall have been estimated, the division of the former amount by the latter figure will give the unit value for purposes of depletion, and the depletion allowance for the taxable year may be computed by multiplying such unit value by the number of units of mineral extracted during the year." This is simple, but is it reasonable? The intent of the law is clearly that the cost of the ore in the ground shall be considered as part of the cost of the same ore when removed and sold. The regulations fail to carry out that intent, because of the unwarranted assumption that all the ore in the mine cost the same amount per ton. This is what gives the Treasury Department's method its simplicity, but at the same time robs it of its reasonableness because the assumption is contrary to fact.

Jan 1, 1921

By G. L. Craig

COPPER containing a small amount of arsenic has been used extensively abroad, and a number of reports, particularly those by English workers, have indicated that such copper is better suited for certain uses than high-conductivity copper. Inasmuch as a large percentage of the copper fabricated is used for nonelectrical purposes where high conductivity is not at all essential, it has been suggested that arsenical copper might be at least as suitable as high-conductivity copper for many purposes. An investigation spon-sored by the Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper Co. at Battelle Memorial Institute was therefore undertaken with the object of determin-ing the effect of small amounts of arsenic (up to 0.75 per cent) on the properties of copper. In this work the effect of arsenic on the basic properties of tough-pitch and of phosphorized copper have been critically studied and many data collected from laboratory experiments which have been supplemented by mill-scale tests. The results of these tests, with coppers of the type referred to, in the annealed condition and after various degrees of reduction, show that the basic properties of copper are not greatly affected by small amounts of arsenic, an increase in strength being observed with increasing arsenic with no corresponding decrease in ductility. It is well known that the evaluation of material for plastic deforma-tion, on the basis of laboratory tests, may not be directly comparable with its performance in commercial operations. In order, therefore, to substantiate the data obtained at the Institute, the cooperation of the Wolverine Tube Co. was obtained for a series of production tests on the fabrication characteristics of phosphorized arsenical copper in the manu-facture of seamless copper tubing. In these tests the behavior of the arsenical coppers was carefully observed in comparison with that of representative types of phosphorized arsenic-free copper, which were fabricated under the same conditions.

Jan 1, 1933

By R. W. Jigins

OPERATIONS of the Braden Copper Co. are in the Chilean Andes, southeast of Santiago. Most remote of the company communities is Sewell, a town of 12,000 people, 7000 ft above sea level at the junction of the Coya and Teniente rivers. Four miles down the Coya River is the smelter town of Caletones, elevation 4500 ft, with a population of about 3000. At the junction of the Coya and Cacha-poal rivers 24 miles below Sewell is Coya, elevation 2500 ft, location of the company's two hydroelectric plants. The principal accounting offices; steel, iron, and brass foundries; railroad shops; and major mechanical repair and fabricating shops are at Rancagua in the central Chilean valley, 44 miles from Sewell. The company owned narrow-gage railroad connects with the Chilean national railroad at Rancagua and above Coya is the only modern means of travel. El Teniente mine at Sewell is the largest underground copper mine in the world. The mill, at the portal of the main tunnel, has a capacity of 34,000 tons of crude ore daily, although production is lower during the winter beacause of electric power restrictions. When operating at capacity the mill produces 2000 tpd of copper concentrates and 32,000 tpd of tailings. Tonnage of tailings is equivalent to about 100,000 tons of pulp at normal water to solid ratio. Because the streams flowing from the Andes in the area of Braden's operations are used for irrigation, it is impossible to dump tailings directly to the river. The tailings pulp must be separated into solids and decanted clear water, and the clear water returned to the same water shed from which the original water was removed. Remaining sands and slime must be deposited in a reservoir where they will not cause trouble to farmers.

Jan 1, 1958

By Charles B. Dudley

It is evident that, as the size and weight of cars have increased, the demands on the cast-iron car-wheel have become more and more severe. Fortunately, the factor of safety in the cast-iron wheel, as originally made, was so large that it was only when freight-cars approached the capacity of from 80,000 to 100,000 lb. that the question of wheels began to give some anxiety. A moment's thought will show that, as freight- and passenger-cars have increased in weight and size, a much greater duty is required of the same eight wheels than was formerly the case. In other words, although the cars have increased in capacity from 15 tons to 50 tons each, the number of wheels under a car has not been generally increased. It is true, some cars have been equipped with 12 wheels, but this construction is not the rule. Hence the duty which the wheel must perform has become much more severe, and although it was clearly able to stand some increase, there must evidently be a limit somewhere which cannot be exceeded. Meanwhile, it is the part of wisdom to make better wheels if possible, and accordingly, no little study is now being devoted to the requirements for cast-iron car-wheels; and modifications are being made, both by increasing the weight of the wheel and by improving the quality of the metal of which it is made. The desire to improve the quality of the wheel has led to the preparation of specifications for its manufacture; and within the last 15 years a more rigid scrutiny of the wheel is char-

Jan 1, 1905

By J. B. Mackintosh

The general method which has been followed since the time of Heinrich Rose, and perhaps before, for the determination of phosphorus in iron and steel, is to dissolve the sample either in nitric acid, aqua regia, or some other oxidizing agent, in order to convert the phosphorus into phosphoric acid. In 1832 Rose* recommends HNO3, or aqua regia, preferably the former. Wohler, in 1854,† directs that the iron should be oxidized by burning in a stream of oxygen for the determination of carbon, and the resulting oxide of iron containing all the phosphorus as phosphoric acid be treated as an ore. In the fourth English edition of Fresenius' Quantitative Analysis,† pp. 666-667, we find directions to dissolve the iron in aqua regia or bromine; and, coming down to more recent times, we find F. A. Cairns § directing the employment of a boiling solution of potassium chlorate and hydrochloric acid for the oxidation and solution of the sample to be analyzed. It is unnecessary to multiply quotations from the literature of the subject, though they might be extended almost inclefinitely, since it would only be a repetition of the above mentioned series of methods in one form or another; and the references given have been selected to show how little essential variation there is in the type-methods of solution used. In fact it seems to be universally accepted as a necessary first step in the determination that some such method of solution should be followed. One chemist, however, struck out on a different line of thought, and to the Lest of my knowledge only one, M. V. Tantin, who, in

Jan 1, 1886

By Edgar Newhouse

THE lead smeltery at East Helena, Mont., controlled by the American Smelting & Refining Co. since 1899, has been in continuous operation for the past 25 years. Most of the old smelting and roasting practices have been superseded by newer and more modern methods, but on account of the difficulties involved in changing the original construction, some of the methods in use of handling materials are not the most modern. This plant, however, is particularly interesting as being one of the few essentially lead smelteries in the United States. At Federal, Ill., Collinsville, Herculaneum, and possibly other places, similar work is being done, but it is doubtful whether any of them produces as' much lead as the East Helena plant, whose monthly production averages 6,500 tons. The situation, 5 miles east of Helena, is convenient to both the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads, while the electric power is obtained from Canyon Ferry, 12 miles east on the Missouri river. Local quarries supply the requisite amount of lime rock, Which the contracts require to be crushed to 5 in. Of the 450 men on the monthly pay roll, a census showed 200 Austrians, 110 Americans, and 30 Italians, the balance being made up of miscellaneous nationalities. The ore supply is mainly derived from the Coeur d'Alêne mines in Idaho, and consists of crude ore, coarse and fine concentrates, middlings, and slimes. About one-half of the total output of the Coeur d'Alêne camp is sent to East Helena. An average analysis of these ores gives approximately 40 per cent. lead and 11 per cent. sulphur. Local shipments, varying, from month to month, are mostly highly siliceous gold and silver ores carrying little lead. Small shippers, leasers of old mines, and prospectors are very numerous throughout Montana, and it is the policy of the company to encourage these men by every possible means, including the free sampling and analysis of their ores and aid in the development of their mines and prospects whenever their results show promise.

Jan 8, 1914

By Paul Hunt

UP TO June, 1923, the Park-Utah mine had shipped about 94,000 tons of a direct-smelting ore of a gross value of $4,200,000, or about $45. a ton. These values were in gold and silver only, although the ore carried small amounts of lead, copper and zinc. Freight, treatment and deductions had averaged $15.40 a ton. At the expiration of the Pittman Silver Act there was in sight about 30,000 tons of a similar ore with a gross value of about $15 a ton in gold and silver, and a large body of partly developed lead-zinc ore of a gross value of about $20 a ton, 40 per cent. of which was represented by the lead-zinc content and the balance by the silver and gold. Mine costs had been high during the life of the Pittman Act, but as a large part of the profits had gone into equipment of the mine and the orebodies were large and had good walls, we knew that mine costs could be greatly reduced. We were therefore faced by the necessity of getting lower freight and smelter rates or of concentrating the ore. We did obtain better freight rates on lower grade ore, and a favorable smelting rate on the small tonnage of siliceous silver-gold ore, but this smelter rate could not be applied to the lead-zinc ore with any profit to ourselves. The Judge mill of the Park City Mining & Smelting Co., with which we were affiliated, was running to capacity; if we built our own mill it meant a 5-mile freight haul to a satisfactory millsite and a year's delay. Fortunately, the International Smelting Co. had just inherited a mill at Tooele which, with some changes, was about double the capacity required for its own ores. Flotation tests were run on Park-Utah ore and a contract entered into with a low base treatment charge per ton, the tariff being largely fixed by the metallurgical deductions. This contract has been admirably calculated so that the miner can follow a lean orebody to its limit. Such a procedure has no doubt made it difficult for the smelting company at times, but it has resulted in finding ore extensions that otherwise might have been missed, so in the long run it has profited too. A flat rate per ton would have been like mining up to the claim endlines in a great many of the stopes. In order to offer such a contract it can be inferred that the smelting company must have been able to make high recoveries and high-grade products on a very lean ore.

Jan 1, 1928

By David L. Holt, Walter A. Backofen, Anwar-ul Karirn

ANNEALING the binary alloy, Mg-0.5 wt pct Zr in a hydrogen atmosphere results in extensive precipitation of zirconium hydride. The morphology of these precipitates has already been investigated.lm3 Squires, Weiner, and phillips4 found, following creep testing of the hydrided alloy at 450" and 500°C, that hydride denuded zones formed along grain boundaries that were aligned approximately normal to the tensile axis. Zone formation was attributed to diffusional creep by magnesium transport down the prevailing stress gradients.4'5 Recently, electron microprobe analysis by Karim, Holt, and Backofen6 showed the zones indeed to be zirconium-free and furthermore it was shown that in compression, zones formed along boundaries approximately parallel to the stress axis. Thus it was confirmed that the zones are formed by diffusional creep. Typical zone-formation is shown in Fig. 1. Karim, Holt, and Backofen also measured the con- tribution to the total strain, from diffusional flow, slip creep, and grain boundary shear: results showed that diffusional strain tends to saturate with increasing imposed strain, while grain boundary shear eventually becomes the dominant deformation mode. It was suggested in explanation that the precipitate-denuded zones are soft and easily sheared, such deformation contributing to the grain boundary shear measurement. A point to be emphasized is that the Mg-0.5 Zr alloy was not superplastic for the index of strain rate sensitivity of flow stress, m = a log log 6 was only 0.25. It was recognized that diffusional creep in a poly crystalline aggregate must be accompanied by boundary shearing.' The suggestion was that the non Newtonian-viscous character of diffusional creep in the Mg-0.5 wt pct Zr alloy is due to resistance to sliding of boundaries lying approximately parallel to the tensile axis.= The work described in the present note should be seen against the above background for it represents initial efforts to observe in a similar way diffusional creep in a superplastic alloy. Previous work with the ternary-alloy Mg-6 Zn-0.5 Zr, pellet extruded, showed it to be superplastic however it does not contain resolvable precipitates to act as internal markers for diffusional creep. Also the fine grain size of the alloy (0.5 p) made conventional metallography rather difficult. Solubility relationships in the Mg-Zn-Zr system are not well known, however making reasonable guesses about the probable phase diagram of the ternary, Mg-Zn-Zr, various heat treatments were attempted to produce hydride precipitation. Finally a 16-hr anneal at 495' in hydrogen was found to pro-

Jan 1, 1970

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1923

At the request of representatives of the Treasury Department, President Winchell appointed the following committee, which .held a two-day conference with the Treasury representatives in Washington Oil Oct. 6 and 7 to aid in deciding upon the principles of mine taxation to he adopted by the Government. The results of this conference, which is not yet concluded, will be published in a future Bulletin.

Jan 11, 1919

By D. S. Fuerstenau, S. Chander

The results of a preliminary investigation undertaken to explore the possibility of treating potential in sulfide mineral flotation systems as an external variable are reported in this note. Two different methods were used to assess floatability. One involved measurement of contact angles at a mineral electrode in reagent solutions, and the other involved direct measurement of flotation recoveries in a Hallimond tube flotation cell that had been modified such that mineral particles were in electrical contact with a gold electrode. Fairly good correlation between the contact angles and flotation recoveries has been obtained.

Jan 1, 1976