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Organization Place Date 1918 American Society of Mechanical Engineers...:.. Worcester, Mass. June 4-7 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Berlin, N. H. June 19-22 American Concrete Institute Atlantic City, N. J. June 24-26 American Society for Testing Materials Atlantic City, N. J. June 25 28 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Atlantic City, N. J. June 26-28 New York Electrical Society, Annual Meeting... New York, N. Y. June American Institute of Mining Engineers Colorado Sept. 2-7 National Association of Stationary Engineers.... Cincinnati, 0. Sept. 9-13 British Iron and Steel Institute, Autumn Meeting London, Eng. Sept. 12-13 National Exposition of Chemical Industries New York, N. Y. Sept. 23-28 American Chemical Society Cleveland, 0. Sept. National Petroleum Association.: Atlantic City, N. J. Sept.

Jan 6, 1918

By R. E. Collom

The commercial development of petroleum and natural gas fields has reached its present status within 60 years and is still considered by some operators to be "100 per cent wildcatting." 1 A tendency to drill for gusher production, the production that yields big returns in spite of any mechanical defects in drilling methods, has frequently caused drillers to pass by oil-bearing strata of comparatively small yield and actually to overlook rich oil zones in proved fields; in addition, whole fields have been ruined by water because development methods were never carried beyond a hole-in-the-ground stage.2 Unfortunately, the petroleum industry has no mine dumps or tail. ing piles as at metal mines to yield fortunes through later and bette!' methods of treatment. The wasted oil and gas are gone, as are the time, money, and effort wasted in ill-advised or haphazard drilling. Probably as production costs increase less oil will be wasted, but the need to develop and produce from sands of low yield will become more urgent with the increase in consumption of oil and the decrease in supply. Hundreds of wells are producing steadily as the result of months and perhaps years of careful prospecting and of tests during drilling. The Bureau of Mines has studied the testing and drilling methods used at such wells, and presents in this paper a criticism of these methods and suggestions on future work. The term pr08- pecting here means correct identification and measurement of strata as they are exposed by the drill. The term testing means the determination of the kind and amount of fluid stored within the pores or crevices of any stratum exposed in the hole.

Jan 1, 1922

By N. H. Darton

This report presents the results of an investigation begun by the Government in the summer of 1907, the investigation being started under the immediate supervision of Dr. J. A. Holmes and continued under him as director after it was transferred to the Bureau of Mines in 1910, the field studies being completed in the spring of 1912. The purpose of the investigation was to obtain information on the origin of the inflammable gases in coal and the conditions under which they occur. It was especially intended to ascertain whether there was any relation between the occurrence of gas and the structural or other geologic features of the coal beds. To this end many months were spent in mines and much time was devoted to the examination of mine maps, bore-hole records, and other data made available by the kindness of various coal companies. Two fields of work were selected-one in the northern anthracite basin of Pennsylvania, where the beds are considerably flexed, and the other in the southern part of the bituminous coal field of Illinois, where the beds lie nearly horizontal. In order to take advantage of results of previous investigations of the same general subject, an extended examination was made of reports of various investigators in Europe and America. A digest of the information obtained from these publications is included in the first part of this report, which constitutes an introduction to the discussion of the conditions governing the occurrence of inflammable gas in coal beds.

Jan 1, 1915

By M. Y. Levesque

The Australian Government?s Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) program launched in 2006 obliges companies that use more than 0.5 PJ (petajoule) or roughly 139 GWh (gigawatt hour) per year to conduct an energy assessment in order to identify measures to improve energy efficiency. The opportunities identified by the mining sector were assembled in the Mining Significant Opportunities Register that permitted companies not yet embracing and adopting an energy management program to see what those who are, were doing and how much energy was saved, and helps disseminate best practice. The measures can be filtered by company, year, category or equipment type. The creation of a central repository of energy efficiency initiatives is valuable but this existing database could be improved; fields identifying the energy and carbon emission savings associated with a given initiative are a surprising omission. Consequently it does not permit the relative effectiveness of different measures for energy and carbon reductions to be readily assessed. A review of energy management efforts implemented in the mining industry, published in peer reviewed journals, corporate sustainability reports or industry publications during the last 40 years has revealed many examples of best practice. However, the lack of a standardized reporting framework in any of these sources has made it difficult to assess the effectiveness and compare the adopted energy management measures ? just as is the case with the Australian register. In an attempt to address these issues, an improved database structure has been created for energy management measures from the mining industry which identifies energy and financial savings arising from energy management initiatives, classifies applications to specific processes or equipment, and recognizes leaders in the mining industry with respect to energy management. The structure of the register includes the key data relevant to energy management in mining that is absent in the Australian version. The mining industry energy management database has been made available in the public domain where stakeholders can examine the best practice examples. Mining energy champions may also contribute to the register by providing case studies; a standardized entry template affords a quality assurance dimension that is absent in other reporting initiatives. Adoption of this database with its standardized reporting mechanism will enhance transparency of the mining industry in energy matters and help it maintain its social license to operate.

Aug 1, 2013

By J. P. BONARDI, C. W. Davis, R. B. Moore, J. W. MARDEN, S. C. Lind, J. E. Conley

The rare metals are becoming increasingly important to our industries. Rare-metal alloys have properties which indicate that we are only on the threshold of the possibilities of their utilization, not only in making nonferrous alloys, but also as special steels. Not only are their uses broadening rapidly, but the metals are affecting our industries in other ways. The oxides and some salts are used as pigments; others have medicinal value. The pure metals are made into filaments for incandescent lamps, and targets for X-ray tubes. By their efficient use in alloys, the weight of automobiles is reduced, • and the wear and tear on tires and roads is thus minimized; in machine shops they help to give greater efficiency to tools and reduce production costs. Their development has marked a milestone in the progress of civilization. There has been considerable uncertainty regarding analytical methods for the rare metals. A great deal has been published, but the weak and the strong points of the various methods have not been investigated as carefully as is needed. The Bureau of Mines at its Rare Metals station in Colorado necessarily had to do a great deal of analytical work in connection with the metals covered by this bulletin, which aims to give the results of the experience so acquired. No claim for much originality is made, although some published methods given have been modified, and some new ones have been developed by members of the staff. The principal methods available were studied critically, and it is to be hoped that the work will assist those interested in analytical work in connection with the metals named.

Jan 1, 1923

By Phil Shelton

What exactly does clean coal mean? Mining coal creates dust and releases methane gas. And burning coal liberates CO2 and emits particulates, including SO2 and NOx. Coal creates wastes that are often stored in unsightly and potentially dangerous slag heaps and lagoons. When clean coal technology is discussed, it sometimes seems that creating modern or ?ultra super critical? coal-fired power stations is presented as the main or even the only answer. However, there may be a more holistic approach. Using the energy potential of coal is always going to have environmental impacts. Some of these will be negative. But the need to secure future energy resources demands that society tackle these negative issues and find ways to minimize and offset them.

Jan 1, 2010

By B Hayter, M Carr, K Williams, C Wheeler, W Chen

Current trends into mining iron ore have seen an increase in the exploitation of problematic orebodies that would typically be disregarded. These bulk materials cause problems within all facets of the material handling stream, from remains left in train wagons to transfer chute blockages, which can cause costly downtime to mining operations (Roberts, 1998). These problematic bulk materials are referred to as wet and sticky material (WSM) due to the adhesive and cohesive nature they possess. Their characteristics can be computationally expensive to model. With the development of discrete element modelling (DEM), in conjunction with advancement in computational power over the past decade, it is now more feasible to model WSMs into the DEM technique.This research will couple two different contact models that can represent the characteristics of a WSM. These models include the Simplified Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (SJKR) and the Easo liquid bridging contact models. The SJKR contact model is an expanded form of the classic Hertz model. This model includes the tensile forces that are in the contact zone between two bodies when they are separated, which the Hertz model failed to capture (Johnson, Kendall and Roberts, 1971). The Easo liquid bridging contact model accounts for the capillary effects and surface tension that will form between two bodies, such as that of a WSM (Soulié et al, 2006). Both of these models were coupled to give the best representation of a WSM, which was simulated using MoleculeX™ (Chen and Williams, 2017) as the software platform.Additionally, this research also investigated the adhesion of problematic iron ore samples onto impact plates under dynamic conditions. An experimental set-up consisting of an apron feeder and inclined impact plate was utilised, to gain an understanding of the way the material builds-up and the possible modes of failure that could be experienced. This was undertaken for different wall liner materials, wall liner angles and moisture contents of the iron ore samples. From this, a series of DEM calibration simulations were conducted on the experimental set-up and particle size distributions (PSD) of the iron ore samples. This enabled forming of a database of parameters, which can be scaled for on-site applications in relation to geometry of the plant and PSDs that would represent run-of-mine ores.CITATION:Carr, M, Williams, K, Chen, W, Hayter, B, Roberts, A and Wheeler, C, 2017. The dynamic adhesion of wet and sticky iron ores onto impact plates, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2017, pp 511–518 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 24, 2017

By D. T. Randall

Several years ago investigations were begun by the United States Government to determine the most efficient methods of utilizing the coals of the United States. These investigations, which were continued along several different lines, are now being carried on by the Bureau of Mines, in accordance with the provisions of the act creating this bureau . . It was because of the need for more complete information concerning the conditions under which coal could be economically burned in boiler furnaces without objectionable smoke that tests were made at the Government fuel-testing plants at St. Louis, Mo., and Norfolk, Va. In addition to this experimental work a number of commercial plants in the larger cities were inspected to ascertain what were the best methods then in use for abating smoke. The results of these investigations were reported in Bulletins 334 and 373 of the United States Geological Survey. Because of the continued demand for the information contained in these bulletins, the original editions of which are exhausted, they are reprinted by the Bureau of Mines. The text of this bulletin, particularly the information relating to smoke ordinances, was revised in the latter part of 1910 and the early part of 1911 by S. B. Flagg, engineer, who has charge of the steaming tests being conducted by this bureau.

Jan 1, 1912

By Fardy J. J

Abundance data are presented for a comprehensive range of elements in oil shale samples from deposits located in Queensland. The techniques of instrumental neutron activation analysis and spark source mass spectrometry were used to obtain concentration data for up to 50 trace elements in each shale. These techniques were supplemented by other spectrometric methods to obtain data for major, minor and some trace elements. Sixty-four elements were determined quantitatively. This comprehensive characterisation of oil shale samples from the major deposits in Australia provides inorganic abundance data not previously available. It also provides important background information for processing studies and the associated environmental aspects of shale oil production and waste disposal.

Jan 1, 1986

By M. Kuchta, S. Iverson

INTRODUCTION Underground blasting with perimeter damage control can reduce the requirement for loose rock scaling and reduce the risk of ground-fall injury. In previous work Johnson and associates (2010) from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) developed a rock blasting perimeter damage and control design method included in the DRIFT software tool (NIOSH, 2018). This blast design software tool utilizes current methods of perimeter blasting with the added design element of a buffer row coordinated with the perimeter row to reduce perimeter damage. The coordination is in applying one of several blast damage models to calculate the damage extent for each production, buffer, and perimeter blast hole in the design. The calculated damage is then applied to the spacing between the blast holes. The basis of the buffer row design is the practical damage limit and is supported in this paper with computer models of signature blasts and full blast rounds using PFC2D (Itasca Consulting Group, Inc., 2018). Practical damage limit The practical damage radius (Rd) is not to be confused with burden. The practical damage extends toward the burden side and inward into the rock mass. For all practical purposes, the practical damage radius equals one half the burden (Hustrulid, 1999). The maximum extent of radial crack damage around a blast hole (Rcrack) and the maximum extent of radial crushing damage (Rcrush) are illustrated in Figure 1. A “practical” radius of damage (Rd) lies between the crushing limit and the cracking limit. The “practical” damage means that if the rock mass lying outside of the practical damage circle were removed, the rock remaining within the circle would easily break apart. Blast pressure and strain Work by Johnson (2010) and associates included signature blast tests in large concrete blocks. A signature blast test in concrete as exampled by strain data in Figure 2 was designed to monitor the dynamic strain at incremental distances from a single fully coupled blast hole, measure crushing and radial cracking extent by wire-sawing to expose the damage, and relate the damage to overbreak that is common in underground blasting. The initial slope or rising strain as the stress wave passes by the strain gages shows very high strain and strain rates close to the single blast hole. Since the derivative of strain versus time is strain rate, a line tangent to each of the strain curves at the maximum strain rate is drawn and the strain rates identified. The high strain rates were then plotted on a semi-log in Figure 3 to show a linear trend. The strain rate is greater than 100 s-1 within 20 cm from the blast hole for the signature blast experiment. The strain rate at the blast hole wall is projected to be 300 s-1. Figure 4 illustrates the damage in the NIOSH block exposed by a wire saw cut.

Jan 1, 2019

By J Seppelt, G S. Lane, E Wang

Newcrest’s Cadia concentrator operated from 1998 to 2012 with a traditional SABC grinding circuit treating Cadia open pit ore. The Cadia comminution circuit was well characterised through surveys and data that are available in the public domain, and became a benchmark standard for the industry and practitioners modelling large SAG mill based circuits. In 2012, the HPGR-based crushing circuit was introduced in front of the SAG mill to increase throughput when treating the Cadia East ore that was derived from an underground block cave. This ore was expected to be more competent and have a coarser run-of-mine size distribution.Numerous previous papers have described the design and commissioning of the Cadia HPGR-based circuit.This paper describes the improvement in comminution energy consumption resulting from the introduction of the HPGR, including identifying the impact of process complexity and an increase in ancillary energy consumption for conveyors, screening, and crushing.CITATION:Lane, G S, Seppelt, J and Wang, E, 2018. Quantifying the energy efficiency transformation at Cadia due to HPGR crushing, in Proceedings 14th AusIMM Mill Operators' Conference 2018, pp 141–152 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 29, 2018

By Alastair Torrance, Mitchell Nipperess, Andrew Olsson, Italo Onederra, Gary Cavanough

Components of bulk explosive products include ammonium nitrate, water, fuel, stabilizers, and calcium nitrate. The physical attributes include prill/emulsion ratio, density, and viscosity and in the case of prilled ammonium nitrate, hardness, size distribution and fuel oil absorption. These components and attributes in conjunction with ground conditions determine all aspects of explosive performance including the risk of fume. This paper presents a fume risk assessment matrix of explosives components and physical attributes as a function of a simple description of ground conditions. Instrumentation to provide a measure of the quality of the explosive product are also described and these include both “on bench” physical measurements and laboratory analysis. “On bench” methods include “in hole “density, velocity of detonation (VOD), detonation pressure and detonation temperature. Part of the quality control process involves a mobile laboratory unit which at this stage can provide measurements of water content, ammonium nitrate content, calcium nitrate content, fuel content, prill characteristics and prill/emulsion ratio. This unit can be taken to sites to enable the testing of bulk and sensitized products at site rather than after transportation.

Jan 1, 2015

By William Gleason

"Government support for Canada’s mineral industry was on full display during the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference in Toronto, ON, Canada on March 3-6. First, there was the announcement of the five-year extension of Canada’s Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (METC), the first multi-year extension of the METC since its inception in 2000. Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Amarjeet Sohi, added to that support when he spoke at the opening keynote session and announced the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan (CMMP), a plan that aims to map out the future of the industry in Canada. Finally, the support for the mining industry was buttoned up with a visit to the conference by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.More than 25,000 people from 135 countries attended the annual conference that features a robust trade floor, technical sessions and an investors’ exchange that aims to put mining companies in touch with potential investors. Mining companies and ambassadors from nations around the world are given the opportunity to present to small audiences throughout the conference and this year PDAC was able to sway the Prime Minister to speak on its behalf.Trudeau sat down with PDAC President Glenn Mullan on March 5 to talk about the METC extension and a host of other issues important to the Canadian and global mining industry, giving the home country a bit of a profile advantage when it came to making a pitch to investors.Trudeau entered the week of the conference in the midst of the most serious political scandal of his career and was defending himself against accusations of political interference with the top prosecutor in the land over a criminal case involving one of Canada’s largest companies, SNC-Lavalin. During the question-and-answer session at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, Trudeau seemed more than happy to keep to the discussion about mining. He spoke favorably about the industry during the half hour conversation and praised the industry for its work with Indigenous people as well as its efforts to advance technology and innovation. He made a case that Canada is a safe and reliable place for investment in the minerals sector.“We are at a time of change right now, of transformation with new technologies and global supply chains, and everyone is trying to adjust to the new realities that have accelerated so much these past years,” Trudeau said. “What we are trying to do as a country and what you have done as an industry is to try to look at where things are going – go to where the puck is going to be, not where it is. You, as an industry, know that investments in innovation, research, science — investment in technology and partnerships with Indigenous communities are all things that are going to give you opportunities to be competitive in the coming years.”"

Apr 1, 2019

By T. J. Batchler, K. M. Mohamed, D. F. Gearhart, R. K. Zipf

Seals are explosion-resistant structures built in underground coal mines to isolate abandoned mining areas from the active workings. An equivalent single degree of freedom (SDOF) method such as the single-degree-of-freedom blast effects design spreadsheet (SBEDS) developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can be used to design seals to resist mine explosions. The critical input for the SDOF code is the seal resistance function. The objective for this study is to develop engineering data for design of plain concrete (PC) and reinforced concrete (RC) seals using finite element (FE) models. The FE models can then be used to generate resistance functions for different PC and RC seal designs, which can be used in the SDOF codes. The U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers designed and built a test fixture for use in conjunction with NIOSH’s Mine Roof Simulator to apply a four-point bending load on the face of the tested seal. Eight large-scale experiments for each PC and RC seal were conducted. The experimental design considered the effects of the foundation strength, hitching and roof-to-floor convergence. Calibrated FE models for PC and RC seals were developed using ANSYS Ver. 13. With a very limited number of engineering-based assumptions and a single set of data—including Young’s modulus, compressive strength, stress-strain relationships, etc.—the PC and RC seal models successfully calculated the recorded resistance functions and failure patterns for a wide range of boundary conditions. Plug and RC seals were assumed for a 1.83-m- (6-ft-) high entry to demonstrate the application of the calibrated finite element models for calculating the resistance functions of these seals. The resistance function of a particular plug seal case was found to be a bilinear relationship. The resistance function of a particular RC seal without shear reinforcement was found to be a nonlinear relationship.

Jan 1, 2013

By A. I. Collins, D. Danninger

Newmont has installed advanced control and online optimization on the dry grinding circuit and both roasters on its Carlin Trend refractory ore treatment plant. Subsequently, Newmont has developed a master plan for institutionalizing advanced control and optimization on all its processing units. Newmont is committed to a program of applying advanced control and optimization from crushing of ore to pouring of gold. This paper describes Newmont's experience with implementing advanced control and optimization and the benefits received. In addition, identification of advanced control and optimization opportunities and their economic justification is discussed.

Jan 1, 2005

By A. Monomakhoff

If a conductor traversed by an electric current is broken, a conduction forms in the air between the two broken ends of the wire. This conduction manifests itself in an initial phase by an electric spark and, in a second phase, by an arc if the the circuit continues to supply sufficient power. This arc goes out when the distance between the two ends of the conductor becomes sufficiently large. If the break occurs in an explosive atmosphere, the energy contributed by the arc can cause an explosion. To avoid such accidents, electric circuits that may be utilized in hazardous atmospheres can be made "intrinsically safe". The investigation which we conducted is part of a research project on the intrinsic safety of arcs of high intensity but short duration, in the case of resistive circuits. We developed an electronic system which makes it possible to limit the duration of an arc at the level of the break of a conductor traversed by a current with a possible maximum intensity of 80 amperes. This experimental device for monitoring and measuring the parameters of the arc has shown that arcs of high intensity but with a duration limited to a few microseconds do not ignite an explosive methane-air mixture.

Jan 1, 1975

By Willem P. C. Duyvesteyn

"Scandium International Mining Corp (SCY) has been involved in the commercial development of its Nyngan Scandium Project for about ten years. Various studies at a variety of global R&D organizations have been carried out in an attempt to define the deportment of scandium in both the limonite as well as the saprolite phases of Nyngan ore to assist with process development. Technologies such as sulfuric acid baking, high pressure acid leaching, sulfuric and hydrochloric acid atmospheric leaching and heap leaching have been extensively investigated both at the bench and pilot scale level to arrive at the most economic process flow sheet that will be discussed in some detail in this paper. Solvent extraction, ion exchange and other refining technologies have been tested and an optimum configuration has been established for the Nyngan project which is expected to be the first primary scandium mine and metallurgical plant in the world.Because of a lack of product availability the current scandium market is limited to less than 20 tons per year. Technologies have been identified to produce product with different specifications for aluminum alloys and solid oxide fuel cell applications. Preliminary economics have identified that Nyngan will be a robust and low capital cost project that can readily be expanded as the size of the scandium market increases."

Jan 1, 2016

By Jeremy Stone, Yiming Sun, John Stolz

The Courthouse Commons Tunnel facilitates the secure transfer of inmates between the County Jail and State Courthouse across a city block in downtown San Diego, California. This shallow tunnel was excavated using the Sequential Excavation Method in soft ground. It passes under 8- and 10-story buildings with a foundation cover of 6 feet, and crosses the active San Diego Fault with a design offset displacement of 18 inches. In this paper, key design challenges of tunnel construction are presented: limiting building settlements without using underpinning of building foundations and incorporating an oversized seismic section with seismic joints and crushable backfill

Dec 1, 2022

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

By F. M. Boler

The U.S. Bureau of Mines conducts research at the Galena Mine, Wallace, ID, with the aim of mitigating the effects of rock bursting. Destress blasting is commonly used as a stress control technique at the mine. A digital seismic array and an array of borehole pressure cells (BPC's) had been installed near the site of a stope undergoing mining and periodic de stressing. The instrumentation was being monitored at the time of a destress blast of the 46-99 stope. No significant seismic events occurred coincident with the destress. However, the destress was followed by a 2 ½ -week period of increased seismic activity, including two damaging events on February 7, 1990, at 034500 (hour, minute, and second) and 122020 Pacific standard time. BPC measurements indicated coseismic ground pressure changes on the order of 200 to 300 kPa associated with the damaging events. Fault plane solutions and dislocation models established that stress changes induced by the event at 034500 may have been significant in promoting the occurrence of the event at 122020. Theoretical investigations suggest that applying knowledge of the existing stress field, an understanding of rock burst mechanics, and fracture mechanics principles can improve destress effectiveness.

Jan 1, 2010