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This paper deals with a few aspects of town planning and town management which affect human relationships within that town. Its scope is limited to the consideration of towns forming an adjunct to a mining operation, and particularly considers these aspects at the Hamersley Iron Pty. Limited, town of Parabur doo, Western Australia. Planning and standards of a new town and amenities are-discussed and related through living comfort to an effect on human relation- ships. Town administration and the promotion of many forms of social activities are dealt with in detail to illustrate the importance of quickly forming a cohesive community from a large number of newly arriving individuals. The results achieved by the planning and administration at Paraburdoo are highlighted by involving many residents by way of answers to a questionnaire.

Jan 1, 1973

The original leases making up today's North Kalgurli Mines were developed by independent companies on an ad hoc basis. The major disadvantage which now arises is the varying levels of mining horizons. From Kalgurli Shaft in the south, through main Shaft and to Croesus Shaft in the north, there are three separate sets of levels. work has commenced to link the three areas with either common levels or new development which will facilitate common access and haulage via Main Shaft.Generally, the workings at North Kalgurli were established at the turn of the century. The introduction of techniques and equipment to bring the mine into the 20th Century has been difficult and slow. The general size of openings, a widespread workforce and complex ore distribution often make innovation and change more than a challenge.

Jan 1, 1985

By Getliffe RK

It is becoming more and more difficult to operate mineral and metal processes profitably, as operating costs rise, quality demands in-crease, international competition becomes more fierce and Government charges remain at their current levels. Profitability today depends upon efficient operations, which can only be achieved through precise and dependable con-trol of each process unit comprising thetotal plant.Modern process control systems utilise distributed architecture with microprocessor-based controllers, data acquisition devices and VDU operator stations. Honeywell intro-duced this control technology in 1975 with the "Total Distributed Control" System. Now, building on the proven performance and re-liability inherent in TDC hiway modules, Honeywell has extended the TDC system to inte-grate both management information and control by providing distributed processing modules on the new TDC 3000 Local Control Network (LCN).

Jan 1, 1985

By Walker G. S

Infrared and Raman spectroscopy have been used to study a range of solid state and aqueous solution species which are of interest in extractive metallurgy. In the solid state new Cu(II)/CN'/NH3 complexes have been detected, iron impurities in kaolin characterised, aluminium substitution in hematite and goethite quantified, and the crystallinity and orientation of zircon determined in heterogeneous crystals. In aqueous solution metal cyanide complexes and equilibria were readily characterised, the thermal decomposition of SO2 monitored and products identified, and complexation of AI(III) by hydroxycarboxylates observed. Attempts to monitor the early stages of the gelling of silicate solutions were less successful, with only changes in the gel being detected. However, the degradation of 12-tungstosilicic acid was readily monitored as a function of both time and pH.

Jan 1, 1996

By Williams RC

Overlying the coal deposits of the Sydney Basin are several lakes and other bodies of water. These include the Pacific Ocean, Lake Macquarie, the Tuggerah Lakes and the stored waters of the dams of the New South Wales Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board. The coal beneath these bodies of water amounts to hundreds of millions of tons. Colliery workings have approached these areas of water and in some instances first 1"orkings of bord and pillar have taken place oi_eshh the water. he problem which now faces mine manage- and other interested authorities involves the determination of the maximum ;mount of coal which can be safely extracted from beneath the water. There are many factors to be considered including the depth of cover, seam thickness, geological details and strata movements.

Jan 1, 1972

This report chronicles the historical development of longwall mining in the United States and speculates on future developments to the turn of the century. Five eras of technological development during the modern period are described and analyzed. These eras discuss the development of (1) mechanized extraction, (2) self advancing roof supports, (3) high capacity roof supports, (4) shield supports, and (5) system automation. Current trends are analyzed in terms of: longwall utilization, production capability, support capacity, face widths, and new technological developments. From these analyses, the future of longwall mining to the year 2000 is speculated. It is concluded that longwall mining will continue to grow in importance during the next decade and that the next major technological milestone will be the realization of a fully automated longwall mining system.

Jan 1, 1992

BHP Steel International's Newcastle blast. furnaces have operated since their caimissioning on cake based on local low rank coals. In the early 1960's Newcastle coke was believed to be the weakest in the world. Newcastle coke now supports a blast furnace operation with a productivity of 2.1 t/d.rn IV, a fuel rate of 490 kg/t and a coke rate of 415 kg/t. This coke is nuudv from blonds of lcxni and southern Sydney basin coals with blend Ro nex in the range 0.94 - 1.01. Blast furnace performance in periods of differing coal blends is conjured. The relationship between coal aril coke quality indices and blast. fin-mice perforrnarcc.e is discussed as well as the relevance of conventional coke tests. New BHP coke tests are referred to.

Jan 1, 1987

The Escondida Porphyry Copper Deposit, located in Chile's II Region 160 Km to the southeast of the city of Antofagasta, is currently owned by Minera Escondida Limitada, a company comprising The Broken Hill Proprietary (57.5%), Rio Tinto Zinc (30%) a group of Japanese companies represented by Mitsubishi Corporation (10%), and the International Financing Corporation of the World Bank (2.5%) (Fig.l)By 1983, most of the reconnaissance drilling was completed and prefeasibility studies were regularly updated as new drilling results were reported and project concepts re-evaluated (Fig.2). In October 1982 the project was transferred from Exploration Management to Operations. By the end of 1984 project pre-development activities, including inpit development drilling, geological exploration, water resource definition, an underground bulk sampling program and the initial project feasibility report, were completed.

Jan 1, 1990

While the potential for the discovery of new high grade resources exists, it is almost inevitable that the ore resources used to provide society's ongoing demand for primary metals will deteriorate over time as the higher grade reserves are exploited first and are progressively depleted. This deterioration in quality of metallic ore resources will bring about significant interactions with other resources such as energy and water, resulting in an increase in the amount of these resources required per unit of primary metal production. In this paper it is shown that as ores deteriorate in quality, the contributions of the mining and mineral processing stages to the life cycle-based embodied energy and water of primary metal production will increase significantly. Therefore efforts to reduce the impact of deteriorating ore resources on energy and water consumption should focus on these stages.   The results from life cycle assessments of the production of various metals by a number of different processing routes, particularly copper and to a lesser extent nickel, have been used to identify a number of opportunities and technologies for reducing the energy consumption in the mining and mineral processing stages, including: comminution, eg high pressure grinding rolls, stirred mills, ore sorting, preconcentration, advanced blasting techniques, advances in diesel technology for loading and hauling, alternative processing routes, eg heap leaching, in situ leaching, water treatment and re-use, water quality 'fit for purpose', dry processing, floating modules to reduce evaporation, and paste thickeners. All the above and existing developed flotation technologies can impact on the mineralogy of the concentrate supplied to the smelter. Removal of gangue minerals early on in processing may have further downstream process implications on fuel and water requirements. The above technologies are in various stages of development, with some more advanced than others. However, all can be expected to play their part in improving the sustainability of the Australian mining industry.

Jun 1, 2010

By R Engle, R P. McMahan, D A. Bowman, S Schafrik, W Thabet

Preventing injuries and fatalities related to conveyor system use in the mining industry is important and increases uptime while decreasing lost time. The research presented here is funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and intended to accomplish this prevention by the use virtual environments (VEs) to improve training and help miners better understand the hazards of working around conveyor systems. Two conveyor system VEs designed to teach miners about hazards and to safely complete tasks around conveyor systems were developed for this project. The first conveyor system VE, called the instructional tour, gives the miner a semi-automated tour of a conveyor system and teaches the miner about possible hazards (eg, missing guarding) and how to safely fix conveyor problems (eg, a stuck idler) using lock-out, tag-out procedures. The second, called the virtual shift, allows the miner to freely navigate around a conveyor system to detect and avoid hazards. The miner is presented with equipment failures that need to be safely repaired during the virtual shift. If the miner fails to identify and avoid a hazard or fix a failure in a safe manner, an animation of the consequences is shown to the miner, who must start the virtual shift over. The models for the conveyor system VEs were created using 3DS Max. Desktop versions of the VEs were then created using Deep CreatorÖ, an authoring application for creating interactive 3D environments. Later, more realistic versions of the VEs were created for CAVEÖ, a room-sized visualisation system, using DIVERSE, an application programming interface. In initial evaluations of the conveyor system VEs, mining colleagues have indicated great interest in such training tools. According to their feedback, these and similar VEs would provide excellent alternatives to normal classroom training and serve as positive precursors to hands-on experience. These VEs provide new miners a chance to experience hazards associated with working around conveyor systems without being in possible danger.

Jan 1, 2008

By J-S Zhang

In this paper, the author briefly introduces the resource characteristics of Chinese iron ore, as well as the present increasing market demand for iron concentrate. The SHP-3200 wet high-intensity magnetic separator (HIMS) is used to separate complicated weak-magnetic iron ores being composed of specularite, limonite and siderite in Jiuquan Iron and Steel (Group) Co Ltd. Some technologies have been used to improve SHP-3200 HIMS, including modifying the angle of magnetic polar from 90¦ to 83¦, cooling the exciting coils by oil instead of air, adding reverse-washing equipment to wash off magnetic particles and adjusting the tooth-space of the matrix from 5.0 mm to 3.5 mm or 2.5 mm to enhance the recovery of fine particles. It is still difficult to meet the requirement for recovering more difficultly separated iron and the demands for high-grade concentrate of iron. In order to improve the recovery of difficult-separated iron, the film-magnetic separation technique is applied into the HIMS and a new LY matrix is designed to form magnetic gradient vertically. A flowing-film feeder is also added and the feed mouth is modified to make a slurry flow formed in the form of film along the wall of matrix. The microstructure and dissemination character of the mineral particles is studied, and the specific susceptibility of the primary minerals is measured. Then the distributive characteristics of a magnetic field for the separator with film-magnetic technique and the motion of particles in the process of separation are all analysed. By introducing the film-magnetic separation technique to SHP-Φ700 HIMS, the recovery of iron can be raised from 69.45 per cent to 76.07 - 78.96 per cent with the similar grade of concentrates of iron. Such an increase of 9.51 per cent in the recovery also shows that it is feasible for such film-magnetic separation technique to be applied into HIMS.

Jan 1, 2005

By J Heyes, T Cooper, M Stimpfl, R Staines, J P. Pearce

Acid and Metalliferous Drainage (AMD) is one of the key risks facing the mining industry worldwide. If not properly managed and/or not identified in a timely manner, AMD has the potential to decrease environmental values for generations to come. Ore extraction generates vast volumes of mineral waste (waste rock and tailings) which are stored in perpetuity at the mine site. Some of these materials are not inert and when in contact with air and water can react, generating poor quality water and compromising operational and closure environmental objectives. Understanding the geochemical behaviour of waste rock and tailings is therefore key to identifying risks and opportunities which support effective mineral waste management strategies across the mining value chain and progress toward an environmentally sustainable future that minimises closure liabilities. To ensure AMD risk is recognised and managed uniformly across its portfolio, BHP developed a Global AMD Management Standard for implementation across all operations, including closed sites. The AMD Management Standard provides a management framework to support the consistent, simple and sustainable global management of AMD risks. This ensures mines are planned and operated to be environmentally smart and modern, geochemical risk management is not an afterthought but a key driver, and environmental sustainability is actively pursued to reduce closure liabilities. The AMD Management Framework, on which the Standard is based, was adapted from industry leading practice guidance, ensuring it applies to multiple regions. The framework also comprises sequential requirements throughout the mining life-cycle. It is an iterative framework with an adaptive management approach that is designed to incorporate new data, information and management opportunities into AMD risk assessments and mine plan revisions.

Jul 1, 2021

A number of gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour, nitrous oxide, ozone and chlorofluorocarbons are transparent to incoming short-wave radiation, but are relatively opaque to outgoing longwave radiation. Variations in the concentration of these gases in the troposphere can alter the thermal balance of the earth's atmosphere. Outgoing terrestrial radiation which would otherwise escape to space, is trapped within the inner layer of the atmosphere, resulting in a greenhouse effect. It is estimated that at present greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, contribute about 50% to the greenhouse effect. However, in the future, the contribution made to the greenhouse effect by gases other than C02 will become increasingly more significant. Greenhouse gases arise from a wide range of sources and their escalating increease is largely related to an increase in the world's population, an increase in the standard of living of many areas and changes in lifestyle. The effect of increasing man-made greenhouse gases in the troposphere is unknown but it is proposed that it may increase temperature and may modify climate, agricultural response and land use. The sources of greenhouse gases are identified and found to comprise a wide range of activities. The contribution that coals use makes to the greenhouse effect is examined in detail. It is concluded that coals total contribution is small being about 10% of man made greenhouse gases. Envisaged expansion of coal's use will only cause a small increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst developing technology for coal's use for power generation has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new plants by approximately 25%.

Jan 1, 1989

The authors have succeeded in providing additional rigour and clarity to the formulation and execution of the dynamic programming algorithm for optimum open pit limit determination. The inclusion of the blocks on the J + 1 column in the search for Pmax, and constraining this search with blocks assigned a value of negative infinity, ensures an optimal solution within the defmed blocks. The effect of the negative infmity blocks is to preclude mining along the diagonal blocks from the first row that they occur in. Figure 1 graphically illustrates the effects of this on the calculation of P. A practical application for constraining mining with negative infmity blocks is the case where the pit outline is defined by lease boundaries and not by the value of blocks to be removed. Any legal, social or physical constraint could be accounted for in the same way.The danger in applying this technique is that the negative infinity blocks will override any other more profitable solutions that may exist. This is in fact what has happened in the example that the authors use. If a further column is added to the left hand side (column -1) and the calculation is carried out again, a more optimal x-section can be found. (If the negative infinity values are removed the same result is obtained.) This gives a pit value of 112 as against the 108 of the authors' optimal pit. This calculation is shown in Figure 2. Lerchs-Grossman optimization is reliable only if there are sufficient columns available to allow "mining" to optimum depth of the ore body and still allow the pit to break out at the surface within the confines of the columns.This author's approach is to create enough columns each side of the lateral limits of the ore to allow the pit to intersect the surface while still within the confines of the block model. Implementing the methods discussed by the authors helps to reduce the number of columns required to achieve this.

Jan 1, 1987

The common notion that the Box Hole Bore mineralization represents a variant of the Mississippi Valley type, has not been supported by the present investigation. Most of the common characteristics of Mississippi Valley type, namely 1. saturated saline brines; 2. low temperature domain; 3. mineralization in intraformational breccias and collapsed anticlinal structures; 4. hydrocarbon-rich or foetid carbonates, and 5. very simple geochemistry seem not to be applicable. The Box Hole Bore mineralization features: 1. moderately saline brines (18% NaCl); 2. very high temperature (495¦-520¦C) and low density brines, of critical vapour:water ratio and low pressure of formation (700 bars); 3. mineralization confined by faults and ex- tending laterally into carbonates of high pore volume such as stromatolitic dolo- mites; 4. ore environment characterized by oxidizing conditions, such as ferruginous carbonate and silica sands of high energy environment (heavy mineral banding) and 5. more complex geochemistry than is normal for Mississippi Valley type deposits (copper sulphosalts, and appreciable silver content). Additionally, the ore has un- usual textures formed by the replacement of carbonates and barite by large idiomorphic galena crystals. The pressure and temperature domains of the Box Hole Bore mineralization indicate post- Devonian emplacement and local high heat flow, possibly related to the Alice Springs Orogeny. Because of high lead and zinc trace element con- tents (100-600 ppm) of the carbonates, even out- side mineralized areas, it is possible that the mineralizing fluids have derived their metal con- tent from a local source, possibly aided by evap- oritic concentrations of the tidal to supratidal sequences. The new model for Box Hole Bore gives treater importance to the confining faults.

Jan 1, 1984

By Paton T. P

In the technical sense, as well as in the professional sense, the word 'model' can have many meanings. More than 23 000 references were uncovered by a simple literature search on keywords ' MO D EL#. and. (META LLURG#. or. M I NERAL#)' . For the purpose of this paper, 'models' will be considered to be mathematical formulations which attempt to represent or approximate a process. The model may be purely, or a combination of: ò fundamental models, based on the laws of physics, chemistry and thermodynamics; ò semi-empirical or phenomenological models, where an intuitive concept of the process is formulated and found by testwork to fit observed behaviour; and ò empirical or 'black-box' models (including neural networks), where a mathematically convenient form is proposed and fitted. Even under this more restricted definition, which eliminates heuristic and statistical 'models', it is clear that the efforts expended in devising and using models have exploded during the years since the first APCOM Conference in 1961, benefiting from the dramatic decrease in the cost of computer power. This paper reviews the areas of usage of computer modelling in the metallurgical and mineral processing industries, from plant design, through off-line support, to on-line modelling and automatic control. In each area, frontiers of new development of the technology are mentioned. It is noted that, while modelling is now standard practice in design, it is not yet the norm in operating and controlling plants. The reasons for this partial acceptance are, it is argued, less related to the limitations of the technology than to the human and organisational factors involved in transferring technology to implementation.

Jan 1, 1995

By N Fullelove

The Renison Bell Tin Mine on the West Coast of Tasmania has recently installed a new underground ore handling system incorporating underground crushing, conveying and hoisting facilities. Contracts for the sinking of the shaft and the development of the mine were let and managed by the operator, Renison Limited. Hardcastle & Richards was responsible for the design, procurement and construction management of the fixed plant and equipment including civil, structural, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation services. The system demonstrates worldÆs best practice in design and incorporates a state-of-the-art integrated control system allowing the entire system to be controlled by a single operator located in the underground crusher chamber. A rapid construction period was achieved, despite the difficult and constrained underground environment, without affecting the ongoing operations of the mine. The mine, which was established in the mid-1960s, had previously operated by trucking ore to the surface via a decline. Truck haulage distances and costs had increased as the mine became deeper over the years. By the 1990s it had become apparent that, in order to remain economically viable, it was necessary to reduce truck haulage distances and allow the mine to go still deeper to access orebodies such as Rendeep beneath the current workings. The Internal Shaft System achieved this by eliminating approximately 5 km of truck haulage. It allows the production rate to be increased to up to 1 Mtpa compared with a limit of 628 kt per annum by direct truck haulage to surface. The access it provides to the Rendeep ore and other deep orebodies greatly increases the amount of ore which can be economically mined.

Jan 1, 1998

By A Galley, M Plouffe, T Hynes

Canadian mining research has recently been reinvigorated through a pan-Canadian research strategy driven by the industry, the research community and government departments. These organisations have come together to form the Canada Mining Innovation Council, whose role is to focus and increase mining research in the country. One of the major themes of the organisation is environment; including major research initiatives on energy, tailings and environmental stewardship. Other major initiatives on exploration, mineral extraction and mineral processing will also consider environmental benefits in the research projects they undertake. All the initiatives have their priorities determined principally by the mining and exploration companies, whose first obligation is to determine the long-term research priorities of the industry as a whole, rather than for their individual companies. Only after industry consensus on priorities does the research community become engaged in the implementation of specific projects to address those identified priorities. A goal of the program is to effectively create a virtual mining research laboratory, by engaging all the major research centres in the country. Membership to date includes most of the major mining companies operating in Canada and almost all of the mining-related universities. Other members include federal, provincial and territorial governments, consulting and service companies and manufacturers.CITATION:Hynes, T, Plouffe, M and Galley, A, 2012. A new approach to mining research in Canada, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2012 , pp 333-338 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 10, 2012

By Gregory O, Winters BI, Garlick C, Rogers H, Ye ZC

BHP New Zealand Steel produces iron from titaniferous ironsand by a direct reduction process comprising multi- hearth furnaces/rotary kilns/electric iron melters. The electric iron melter is a six-in-line rectangular submerged-arc furnace which takes the partially reduced ironsand (80% metallization) from the rotary kiln and completes the reduction process to produce iron of nominally 3% carbon. As the melter operates at around 1500 ¦C and under very hostile conditions, it is near-impossible to obtain any basic operating parameters such as the velocity and temperature distribution in the slag and in the molten iron. As a first attempt to understand the operating conditions inside the melter, a scaled room-temperature model using wax and water to represent the slag and iron, was constructed. This paper will report on some of the preliminary model results on the temperature distribution.

Jan 1, 1995

By J Canterford

Although we have access to a wide range of sophisticated process design and improvement tools in combination with a significant range of case studies, the mineral resource industry still manages to be plagued by the negative publicity surrounding operating plant failures because they were neither smart nor safe, together with proposed projects that fail at the first or second hurdle. The general public and the finance industry are generally totally uniformed about projects that ramp-up to name plate capacity on time and on budget and even more so when ahead of schedule and under budget. As the saying goes, good news does not cut the mustard.The following is a summary of the author’s sometimes jaundiced view about why metallurgical plants do not live up to their technical and commercial expectations. In no way should the summary be construed as a negative reflection on the skills of the metallurgical profession. Rather, it is to be taken as a positive acknowledgement of those skills and is intended to highlight some of the major considerations that need to be assessed as a potential project transforms into a sustainable technical and commercial reality.While a considerable portion of the summary is directed at developing hydrometallurgical flowsheets, the general principles are equally important to all aspects of extractive metallurgy.For convenience, the summary covers the following five basic discussion points – project, people, process, patents and politicians.

Aug 8, 2011