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By A. G. Doll

"Many power-based grinding models exist, and most operators are familiar with Fred Bond's ""third theory"". Bond's model is most commonly used to describe primary and secondary grinding to product sizes above, for example, 100 µm. Operators sometimes use Bond's equation to describe grinding in situations where it is not appropriate, such as fine grinding below 50 µm. Using an alternative model would be a better choice in this situation.Bond's equation is one in a large family of models. Related equations better suited to fine grinding include the “signature plot”, Von Rittinger's model and Charles' equation. These models have a similar form to Bond's and can be fit to industrial regrind mills and laboratory tests using the simple regression tools in the charts of computer spreadsheets. Operators will find that fine grinding calculations are both easier and more accurate when using the alternative equations to fit their regrind milling surveys or when performing laboratory regrind mill scale-up for plant design.None of these models are new: Charles' equation was published in 1957 and Von Rittinger's model was proposed in 1867. A quick refresh how to apply these equations can turn these oddities from the undergraduate curriculum into useful tools for plant optimization. They can be fit to any type of mill including stirred and tumbling ball mills.IntroductionBuilding a case for fine grind modelling requires reviewing some theory before building a framework for doing fine grinding calculations. The actual calculation procedure recommended is easy and can be applied by plant metallurgists. Don’t be frightened by the theory; the end result is reasonably simple.The observation that mineral breakage is related to the absorption of energy is usually attributed to Von Rittinger (1867). Lynch and Rowland (2005) describe that the ability to empirical test and calibrate energy models of breakage didn’t exist until the widespread adoption of electric motors in the mining industry during the 1930’s and 1949’s. A series of technical papers published by the Allis Chalmers company during the 1940’s demonstrate that they were attempting to do such a calibration using Von Rittinger’s model which is usually stated as: “the energy consumed in the size reduction is proportional to the area of new surface produced.”"

Jan 1, 2017

By R. Marleau, R. Assad, J. Dugas

"A study of the geological features of known occurrences of mineralization in Gaspe is the basis for a classification. Nickel, chromite, asbestos and some copper are pre-or syn-Taconic, whereas the most important deposits are tied to granitic post-Taconic stocks. Most occurrences are clearly related to igneous rocks: nickel, chromium and asbestos to Ordovician serpentinite; copper to volcanic rocks of different ages; and copper, zinc and lead to acidic intrusions with apparent zoning. Some lead-zinc deposits lying between the Grande Greve and York Lake formations are stratigraphically controlled. Some occurrences are tied to faults; e.g., the nickel-copper mineralization along the North Grand Pabos fault. Northerly-trending transverse structures appear to coincide with the Gaspe Copper, Mount McGerrigle (Tabletop) granite and Lemieux dome areas of mineralization. JEAN DUGAS, after graduating"

Jan 1, 1969

By M. H. Attia

The concept of sustainable development has been evolved into a working framework for sustainable manufacturing, in which the environmental requirements are introduced into product development at the design stage. This keynote paper is discussing a number of issues pertaining to the impact of manufacturing on the environment. The conflicting requirements of sustainable development, sustainable manufacturing (SM) and economical growth are presented in the light of successful case studies that were able to convert conflicts into opportunities. Integration of SM into the product life cycle is also presented. A number of concepts that are related to Ecoefficiency, e.g., inverse manufacturing, demanufacturing and re-manufacturing are also discussed. The paper underlines the fact that the positive impact of this new philosophy is equally applicable and beneficial to both; developed and developing countries. The paper concludes with an overview of Global trends in environmentally benign manufacturing (EBM); e.g., product-take back and emerging material and processing technologies. The state-of-the-art approach to Life Cycle Impact Assessment and integration of design for the environment DfE principles are demonstrated through some case study.

Jan 1, 2006

By Brad Hewitt, Jeff Belke

"Murrin Murrin Operations has not had a successful beginning. Numerous reliability and operability issues many of which are the result of design decisions have been addressed through mechanical and operational changes and the CCD circuit is no exception. Four design aspects of the CCD circuit that have caused and continue to cause operational problems are:1. the inclusion of solution neutralisation gypsum in the CCD circuit feed which was designed solely for HPAL residue without proper investigation of its impact on the achievable underflow density and resulting wash efficiency;2. the decision to construct the thickener base from thickened solids;3. the lack of redundancy in the overflow, underflow and tailings pipe work; and4. the lack of thickener operational flexibility in the central rake-lift and feedwell dilution system.In November 2002, the lack of operational flexibility in the rake-lift and the feedwell dilution system through mechanical modification as follows:•, CCD1 has a modified rake mechanism that now allows central vertical lift of 600 mm;•, CCD1 has forced dilution using the Outokumpu Turbodil® technology and replacing the E-Duc® technology of Eimco;The decision to install, the installation and the results of the CCD1 rake-lift mechanism and feedwell dilution system are discussed in this paper. The installation was justified on improved operational robustness and an increase in the in the underflow density of 1 per cent (per cent w/w). At approximately the same time process modifications in the solution neutralisation circuit were implemented and these changes altered the rheology of the slurry reporting to CCD1. Since the modifications to CCD1 and the solution neutralisation circuit, the CCD circuit has averaged a 2 per cent improvement in the circuit underflow density.The CCD1 modification was completed on time and mechanically has performed well. From a risk point of view, the central rake-lift and Turbodil®dilution system add a degree of freedom and robustness to CCD1 operation that has extended the range of operational confidence. In this respect, the modification has been a success and is complementary solution neutralisation improvements."

Jan 1, 2005

By Manuel Sanchez, Marcial Medina, Matt Hurley, Hugo Granados, Pramod Kumar, Raj Rajamani, Jose A. Delgadillo

"Large-diameter ball mills have traditionally used steel liners—steel being a highly durable material that can be shaped into any desired geometry, among which the double-wave has been the preferred design. Such a design produces a purely cascading charge motion, which is ideal for the shearing action needed to produce a finer product. Today, however, rubber liners, which have been in existence for over forty years, are now preferred over traditional steel, largely because they weigh less and are easier to maintain. In this paper, we show the operating data from the Hudbay Minerals’ Constancia Mine, wherein the liners on a 26-by-40-foot mill were changed from conventional steel liners to PolyStl™ liners. It is then shown that this change reduced the amount of energy consumed whilst being able to maintain previous grind and throughput levels. The design is verified via discrete element simulations.IntroductionThe Constancia Mine (“Our Business: Peru,” 2016) is located in the southeastern Andes of Peru, at an elevation of approximately 4,200 m. It can be accessed via the CU-126 road, about 95 km from the town of Espinar in Espinar Province. The mine also contains both the Constancia and Pampacancha deposits in the Province of Chumbivilcas. Hudbay Minerals, Inc. acquired the mine in 2011, through the purchase of Norsemont Mining, Inc. and currently retains sole ownership of the property. Production of the Constancia Mine began in 2014, with commercial production levels being achieved in April 2015.The Constancia and Pampacancha deposits primarily include hypogene, supergene, and skarn ores. The Mine’s main products, however, are copper concentrate, with silver contents, and molybdenum concentrate. These mineral reserves are expected to last approximately 22 years. Constancia’s open-pit mine supplies a processing plant that is designed for 81,900 metric tons per day of throughput. Average annual copper production is estimated to be 82,000 mT (contained metal in concentrate). Actual plant production can be found in Table 1."

Jan 1, 2017

By O. M. Arafat, J. A. Finch

"The Functional Performance Equation calculated from a plant grinding survey defines two distinct ball mill circuit efficiencies and how they relate to total production rate through the target grind size. The survey data are also used to calculate a complete ball mill size distribution model, represented by the energy specific grinding rates, not just through the target grind size, but through all the size classes. Cyclone separation performance is represented by individual size recoveries to underflow. When these two unit operation performances are entered into the circuit modelling program (Streamline™), along with the circuit feed rate and size distribution, all the circuit survey size distributions and mass flows are perfectly regenerated by the program. The many issues associated with the historical Epstein (breakage-selection) models are eliminated. Once the circuit program is populated, pump and cyclone performance changes can be evaluated using a step-by-step procedure in order to maximize Classification System Efficiency. Mill water use and media sizing opportunities are also diagnosed in order to maximize Mill Grinding Efficiency at the size of interest. An example is provided. This circuit analysis and modelling system, and related training, is provided through a web-based application.IntroductionSince its development (McIvor, 1988), the Functional Performance Equation for ball milling has facilitated new understanding of industrial circuit cause and effect relationships, leading to significant strides in operational performance. Success stories of this refreshing approach to plant circuit performance improvement are now too numerous to list. Finch and McIvor (circa 1986) also discovered that the Functional Performance “Mill Grinding Rate” at the size of interest was the same cumulative grinding rate that is calculated from mill feed and discharge size distributions using a first-order rate equation. By calculating these cumulative grinding rates for all screen sizes, a complete ball mill model is generated (as used by Finch and Ramirez, 1981). Others in industry, Hinde and Kalala (2009), for example, have noted the same. Lacking the complexity needed to maintain their interest, most researchers have ignored this model, broadly opting instead for Epstein’s (1948) characterization of grinding as a chemical reaction, combining “selection rate” and “breakage size distribution” functions. The much simpler ball mill model presented here has previously been incorporated into a proprietary circuit modeling program (McIvor, 2005) and used for plant improvement work (for example, see McIvor and Finch, 2007, and McIvor, 2014). Now, by combining this extremely business-friendly ball mill model with optimization criteria from Functional Performance Analysis, a circuit modeling system (including the needed supplementary steps to assure successful plant implementation of circuit design changes) is at the disposal of every plant metallurgist, grinding equipment/material provider, and circuit designer."

Jan 1, 2017

By Julián M. Ortiz

Uncertainty quantification of a spatially distributed variable at any scale can be handled through geostatistical simulation. Large computation time, storage, and post-processing of the realizations are required to obtain a final assessment of block uncertainty. Multi-Gaussian kriging is a flexible alternative to simulation. The idea is to compute the conditional distribution of uncertainty after normal score transformation of the original samples. Under the multi-Gaussian assumption, all marginal and conditional distributions are Gaussian, hence fully defined by their mean and variance. The parameters of the conditional distributions are obtained by simple kriging and can be back-transformed to the original units of the variable of interest. An estimate and any summary of uncertainty can be easily retrieved. The main disadvantage of performing multi-Gaussian kriging is that change of support is not straightforward, that is, calculating uncertainty of block grades. We propose a methodology to overcome this limitation by considering a matrix simulation to generate multiple probability fields. Each probability field is used to draw spatially correlated point values from the point-support conditional distributions, and multiple realizations of the average can be obtained. This permits the calculation of the average over the block and its uncertainty. These blocks may correspond to selective mining units or to volumes from longer production periods relevant for engineering decisions. They can even be disjoint blocks, such as when several faces are mined at the same time. POSTMG, a Fortran program to perform these calculations, is described and a case study is provided.

May 1, 2004

By Zuhair A. Nawab, Muhammad A. Al-Marhqun, Mehmet Guney

"The Atlantis-Il-Deep is a stratified metalliferous deposit located along the median valley of the Red Sea at a water depth of about 2200 m. The metal-bearing mud contains sulphides of zinc, copper and iron with significant amounts of silver, gold and cobalt. A variety of oxide, siliceous and carbonaceous gangue material is also present. Long sediment cores indicate that the thickness of the deposit may reach 25 m, but the average kriged thickness of metal-rich sediments is about 11 m.Mining geostatistics was applied to estimate the Red Sea offshore mineral resources. Experimental semi-variograms were computed along 0 ± 180 degrees and then models were fitted to analyze the mineralization phenomenon. Kriging estimates indicate that 696.330 million t of bulk sediments contain 1.891 million t of zinc, 0.425 million t of copper and 3. 75 thousand t of silver. Gold and cobalt contents were calculated from the analysis of solids in flotation concentrates as 47 t and 5368 t respectively. The significant outcome of implementing geostatistics to the Red Sea brine precipitates is not only for the evaluation of metal resources, but it also provides a useful tool in the optimization of selective dredging of appropriate areas to be mined. IntroductionThe discovery and extensive exploration of hot brines and hydrothermal sediments in the Red Sea median valley revealed the fact that the Atlantis-II-Deep is a potentially exploitable metalliferous mud in the economic sense. Sediments in the mineralized deep are composed mainly of oxides, various types of silicates and sulphides with considerable concentrations of zinc, copper, cadmium, silver and gold. The mineral-rich deposit, located at a mean water depth of about 2000 m, has an average thickness of 11 m, and is covered by a brine layer having a temperature of 60°C."

Jan 1, 1988

By M. Arvola, A. Mäkinen, N. Isomäki

Arsenic is a compound that has no significant market value. However, it needs to be removed from ores, concentrates and other process streams because of environmental or technical processing concerns. A wide range of arsenic containing minerals exists in nature, and in many instances these minerals are also associated with the ones that have commercial value. For example, sulfide copper ores are normally closely associated with minerals like enargite, Cu3AsS4 and tennantite Cu12As4S13. After mineral processing these arsenic sources can report to the waste waters and these effluents need to be treated before discharge or recycling. Ferric arsenate precipitation is a well-established method for stabilizing arsenic in effluents. Electrochemical arsenic removal utilizes the same adsorption/precipitation ideology as ferric arsenate precipitation. Electrochemical arsenic removal, even though it is a simple process in terms of equipment, is a complex system involving chemical and physical mechanisms taking place simultaneously to remove dissolved and/or solid arsenic components from wastewaters. The whole process can be described by the following three steps: 1) electrolytic oxidation at a sacrificial anode (dissolving electrode metal, iron for example), 2) chemical reaction between dissolved iron and arsenic to form a solid precipitate and 3) aggregation of the particles to form flocs, which can be removed by known solid/liquid separation methods. Electrochemical arsenic removal is a very efficient way to remove arsenic from different waters to very low residual concentrations.

Jan 1, 2016

"As mine head grades decline and orebodies become more complex, traditional mineral processing techniques and flowsheets to achieve saleable concentrate become more difficult to design and construct. Mines with lower quality concentrates or concentrates with penalty elements are particular under threat. The economics of these operations are far more susceptible to metal price, concentrate treatment terms and the availability of other, cleaner concentrates. Additional value may be realised for these orebodies through improved recovery by producing a low grade middling concentrate for further processing, in conjunction with a saleable concentrate.The most cost effective way to reduce impurity levels is to do so as early as possible in the mining value chain. Technologies such as fine grinding and fine particle flotation are well established as effective methods for impurity rejection in mineral processing. What is normally overlooked is how a hydrometallurgical process could also be integrated in the overall flowsheet to achieve higher overall recovery at the mill. In the base metals environment, this is mainly because hydrometallurgical processes are associated with production of metal or use of expensive and toxic precipitating agents once the minerals of interest are solubilised. These processes can be very expensive, particularly with rising power costs and poor economies of scale in capital costs associated with low production rates from middling streams.Glencore Technology (GT) has recent experience in the treatment of middling and low grade concentrate streams as well as tailings streams to compliment a concentrator flowsheet in a refractory gold and base metals setting. The value proposition is the isolation of a low grade middlings concentrate from the primary circuit or the tailings stream for upgrading to an intermediate product with an equal or higher grade than the primary concentrate to allow blending for sale. This allows plants to operate on a more favourable part grade-recovery curve while avoiding the expense of metal production. For existing operations this is particularly attractive since it can be added on with no process interruptions.Two case studies are examined showing flowsheets and costings to arrive at the value proposition of the GT low grade treatment flowsheet."

Jan 1, 2017

By Bernard Dallaire, Jean Cayouette, Sylvain Duchesne

"Louvicourt Mine's concentrator, located near Val d'Or, Quebec, treats an average of 4,300 tonnes of ore per day composed mainly of copper, zinc, gold and silver. An analysis of concentrator revenues and metallurgical losses shows a potential for additional gain, particularly in regards to precious metals (kustelite) where recovery is usually around 67 -70 %. The planning, installation and trial operational period of two Outokumpu SK-240 flash cells at the underflow of the primary cyclones took two years. The use of (( flash flotation )) technology has made it possible to exploit the favourable conditions at the underflow of the primary cyclones such as precious metal concentration and the presence of liberated coarse chalcopyrite. These conditions permit early flotation (fresh surfaces) of the kustelite and the liberated copper. Since the start-up of the flash cells, the metallurgical gains have turned out to be very positive with increases in metal recovery reflected in appreciable NSR gains. Also, significant savings in reagent consumption and a coarser copper concentrate have made it possible to reduce the drying cycle of the Larox filter presses since the cells were put into operation.BACKGROUNDLouvicourt Mine is operated by Aur Resources Inc. (30% ownership) on behalf of its partners Novicourt Inc. (45%, subsidiary of Noranda Inc.) and Teck Corp. (25%). The mine is located in northwestern Quebec about 600 km north of Montreal and about 25 km east of the mining town of Val d'Or. The mine commenced commercial production in July 1994.The massive sulphide ore deposit lies at depths varying between 450 m and 900 m. Mining reserves (2% Cu equi. cut-off) as of Jan. Is', 2000 are estimated at 7.5 million tonnes of ore averaging 3.4% Cu, 1.8% Zn, 28.0 g/t Ag and 0.9 g/t Au. Delineated ore reserves permit the use of a mechanized transverse blasthole mining method. The extraction order is a typical 1.3.5 mining sequence. Primary and secondary stopes are 15 m wide, 15 to 70 m long (25 m long average) and 30 m high. Backfilling for pillar recovery and regional stability is required."

Jan 1, 2001

By J. Goyman, K. R. Rawling

"1.1 Location and Transportation ServicesNanisivik Mines Ltd. is located at latitude 73°, 3,200 km north of Montreal and 700 km north of the Arctic circle, on the south side of Strathcona Sound, which is an arm of Admiralty Inlet, in Northern Baffin Island. The orebody and mill site are 4 km distant from Strathcona Sound which provides deep water anchorage for ocean transportation of concentrate to Europe during the short northern shipping season from mid-July to mid-October.The operations and the resident community have direct jet aircraft service from Montreal two days per week, and local nights connect with other Arctic communities in the northern Baffin region. Bulk supplies and general cargo are delivered in the summer shipping season.1.2 HistoryThe Texas Gulf Sulphur Company, now Kidd Creek Mines Limited, staked claims in the Nanisivik area in 1957 and carried out exploration through to 1968. After the Kidd Creek orebody was found, Texas Gulf optioned the property in 1972 to Mineral Resources International Inc. (MRI), which undertook further exploration and completed a feasibility study.Nanisivik Mines Ltd. was formed in 1975, with MRI as the majority shareholder and minority shareholdings held by Metallgesellschaft, Billiton and Texas Gulf. Strathcona Mineral Services Limited was retained to manage the project during both the construction and operational phases."

Jan 1, 1984

"At a current mining rate of 3,750 tons per day, La Mine Doyon is currently the largest gold mine in Canada. La Mine Doyon is an open pit gold mine located in the Abitibi area of Northwestern Quebec. The project is a joint venture between Soquem, a Quebec Crown Corporation in the resource development field and Lac Minerals Ltd., a publicly-held, resource development company. Lac Minerals is the managing company and operator of the project.Doyon went into production in 1980 on a very limited basis at 600 tons/day, and has seen a step wise increase to the current rate of 3,750 tons/day. Initially, all the ore was processed at Noranda Mines, Horne Division as flux for the copper smelter. The East Malartic Mill in Malartic was then upgraded and began processing Doyon ore. The third step in the progressive increase of throughput was the commissioning of the Doyon mill in November of 1982. Doyon ore is currently being processed at all three locations.During 1983, an exploration ramp was driven to explore the ore below the ultimate pit depth. Current plans indicate the sinking of a shaft and the commencement of underground mining during the next 2 or 3 years.Since its humble beginning, La Mine Doyon has always been a success; ore reserves have been extended to the east and the west and will soon be confirmed at depth, the mining and processing rates have been increased 6 fold, and the recovery has been increased from a designed recovery of 85% to over 95%. The intent of this paper is to trace the history and reasons for these rather dramatic improvements."

Jan 1, 1984

By D. M. Doyle

A study of the various components contributing to energy costs and their relationships to generally trended operating data, such as tonnage, operating costs, etc., over progressively shorter time periods provides information for an energy audit. A study of annual data gives some insight into the importance of various energy components. As the time frame of the study progresses through monthly, daily and, finally, into quarter hourly data, the variations become more evident and, most important, strategies develop to minimize energy costs. The results of an audit conducted during the summer of 1978 at Wesfrob Mines Limited are reported to illustrate this important phase, prerequisite to a meaningful energy cost avoidance program. The balance of the paper deals with the energy conservation program at Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited's Sudbury operations, the metering and control equipment, the commitment, the new energy accounting practices and, lastly, the policies. Examples of successful energy conservation endeavours include automatic peak electrical load control, waste heat recovery from mine air and compressor cooling water, energy reductions resulting from lower building temperatures and curtailment of idling loads. The use of pulse meters to measure the flow of gas, steam, compressed air and electrical energy, with their signals interfaced to process computers, allows monthly, daily and, if necessary, immediate reporting of energy and energy per unit of production information The program so reported at Falconbridge's Sudbury Operations is credited with an annual cost avoidance of .9 million dollars in a 14.0-million-dollar annual energy account

Jan 1, 1979

By C. Pelley, A. Piche

"The Canadian mining industry faces the prospects of a severe shortage of graduate mining engineers over the next decade. This arises from three factors: first, a growth in industrial activity; second, the average age of company engineering and management staff; and third, the reduced number of students in engineering faculties around the world. This paper aims to identify the critical factors underlying the trend of inadequate recruitment into higher education for mining and to examine means of alleviating the problem.This paper is based upon surveys of potential and current students and graduate mining engineers from four mining schools. An attempt is made to understand institutional and industrial images, career prospects and what is required to attract enough high-calibre young people into mining education over the next decade.IntroductionThe mining industry has started to experience a severe shortage of graduate mining engineers which is likely to persist and even worsen in the short- to medium-term.This arise s from three principal factors:1. a recent and strong growth in mining activity, which surpasses that experienced through the 70s, before the recent international industrial recession; .2. an increasingly older average age of mine engineering employees, at least in the industry's larger companies; and3. problems associated with maintaining adequate mining undergraduate recruitment levels ."

Jan 1, 1989

By P. D. R. Maltby

"With the narrow vein structure of Nova Scotia gold deposits, selective mining is rarely possible and mill heads will be too low (below 0.10 oz per ton of gold) to support a conventional mill of up to 1000 ton per day capacity at present gold prices. The recent operation of a small 100 t.p.d. mill at Cochrane Hill using fine grinding - leaching - filtration supported this assertion. Milling costs exceeded $25.00/ton of feed mainly due to high capital, labour and maintenance costs.Accordingly, since 1981, efforts have been directed towards the development of a cheap gold extraction process in terms of both capital and operating costs. The main criteria is to produce gold below US $200 per oz including all administration, mining and process stages. This paper describes such a process development for Cochrane Hill. LOCATION AND HISTORY OF THE PROPERTYThe Cochrane Hill property is located about 8 miles North of Sherbrooke, N.S. on highway No. 7. Sherbrooke is about 180 miles east of Halifax. Gold was originally discovered at Cochrane Hill in the 1860's. Early work consisted of trenching. In the 1930's a small shaft was sunk to about 80 feet and some tonnage treated using a stamp mill with gravity concentration of gold.Northumberland Mines Ltd. acquired a 70% interest in the property in 1977. Subsequent drilling indicated a potential zone of gold mineralization with a drill-indicated tonnage of one million tons having a grade of 0.07 ounces per ton of gold (all high assays cut to 1 oz) down to a depth of 300 feet recoverable by open pit mining methods. In broad terms, the goldbearing zone is about 50 feet wide and 800 feet long and dips at about 70°."

Jan 1, 1984

By X. Louw

"This paper examines the change in surface properties of the Polyurea used on spirals at different operational times: unused spiral, 28 months in operation and 58 months in operation. This is being done to investigate the alleged statement that spirals have a decrease in spiral separation efficiency after a certain period of operational time. Observing the surface characteristics under 1.5x and 36x magnification it can be concluded that the surface roughness decreases with increased operational time. This may be explained by a decrease in air inclusions and streak lines as the spiral surface wears. Decreased surface roughness should in theory have a beneficial effect on spiral separation performance. This leads to the conclusion that if a decrease in spiral separation performance is observed after a certain period of operation, it can’t be attributed to the change in surface properties. Uneven wear of the spiral surface, material creep or application of force to the spiral will change the profile of the spiral and could cause an adverse effect on spiral separation performance. The metallurgical test work showed that the best results are obtained at 30 - 35% solids by mass in the spiral feed. The iron recovery was significantly higher in the new spiral in comparison to the 2012 and 2010 spirals. The mass yield to concentrate in the new spiral was approximately three times more than for the older spirals. In conclusion, the yield combined with the grade, which equals the recovery was the best for the new spiral.IntroductionAn investigation was launched to research the common belief that spirals experience a decrease in efficiency, and therefore recovery, after a certain period of operation (a period of seven years has been used in the industry). The properties of the spiral that may have an effect on the efficiency are:"

Jan 1, 2017

By Shahé Shnorhokian

Remnant pillars evolve towards the latter stages of mining in an orebody and act as repositories of mining-induced stress. It is therefore crucial to plan ahead as to their dimensions and location with respect to the local geology. A case study of a Canadian base metal mine was examined for the planned mining sequence scenario to identify the stress regimes acting on a future remnant pillar occurring between levels 4800 and 5100, near a brittle dyke. A mine-wide model was constructed in FLAC3D and input parameters included results from field measurements of the direction and magnitude of the principal stresses, and the geomechanical properties of the different formations. Prior to the study, the model was calibrated based on a 6-year record of mining-induced seismicity and rockburst events, focusing on large event clusters. The mining sequence followed at the mine was then used in the model to study the planned future extraction program around the remnant pillar. It is shown that the distance of the remnant pillar from the dyke and another orebody plays an influential role on the stress levels developed in the pillar.

Jun 1, 2012

By M. Kane, B. Bissonnette, D. Hodouin

"A laboratory cell has been designed for a careful investigation of gold ore cyanidation using mathematical modelling of the process kinetics. The cell is a stirred vessel with continuous monitoring and control of pH, oxygen and free cyanide contents. Samples are automatically extracted for gold analysis. The instruments are connected to a microcomputer which records all the measured variables and calculates the reagent consumption (air or oxygen, cyanide, lime). For cyanide control a sample is automatically extracted and filtered and the solution analyzed, using a specific electrode, by a flow injection technique. The rate of gold dissolution is modelled using a kinetic model the parameters of which are calculated by a non linear least-squares technique. The parameters of an empirical model of reagent consumption are also estimated. The resulting model is used in a simulator for gold cyanidation plant design, tuning and control.INTRODUCTIONThe leaching of gold ores in a cyanide solution is the usual method for gold extraction from raw ores. This process requires long reaction times and leads to very significant consumption of cyanide. The optimization of the cyanidation plant operation is a very important aspect of gold ore processing for increasing gold recovery and decreasing operating costs. The key parameters to the improvement of gold extraction are the selection of an efficient solution chemistry, the design of the size and the arrangement of the equipment and the correct tuning of the operating variables. Automatic control strategies can then be applied to maintain industrial operations at their optimum setpoints.Two approaches can be used for optimizing design and control of cyanidation circuits, either empirical trials for improving process performances or mathematical modelling of the process kinetics for subsequent analysis, simulation and optimization. The advantages of the second approach, which is used in this study, is that it gives a systematic pattern to interpret data and reliable tools, in as much as the models are good, to improve operation performances. In order to determine the structure and the coefficients of cyanidation models, well controlled measurement and calibration procedures must be used. The purpose of the paper is to present an equipment and a test procedure for modelling the kinetics of gold ore cyanidation."

Jan 1, 1990

By R. D. Lindsay

Pamour Porcupine Mines, Limited has been actively engaged in the ''Custom Tolling'' of Gold-Bearing materials throughout the past decade. Experience acquired in this area was utilized to design and commission a custom gold milling facility at its operations in Timmins, capable of:(a) Accepting a bulk ore test sample at the rate of 150 t/d for crushing, sampling, and metals analysis;(b) Processing gold-bearing ores at a rated capacity of 150 t/d, to produce a goldbearing sulphide concentrate;(c) Processing free milling gold ores at a rated capacity of 80 t/d for total cyanidation;(d) Cyaniding custom gold flotation concentrates at a rated capacity of 80 t/d; and(e) Processing of complex gold/copper or carbonaceous ores, requiring an impurity flotation concentrate separation stage prior to cyanidation, at a rated capacity of 100 t/d.Items considered in the process design and development included:- various gold ore types available for processing;- flowsheet flexibility required;- sampling strategy as related to head grade determination and metals accounting; and- contract considerations.This paper highlights how these various considerations were used to design Pamour's ''Custom Gold Milling Facility''.

Jan 1, 1987