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By T. B. Brooks

THE iron ores of the Marquette region are mostly extracted in open excavations; hence the process is more properly quarrying. Several attempts at underground work have been made, which have not, on the whole, been successful. The Edwards mine has been almost entirely wrought by candle-light. The slate ore pit, NO. 1, of the New England mine, is now worked in the same way, as is also the Pioneer furnace pit of the Jackson mine. The Champion mine was opened systematically for underground work, with two levels, 60 feet apart, and three shafts at distances apart along the bed of 200 feet; but this idea has been practically abandoned, the greater part of the ore in that mine being now taken out in open pits. Several other mines have occasionally worked underground stopes, but only temporarily; if such stopes could not be opened out to daylight, they have usually been abandoned. In brief, it may be said that no considerable amount of ore has as yet (1870) .been extracted underground in the region, and of that so mined very little has been taken out at a profit; and I may add that it seems to be the belief of the most experienced mining men that this state of things will hold for some time to come for reasons which will appear. Nearly the same remarks may be applied to the mines of the Iron Mountain region, Missouri, the ores of which are very similar in character to those of Marquette. Some of the New York and New Jersey magnetic deposits are wrought open, but this is the exception, underground mining there being the rule. The following brief sketch of the geological structure of the Marquette deposits will indicate some advantages of the method of mining employed. The iron-bearing (Huronian) series of rocks, are stratified beds, the principal ore formation being overlaid by a quartzite, and underlaid by a diorite, or greenstone. This ore formation is made up, first, of pure ore; second, of "mixed ore" (i. e., banded

By F. J. Darnell

SINGLE crystals of a-titanium are difficult to obtain because of the phase transformation at 882 °C in which the structure changes from the high-temperature body-centered structure ß to the low-temperature hexagonal close-packed structure a. Preparation of single crystals of a-titanium has previously been accomplished by a strain-anneal method which takes several days and is not generally reproducible. Single crystals as large as 5 mm

Jan 1, 1959

By F. E. Werner, B. L. Averbach, Morris Cohen

THAT bainite formed near the M, temperature bears a striking r esemblance to martensite tempered at the same temperature has been shown by the electron microscope.' By means of electron diffraction,' it has been established that carbide and cementite are present in bainite formed at 500°F (260°C); these carbides are also found in martensite tempered at 500°F (260°C).' The investigation reported here is concerned with an X-ray study of the matrix phases in lower bainite and tempered martensite. These phases have turned out to be dissimilar in structure; the matrix of bainite is body-centered-cubic while that of tempered martensite is body-centered-tetragonal. A vacuum-melted Fe-C alloy containing 1.43 pct C was studied. Specimens of 16 in. diam were sealed in evacuated silica tubing and austenitized at 2300°F (1260°C) for 24 hr. One specimen was quenched into a salt bath at 410°+7 °F (210°+4°C), held for 16 hr, and cooled to room temperature. The structure consisted of about 90 to 95 pct bainite, the re: mainder being martensite and retained austenite. A second specimen was quenched from the austen-itizing temperature into iced brine and then into liquid nitrogen. It consisted of about 90 pct martensite and 10 pct retained austenite. The latter specimen was tempered for 10 hr at 410°+2°F (210°+1°C). The specimens were then fractured along prior austenite grain boundaries (grain size about 2 mm diam) by light tapping with a hammer. Single aus-tenite grains, mostly transformed, were etched to about 0.5 mm diam and mounted in a Unicam single crystal goniometer, which allowed both rotation and oscillation of the sample. Lattice parameters were measured by the technique of Kurdjumov and Lyssak. This method takes advantage of the fact that martensite and lower bainite are related to austenite by the Kurdjumov-sachs orientation relationships Thus, the (002) and the (200) (020) reflections can be recorded separately, permitting the c and a parameters to be determined without interference from overlapping reflections. According to these findings, the matrix phase in bainite is body-centered-cubic and, within experimental error, has the same lattice parameter as ferrite (2.866A). On the other hand, martensite, tempered as above, retains some tetragonality, with a c/a ratio of 1.005t0.002. Most workers in the past have assumed that bainite is generated from austenite as a supersaturated phase, but the nature of this product has not been established. The question arises as to whether bainite initially has a tetragonal structure and then tempers to cubic, or if it forms directly as a cubic structure. If it forms with a tetragonal lattice, it might well be expected to temper to the cubic phase at about the same rate as tetragonal martensite. The martensitic specimen used here was given approximately the same tempering exposure, 10 hr at 410°F, as suffered by the greater part of the bainite during the isothermal transformation. About 50 pct bainite was formed in 6 hr at 410°F. On tempering at this temperature, martensite reduces its tetragonality within a few minutes to a value corresponding to 0.30 pct C.' Further decomposition proceeds slowly, and after 10 hr the c/a ratio is still appreciable, i.e., 1.005. Thus, even if the bainite were to form as a tetragonal phase with a tetragonality corresponding to only 0.30 pct C, which might be assumed to coexist with e carbide, it would not be expected to become cubic in this time. It seems very likely, therefore, that bainite forms irom austenite as a body-centered-cubic phase and does not pass through a tetragonal transition. The carbon content of the cubic phase has not been determined, but it could easily be as high as 0.1 pct, within the experimental uncertainty of the lattice-parameter measurements. It has been postulated that retained austenite decomposes on tempering into the same product as martensite tempered at the same temperature. There is now considerable doubt on this point. The isothermal transformation product of both primary and retained austenite at the temperature in question here is bainite," and the present findings show that bainite and tempered martensite do not have the same matrix. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Instrumentation Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the United States Air Force.

Jan 1, 1957

By Paul Billingsley

Introduction. THE Georgetown mining district is located in Deerlodge county, Mont., about 20 miles west of Anaconda. It lies along the divide between the headwaters of Warm Springs creek, draining eastward, and Flint creek, flowing west and north through the Philipsburg valley. The actual divide is formed by Cable mountain, a narrow ridge running north and south, terminating to the south in low hills overlooking Georgetown lake, and to the north in a high, rugged plateau that falls off to the west to the wide valley of Flint creek. Oil the eastern, or Warm Springs, slope of Cable mountain is the Cable mine, with the Hidden Lake mine a few miles north. On the western slope is the Southern Cross group, with smaller mines, the Twilight, Cincinnati, Red Lion, and Big Bill, at intervals to the northward. The Georgetown mines lie in the hills south of Cable mountain; the Philipsburg mines, of which the Granite Mountain, Bimetallic, Hope, and Trout are the chief, form a separate group to the north, overlooking Flint Creek valley and Philipsburg. (See Fig. 1.1) The region ranges in elevation from 5,000 to 9,000 ft. It is, with the exception of the lower valleys, well timbered with small fir and pine, although Cable mountain and the higher summits to the northward rise slightly above timber line. The main valleys have the smooth contours of glaciation, and their mouths are frequently choked with morainal deposits.

Jan 9, 1913

THE preceding chapter has recorded the initiation of mineral industry education during the period 1890-1910 in numerous institutions that had not previously offered it. It should also be emphasized that in many institutions where instruction had begun before 1890, as recorded in earlier chapters, but had not yet become firmly established, this period was one of marked growth and development. This was not universally true, however, for at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington (St. Louis), Iowa, Vanderbilt and Tennessee, and at the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, mineral industry instruction was being dropped during this period, instead of gaining in strength. It is necessary to emphasize this, because writers on the subject have not infrequently attempted to make a much too simple correlation between mineral discovery or production and the intensity of student interest in mineral industry curricula. It would naturally be true that periods of large mineral production would, in general, coincide with cycles of business prosperity, and the latter are conducive to starting new ventures, educational as well as business. It should be equally evident that opportunities for business and professional success might, in such periods, appear to increase at a more rapid rate in industries other than mineral, or in the utilization of minerals rather than in their production. The author has not been able to perceive any simple and clear relation between interest in mineral industry education and mineral discovery, production, and utilization, or general business prosperity. On the contrary, the more the problem is studied the more complex the factors involved in it appear to be. In a later chapter an attempt will be made to analyze them in more detail

Jan 1, 1941

By R. A. Bowen

The Montreal mine, operated by the Montreal Mining Co., is four miles west of Ironwood, Mich., in Iron County, Wisconsin. It is the westernmost producing property on the Gogebic Iron Range of the Lake Superior district. Its production is 4000 tons of hematite per day from an average depth of 2300 ft. This tonnage is hoisted through a five-compartment vertical shaft. Several mining methods are in use but in the larger orebodies the method is sublevel caving. ORE Occurrence and Chaeacteristics The main orebodies of the Montreal mine lie in eastward-pitching troughs formed by the intersections of intrusive dikes with impervious members of the iron formation. The formation has an average width of 425 ft., strikes east and west and dips north at approximately 62. The dikes dip south at 45° and bear north 20' from the strike of the formation, making the intersections with various members pitch east at 16°. The dikes are not continuous across the formation but are interrupted by a longitudinal bedding fault, which has a throw of 380 ft. vertically and 885 ft. horizontally. North of the fault zone the formation is called "hanging," south it is called "footwall" formation. The faulting has created two ore-bearing horizons; viz., at the intersection of banging dikes with the slate members and the foot dikes with the quartzite footwall. In each formation the main ore-bearing member consists of wavy beds of hard chert interlaid with hematite. In the most productive part of the mine, where the sublevel caving method is employed, a hanging-formation dike lies in juxtaposition with a footwall dike and the iron formation carries ore in certain sections from the quartzite footwall to the hanging dike. Here a horizontal section of the orebody may be 300 to 400 ft. wide for a length of 150 ft. or more and tail out lengthwise in both the foot and hanging formations. The footwall ore section is much longer than the hanging wall because of the orebody's greater height above the "pitching dike."

Jan 1, 1940

By R. A. Bowen

The Montreal mine, operated by the Montreal Mining Co., is four miles west of Ironwood, Mich., in Iron County, Wisconsin. It is the westernmost producing property on the Gogebic Iron Range of the Lake Superior district. Its production is 4000 tons of hematite per day from an average depth of 2300 ft. This tonnage is hoisted through a five-compartment vertical shaft. Several mining methods are in use but in the larger orebodies the method is sublevel caving. ORE Occurrence and Chaeacteristics The main orebodies of the Montreal mine lie in eastward-pitching troughs formed by the intersections of intrusive dikes with impervious members of the iron formation. The formation has an average width of 425 ft., strikes east and west and dips north at approximately 62. The dikes dip south at 45° and bear north 20' from the strike of the formation, making the intersections with various members pitch east at 16°. The dikes are not continuous across the formation but are interrupted by a longitudinal bedding fault, which has a throw of 380 ft. vertically and 885 ft. horizontally. North of the fault zone the formation is called "hanging," south it is called "footwall" formation. The faulting has created two ore-bearing horizons; viz., at the intersection of banging dikes with the slate members and the foot dikes with the quartzite footwall. In each formation the main ore-bearing member consists of wavy beds of hard chert interlaid with hematite. In the most productive part of the mine, where the sublevel caving method is employed, a hanging-formation dike lies in juxtaposition with a footwall dike and the iron formation carries ore in certain sections from the quartzite footwall to the hanging dike. Here a horizontal section of the orebody may be 300 to 400 ft. wide for a length of 150 ft. or more and tail out lengthwise in both the foot and hanging formations. The footwall ore section is much longer than the hanging wall because of the orebody's greater height above the "pitching dike."

Jan 1, 1940

Discussion of the paper of Robert Franke, presented at the Butte meeting, August, 1913, and printed in Bulletin No. 79, July, 1913, pp. 1201 to 1205. ARTHUR 0. GATES, Lafayette, Ind. (communication to the Secretary*) :-In connection with the comparison of mechanical crushing efficiencies in Tables I and II of Mr. Franke's paper, I wish to suggest a somewhat simpler way of making this' comparison, based upon what the writer has called the "crushing-surface diagram," as published by him in the Engineering and Mining Journal for May 24, 1913. Such a diagram, based on the data given in Table II, is submitted herewith, Fig. 1, cumulative percentages being plotted as abscissas and reciprocals of diameters (theoretical mesh per inch). plotted as ordinates.. Such a diagram averages the diameters without calculation, and areas upon it are proportional to surface produced, and, in accordance with Rittinger's law, to energy spent on crushing alone.

Jan 11, 1913

C. W. GOODALE, * Butte, Mont.-In regard to the employment manager, the North Butte Mining Co. has undertaken that line of work and the rest of the companies are watching the experiment. If it is proved to be the proper thing, the system will be introduced into other mines. We have to combat the opposition to the use of the "rustling card. It is nothing more nor less than asking the nationality, where the plan formerly worked, and whether he is married or single. ROBERT RHEA GOODRICH, Anaconda, Mont. (written discussion?).¬Since the efficiency of the different phases of personnel work employed by industrial concerns, which are bringing about greater efficiency and lessening the labor turnover, the latter being intimately connected with "contentment of mind," depends on the individual workman, it is highly desirable, as far as industry is concerned, to keep the workman's mind and body in trim in order to lessen accidents and produce a higher grade of work. Prevention being better than cure, health supervision of the workmen during employment should be maintained by the employers in order that mental alertness and physical well-being may be obtained. I have long believed, from observation in many plants, that when any problem is dependent on the individual workman, what he believes and what he does is vitally dependent on his health. I will follow with much interest what is to be clone in the future in relation to the subject of health supervision during employment (as well as medical examinations at the time of employment), and I hope this idea will be generally instituted in personnel work. A workman with good health and a contented mind should be an ideal component of a progressive industrial concern. The contentment of the workman is fostered by a number of admirable phases of welfare work which are being still further developed. The mental and physical well-being of labor should be the issue in Labor vs. Capital in the new period of the industrial promotion of the United States into which we are now entering.

Jan 4, 1919

By D. R. Walker, M. C. Shaw

The laws of Kick and Rittinger are explained as functions of particle size with metal cutting theory. Comminution is shown to be basically the same process as metal grinding. The machine shop type of grinding operation is used to study mineral crushing. Evidence indicates that plastic flow occurs in comminution. THE laws of comminution of Kick and Rittinger have been debated for many years. Certain data obtained from ball mill and drop tests are found to be in approximate agreement with Rittinger's law while other data would seem to support Kick's law. In all these tests the energy required to produce a wide variety of particle sizes has been studied. Surface area has also been measured with considerable difficulty, at first because it was thought that the energy associated with crushing was that required to create new surface, later because of precedent and because a more fundamental variable was unknown. Tests made with the machine shop type of grinding process show that normally brittle materials that are usually crushed can behave like the more ductile metals. Brittleness is then a relative prop- erty largely dependent on specimen size and stress state. The machine grinding operation offers a convenient means for studying the comminution of materials in which the important size variable retains its identity. The energy required to grind a certain volume of material is shown to be strongly dependent on size. Kick's law is found to hold very well for particles below 1 micron in size, while Rittinger's law holds approximately in the comminution of larger particles. While a physical origin of Kick's law is established in terms of the theoretical strength of materials having a perfect lattice structure, there is found to be no physical basis for Rittinger's law. Because of its industrial importance, comminution has commanded considerable technical attention and has been the subject of continuous study for nearly a century. A number of empirical rules have been proposed to make it possible for grinding energies to be predicted. Of these so-called laws of comminution those bearing the names of Kick and Rittinger have been most widely applied and debated.

Jan 1, 1955

Jan 1, 1907

By M. R. Tek

A new method for correlating the data on multiphase flow through vertical pipe is presented. The correlation is based on a "two-phase f factor" concept which was developed and successfully applied to horizontal multiphase flow by Bertuzzi, Tek and Poettmann. Field data previously published on several flowing and gas-lift wells have been used as the basis for the developed correlation. The application of the method to actual two-phase flow problems indicate that this method is capable of predicting the pressure distribution in vertical multiphase flow strings well within the accuracy range usually desired for common engineering and design calculations. A new working chart developed for calculation of two-phase pressure gradients and a graphical step-by-step procedure for the computation of pressure distribution are presented along with an example problem. INTRODUCTION Multiphase flow through vertical pipe is encountered in many engineering installations. In petroleum, chemical process, nuclear engineering and many other industries, problems associated with simultaneous flow of two or more phases through vertical pipe have been of interest for a long time. This interest has increased considerably during recent years due to applications to new processes in petroleum production and refining and to problems of steam generation and heat removal from nuclear reactors. One prominent example of vertical two-phase flow is provided by the gas-lift process where oil, water and gas flow simultaneously. If the pressure profile in a gas-lift well can be predicted within reasonable accuracy, it would be possible to get good estimates of the power required to lift the oil, the optimum depth, the pressure and the rate at which to inject gas. Furthermore, the effect of production rate and tubing sizes on these quantities can be evaluated before any design decision is made on the installation and operation of the flow string. The majority of experimental work available in the literature deals with two-component systems where individual phase flow rates in and out of the pipe remain constant. The general problem of prediction of pressure drops in multiphase flow systems is very complicated. The co-existence of numerous flow patterns of widely different geometry and mechanism, conditions of surface instability and the nature of force fields acting upon the system are among the major difficulties commonly encountered. The classical approach of fluid dynamics which would be based upon the formulation and solution of Navier-Stokes equations has been found by many investigators completely devoid of any hope of success-—not only because of inherent nonlinearities but also because of insurmountable analytical difficulties standirng in the way of setting up the boundary conditions. The presence and effect of interfacial forces on mu1tiphase flow systems further complicate the theoretical approach. For these reasons, many investigators choose to adopt semi-empirical if not purely empirical approaches in order to obtain solutions of engineering utility. A prominent practical solution has been given by Poettmann and Carpenter' in the form of an empirical correlation. In their paper, total flowing densities of fluids and solubility effects of gas in oil have been taken into account for the correlation of field data covering a wide range of operating conditions for oil wells. They treated the gas. oil and water as a single phase of combined propcrties and correlated the multiphase friction factor as a function of the product (pvd), i.e., density X velocity X diameter of the flow string. However, because the product (pvd) is dimensional while the frictior factor is dimensionless, the generality of their result's is somewhat restricted. It seems that the omission 01 viscosity effect may be one of the reasons for the scatter of data as shown in their correlation chart. The concepts of the "two-phase f factor" and the "two-phase Reynolds' number function" were recently developed and successfully applied to correlate horizontal multphase flow by Bertuzzi, Tek and Poettmann.' Recently, two new methods of correlation by Tek and Chan' have been presented on simultaneous flow of liquid and gas through vertical pipe. These two methods of correlation and the working equations in field units necessary for their application are included in this paper. The extension of the conccpt of two-phasc Reynolds' number function successfully developed for horizontal flow into vertical multiphase flow systems, development and evaluation of working charts permitting calculation of two-phase pressure gradients and

By J. E. Owen

EXPERIMENTS on twenty-six drilling muds were carried out in an effort to establish a correlation between the apparent viscosity values for these muds as obtained with the Marsh funnel and the Stormer viscometer. This required a calibration of both instruments in which the density of the calibrating liquids was taken into account. Corresponding to the Marsh-funnel viscosity values that were obtained at 1500 c.c. in, 1 qt. out, equivalent Stormer viscosity values were obtained at a Stormer cylinder test speed of approximately 1100 r.p.m. Further, a linear relation between the logarithms of the Stormer cylinder test speed and the resulting apparent viscosity was found to exist for the muds tested for 200 to 1000 r.p.m. The significance of the slope of this linear relationship is discussed as it applies to the field use of drilling muds. It was concluded that Marsh-funnel viscosity measurements are expressible in absolute units that may be correlated with Stormer viscosity measurements, provided these are made in the manner described in the paper. INTRODUCTION The Marsh funnel is used almost universally to determine the viscosity of drilling muds in the field. The Stormer viscometer is commonly used to determine the viscosity of drilling muds in the laboratory. With the Marsh funnel, the time required for one quart of mud to flow out of the funnel originally filled with 1500 c.c. is often taken as the measurement of viscosity. With the Stormer instrument, drilling mud is tested at a cylinder speed of 600 r.p.m. and by means of calibration data the apparent viscosity is expressed in absolute units. Neither of these instruments is an absolute viscometer, and apparent viscosities obtained with either are influenced by the arbitrarily standardized conditions under which the measurements are made. It is disconcerting to the man in the field to be told that laboratory measurements of the viscosities of a group of muds differ widely, when he has already observed that they have identical viscosities when tested in the Marsh funnel. Drilling muds are not perfect fluids, therefore it is not surprising to find a lack of correlation between the apparent viscosity of a mud as determined with the Marsh funnel and that determined with the Stormer viscometer. The work described here was undertaken to develop a correlation between Marsh-funnel and Stormer viscosity measurements. To a considerable degree this has been accomplished. This study has resulted not only in a better understanding of the two viscosity instruments and the data obtainable from them, but has given considerable information regarding the viscosity characteristics of drilling muds. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Calibration of Harsh Funnel and Stormer Viscometer The first step in the experimental procedure was the calibration of the Marsh funnel and the Stormer viscometer with

Jan 1, 1941

Map

Jan 1, 1938

By Kenyon E. Richard, James H. Courtright

Thomas W. Mitcham (Strategic Minerals, Inc., Grand Junction, Colo.)—The authors have presented a significant contribution to the field of mining geology. The article is graphic, remarkably concise, and crisply original. The presentation is made on only three pages with two maps, but their Silver Bell story is entirely adequate in background, development, and conclusion. Most of their colleagues would agree that this paper reflects the high quality of the work which these unusually capable men have done in the Silver Bell area over the past few years. The Silver Bell area is one of complex tectonic structure, and time and spatial relationships are by no means apparent. Actually, most of the observations and interpretations in this paper are new to published geologic literature on the Silver Bell area. I am in agreement with these interpretations with two possible exceptions, which are discussed below. One might well define the three roughly parallel west-northwest faults, shown on the insert of Fig. 2, as the major structural elements of the area. North to south, I propose that these be named the Ragged Mountain fault, the Silver Bell fault zone, and the Waterman thrust, after the mountain ranges which are the results of these major structures. While I would agree with the authors that the northern two of these major structures are high-angle faults of the Laramide revolution, my impression is that the southern structure is a low-angle thrust of approximately Miocene age. In support of this opinion, I submit the following observations: 1) irregularity of the fault in strike; 2) scarcity of Laramide intrusives and alteration of sediments along the fault; 3) present high re- lief of the Waterman Range which indicates youth or certainly rejuvenation; and 4) existence of a series of parallel structures farther to the south which results in an outcrop pattern suggesting imbricate thrusting. The authors have stated that Laramide igneous activity began with the intrusion of alaskite. Some dacite flows appear to be conformable with Cretaceous beds, and thus my impression was that alaskite followed the intrusion and extrusion of dacite. I would be interested to learn of evidence in support of the reverse relationship suggested by the authors. Kenyon Richard and J. H. Courtright (authors' reply)—The authors appreciate Mr. Mitcham's attention to this paper. The names he proposed for the major faults seem appropriate. His suggestion that the Waterman fault is a thrust may be correct because he did more work in that particular area than the authors. However, it is believed that no direct evidence of a low-angle thrust relationship has been recognized, and the authors consider that indirect evidence favors a high-angle fault interpretation. The pre-dacite flow age of the alaskite is definitely established, the authors believe, by the fact that the flows rest on an erosion surface which was carved in the dacite porphyry, an intrusive clearly younger than the alaskite, as evidenced by inclusions of alaskite occurring in dacite porphyry. No direct evidence of Cretaceous sediment-flow rock relationships was found at Silver Bell, but in the nearby Tucson mountains dacite agglomerates, megascopically similar to those at Silver Bell, overlie a basal conglomerate which in turn rests on the truncated edges of steep-dipping Cretaceous arkosic beds.

Jan 1, 1956

By L. Delatour, K. Voltaire

This paper presents various aspects of the legal and economic settings that govern the exploration for mineral resources in Haiti.

Jan 1, 1980

By J. M. Morris

The point to be made most clear in this paper is the economic value of flotation in the Benguet mill flow sheet. It is rather a statement of effect with no attempt at a technical explanation of the cause. Certain well-known, easily understood reagents, mechanisms and principles have been adapted to the conditions at Benguet, and have proved to be more successful than was demonstrated in the laboratory. The mechanical and metallurgical development of this particular operation was arrived at by trial and error, with fortunately very little error. Changes were slow, of necessity, which in the end proved a blessing in that time was afforded for observation and analysis of the disturbing factors; and as a result each change was a definite step towards higher efficiency. Many of these steps were unpredictable from laboratory work because of the varied and differing characteristics of ores met with in daily operation of the mill, which were practically impossible to reproduce on a laboratory scale. The Benguet mill receives daily ores that differ as much as if they were delivered from three different properties. There is first the surface and upper-level zone, which produces an oxidized secondary ore containing considerable iron oxide, manganese oxide and some organic matter. Formerly, most of this ore consisted of very soft fill with some hard rock mixed in. It also contained an unusual amount of iron and aluminum sulfate, which formed hydrates upon entering the alkaline cyanide solution and caused excessive frothing. When flotation was introduced in the Benguet mill the general characteristics of this upper-level ore had changed considerably, in that it was practically all newly mined, fairly hard ore. It still contained many of the same disturbing elements, but was somewhat simpler to treat than formerly. The small proportion of fines is still troublesome in flotation, and plant practice probably does not show more than 80 per cent extraction on this small portion of the ore. No definite figure on this is available, as this particular ore is delivered at irregular intervals

Jan 1, 1939

By J. M. Morris

The point to be made most clear in this paper is the economic value of flotation in the Benguet mill flow sheet. It is rather a statement of effect with no attempt at a technical explanation of the cause. Certain well-known, easily understood reagents, mechanisms and principles have been adapted to the conditions at Benguet, and have proved to be more successful than was demonstrated in the laboratory. The mechanical and metallurgical development of this particular operation was arrived at by trial and error, with fortunately very little error. Changes were slow, of necessity, which in the end proved a blessing in that time was afforded for observation and analysis of the disturbing factors; and as a result each change was a definite step towards higher efficiency. Many of these steps were unpredictable from laboratory work because of the varied and differing characteristics of ores met with in daily operation of the mill, which were practically impossible to reproduce on a laboratory scale. The Benguet mill receives daily ores that differ as much as if they were delivered from three different properties. There is first the surface and upper-level zone, which produces an oxidized secondary ore containing considerable iron oxide, manganese oxide and some organic matter. Formerly, most of this ore consisted of very soft fill with some hard rock mixed in. It also contained an unusual amount of iron and aluminum sulfate, which formed hydrates upon entering the alkaline cyanide solution and caused excessive frothing. When flotation was introduced in the Benguet mill the general characteristics of this upper-level ore had changed considerably, in that it was practically all newly mined, fairly hard ore. It still contained many of the same disturbing elements, but was somewhat simpler to treat than formerly. The small proportion of fines is still troublesome in flotation, and plant practice probably does not show more than 80 per cent extraction on this small portion of the ore. No definite figure on this is available, as this particular ore is delivered at irregular intervals

Jan 1, 1939

By G. Borelius

ABOUT the turn of the century, Gibbs' thermo-dynamic theory of heterogeneous equilibrium, on the one hand, and the experimental methods of thermal and microscopic analysis, on the other, gave to the physical metallurgist his first scientific tool, the equilibrium diagram. The classical equilibrium diagram of a binary alloy system shows the boundaries between ranges of homogeneous and heterogeneous equilibrium in their dependence of concentration and temperature. A homogeneous solid sohtion which on cooling passes such a boundary is assumed to precipitate, forming a mixture of two phases with different concentrations. The equilibriunl diagram and the equilibrium theory, however, give no information about the time scheme of the process or the intermediate states passed during precipitation. For this reason it satisfies neither the practical need of the metallurgist nor the curiosity of the physicist. As a matter of fact, in the heat treatment of alloys for technical use the objective very seldom is the equilibrium state. Thus good mechanical properties of construction material are connected, for the most part, with some intermediate state. As these intermediate states are thermodynamically unstable, there is, from a theoretical point of view, always to be expected a decay of the good properties with time; and it is a matter also of practical interest to know whether this natural life time of a material is of the order of, say, ten or thousands of years. Thus, for many reasons, there is a current demand to complete our knowledge of equilibrium through knowledge of the kinetics of the precipitation phenomena. From the point of view of the physicist, the most interesting question in this case is whether there are any general laws governing the kinetics. According to a generally accepted view, precipitation is ruled by two more or less independent phenomena, the formation of nuclei of a new phase and the growth of these nuclei. It is also commonly accepted that there is a tendency for the velocity of growth to increase with increasing temperature because of the increasing mobility of the atoms. There is also a tendency for the velocity of growth to decrease in the neighborhood of the two-phase boundaries. So far, however, very little is known quantitatively about this fundamental phenomenon in the case of solid metallic systems. In our laboratory attention has been directed especially toward the nucleation phenomena, and a series of measurements have been carried out with the guidance of a work- ing hypothesis (based on experiences from previous work on order-disorder transformations in alloys) about the influence on the nucleation of thermo-dynamic potential barriers. However, before discussing the experiments, the theoretical ideas will be considered. In a binary solid solution the arrangement of atoms on the lattice points approaches with increasing temperature a state of full randomness, as illustrated by the ball model of Fig. 1, that might represent a [111] plane of a face-centered alloy with 30 pct "black" and 70 pct "white" atoms. In reality the atoms are changing places continually with their neighbors so that the picture should rightly have been a moving one. On account of this thermal motion the concentration of black atoms within a certain group of, say, a hundred or a thousand lattice points fluctuates with time around the bulk concentration of 30 pct in a manner governed by statistical laws. With decreasing temperature two independent changes in this state grow more and more important. First, the mobility of the atoms decreases, and second, the forces between the atoms will have an increased influence on the fluctuations. In alloys with a tendency for precipitation, which are the concern of this lecture, the distribution function of concentration fluctuations will broaden, so that the relative probability of great local variations from the bulk concentration increases. Fig. 2 gives an example of such a fluctuation. When the alloy is supercooled below the solubility limit into the range of two-phase equilibrium, the fluctuations will now and then at some point give rise to a state that resembles the equilibrium state and thus will form a stable nucleus that is capable of growing by diffusion processes. In discussions with colleagues and in the literature, I have often encountered the idea that three or four atoms of the dissolved metal could form a nucleus of the new phase. A look at the ball model might be enough to indicate that this cannot be true. If it were true, there should be nothing but nuclei, whereas we know from experiment that nucleation must be a rather rare occurrence. In fact we have, as will be mentioned later, certain reasons to believe that the nuclei are formed by fluctuations containing some hundreds of atoms, which should be the order of the number of black balls in the fluctuating group of the figure, if it were extended into three dimensions. As a working hypothesis we have assumed that the fluctuations producing nuclei, though large and rare, still are ruled by the distribution laws of fluctuations of the supercooled solid solution in its initial state. Thus the probability of nucleation will be connected to the thermodynamic properties of the solid

Jan 1, 1952

By Thomas A. Read

THE internal friction of single crystals of metals is affected markedly by a variety of factors, which, according to the literature, are without influence on the internal friction of polycrystalline metals at strain amplitudes less than 10-5. For example, the internal friction of a suitably oriented zinc single crystal is multiplied by a factor of l00 when the vibration amplitude is slightly increased, and the internal friction of a copper crystal is markedly increased by the application of a stress of 30 lb. per sq. in. for one minute. In this paper it will be shown that these, together with the other phenomena associated with the damping of mechanical vibrations in metal single crystals, can be satisfactorily explained, at least qualitatively, in terms of an atomic mechanism that has been proposed for quite another purpose-that of accounting for slip in metals. The extraordinary agreement between the observed behavior of the metal single crystals and the behavior that could be predicted on the basis of this atomic mechanism leads to the belief that the latter is probably essentially correct. If this is so, it follows that valuable information about the slip process in metals may be gained from measurements of internal friction on single crystals. In this paper the results of the only study to date on the damping of mechanical vibrations in single crystals of metals will be presented. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The internal friction of a material is a measure of the rate at which the energy of mechanical vibrations is converted into heat. The measure of internal friction used in the present paper is the decrement A, which is defined as the fraction of the energy of vibration lost per half cycle. The measurements described here were .made for longitudinal oscillations at a frequency of 33.5 kc. for the copper crystals, and at a frequency of 39 kc. for the zinc crystals. The method used is that of the composite piezoelectric oscillator. The single-crystal specimens are in the form of circular cylinders ¼ in. in diameter and 1 ½ to 2 ½ in. long. The crystal rods are waxed in a V-block and sawed to the proper length with a fine jeweler's saw. The ends of the specimen are ground flat, and one end is cemented with a very thin film of beeswax and rosin to the end of an x-cut quartz rod which is ¼ in. in diameter and 3 in. long. The length of the specimen rod is determined by the condition that its natural frequency for longitudinal vibration be the same as that of the quartz rod, within 0.5 per cent. The lengths of the specimens are thus different for different orientations of the cylinder axis with respect to the crystallographic axes. When the specimen and quartz rods are thus matched in frequency the adhesive is at a node of stress, and it has been shown experimentally that under these circumstances

Jan 1, 1941