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By J. B. Austin

MEASUREMENTS of the rate of decomposition of austenite at constant temperature are commonly represented by plotting the percentage trans-formed on linear coordinates against time on either a linear or a logarith-mic scale, a method that yields a curve that in shape resembles an integral sign (Fig. 1). A graph of this kind is not always convenient because extrapolation to the beginning or end of the transformation, or even inter-polation, may be uncertain unless there are a large number of observations, which seldom happens; furthermore, the degree of consistency of a set of measurements is difficult to judge from such a curve. It is desirable therefore to find some mode of plotting, or even better to find a standard variety of graph paper, that gives a straight line instead of the integral shape. The straight line has many advantages; the number of readings required to fix the position of the curve is greatly reduced, interpolation is easy and rapid, extrapolation can be carried out with greater confidence and, finally, the consistency of the measurements is readily estimated from the scatter of the points. The last advantage is particularly valu-able when the data are obtained by direct microscopic examination alone, because they are influenced by the skill of the observer in estimating the relative size of areas, possibly also by undetected inhomogeneity of the specimen. A search for ways of representing the observations as a straight line yielded two methods which are described in this paper. The paper also includes an account of some interesting relations brought to light in applying these methods to the available experimental data. Usually the best way to derive such a method of plotting is to base it on established principles of chemistry and physics, as has been done, for example, for the temperature variation of the equilibrium constant of a chemical reaction. But so little is known of the mechanism of the decom-position of austenite, and so little is available in the way of well established background for changes of this kind, that it is simpler to rely upon purely empirical means. The general plan therefore is to study existing data with a view to finding some function of the direct observations that will

Jan 1, 1938

By Robert E. Thurmond

DISCOVERY of a commercial ore deposit has resulted from a program emphasizing geophysical techniques and concentrating upon exploration of alluvial-covered areas. United Geophysical Co. selected these areas as offering the best possibility of success, for here the surface evidence of ore deposits has been hidden from the eyes of prospector and geologist alike. Pima mining district, Pima County, Arizona, was selected for initial exploration. The project was successful in that a commercial ore deposit was discovered and proved through drilling and extensive underground development. A limited region of activity was chosen and library research was begun on available economic and regional geological publications relating to the mining districts. Field reconnaissance of those districts which seemed to hold exploration possibilities provided a general picture and ascertained the existence of alluvial-covered areas of interest. At the conclusion of the reconnaissance trips all data obtained were compiled, and the district which seemed to present the best exploration possibilities was selected by statistical methods. The statistical summary was based on the following considerations: Geological Factors: 1—type of intrusive, P—presence of favorable host rocks, 3—apparent intensity of mineralization, and 4—presence of favorable structure in covered or unexplored areas. Economic Factors: 1—past production from district or mine; 2—size, shape, grade, and type of ore deposit in the district; 3—ease of acquiring mineral rights; and 4—general development facility. Exploration Favorability Factors: 1—results to be anticipated from geological methods alone; 2—application of geophysical methods, namely, topographic conditions, surface interference, depth-size relation, physical property contrasts as related to ores or controlling structural features; and 3—drilling factors. Admittedly, many of these, factors do not lend themselves to absolute evaluation, but relative evaluation, subject to inaccuracies of personal judgment, is always possible. A relative scale from 1 to 10 was established for every factor, representing varying degrees of favorability. For each district a numerical evaluation of each factor was established and a numerical total determined. The obvious advantage of this scheme is that a more concise summation can be presented by numerical means than can be achieved by descriptive means. After a district had been selected as favorable, the first step was to carry out more detailed geological and economic studies to narrow down the areas of interest. The second step was to compile all available geological data from publications and add to these data by mapping where necessary. Geological interpretation and projection of structural or other control into covered or unexplored areas was made whenever logical. To determine the possibilities of geophysical application and to select a geophysical method, physical property contrasts were related to mineral assemblages and/or structural control. If geophysics seemed applicable, trial profiles were run crossing the area normal to the strike and spaced

Jan 1, 1955

By Willis H. Carrier

PARTICULAR interest in the ventilation of deep mines, especially those in South Africa, has been created by a very complete system of cooling of the world's deepest mine, the Turf shaft of the Robinson Deep in Johannesburg. The writer visited this mine in January, 1936, and again in 1937. During these visits and subsequently, a considerable part of the theory involved in rock cooling in tunnels was developed and this has been checked by practical observations of the rates of rock cooling made within mines. The purpose of this paper is to set forth the method of attack of the mine problem. The cooling or air conditioning of mines by the use of mechanical refrigeration was not wholly new 1-5 when the Robinson Deep installation was made. The first mine to be cooled was the Morro Velho mine, in Brazil. The first installation in this mine was put into operation in December 1920, the refrigerant being ammonia.5 The surface cooling gave considerable benefit but it proved inadequate as greater depths were reached, therefore in 1929 two centrifugal refrigerating machines were installed at the 6000-ft. level. These were used in conjunction with the surface cooling system to furnish additional cooling at the lower levels. This later installation used Carrene as a refrigerant. This nonflammable refrigerant, having a boiling point of 104º at sea level, insured reasonable safety, since all parts of the machine operated at subatmospheric pressure. Very favorable reports have been received on the effectiveness of this installation, but no recent data are available. An interesting feature of that plant is that the condenser water is cooled by spraying it into the exhaust air from the mine at the base of the ventilation upcast, which permits the water to be cooled within a few degrees of the wet-bulb temperature of the air entering the upcast, and the only water that has to be supplied for condensing purposes is that lost by evaporation, or about 0.5 per cent of the volume circulating through the condenser. This plan affords an ideal means for the removal of the heat load from the refrigerating system, and of course also from the mine itself. In many mines, however, especially those in South Africa, there is no

Jan 1, 1938

By Max W. Ball

An intelligent discussion of the oil situation and its needs, whether from the standpoint of the prospector, the operator, the engineer, or the public administrative officer, must be founded upon a knowledge of the law under which oil lands are obtained. A consideration of new legislation must be prefaced by an understanding of the present law and its results. This paper undertakes to present no new remedy for the ills of the present situation, no new solution of the problems the oil business is facing. It attempts merely to summarize the present law, its provisions, its origin, its development, and its effects. The discussion does not pretend to be exhaustive from a legal standpoint. It aims to avoid legal intricacies which tend to. confuse rather than clarify. It seeks but to present the essentials of the existing situation. The title to government lands known to contain valuable deposits of petroleum may be acquired only under the terms of the placer law as embodied in Section 2329 et seq. of the Revised Statutes. As a preliminary to considering the desirability of this situation it is profitable to examine into its origin. Origin of the Law Congress has left no room for doubt as to the legal applicability of the placer law to oil lands. The Act of Feb.11, 1897(29 Stat., 526), provides: "that any person authorized to enter lands under the mining laws of the United States may enter and obtain patent to land containing petroleum or other mineral oils, and chiefly valuable therefor, under the provisions of the laws relating to placer mineral claims.' . The immediate cause for the passage of this Act was stated in a brief report in the, House of Representatives (there was no debate in the Senate) to be a decision of the Department rendered Aug. 27, 1896 (Union Oil Co., 23 L. D., 223), directing the cancellation of an oil placer entry on the ground that land containing petroleum cannot be located and entered as a placer mine. The report of the Public Lands Committee of the House contains the following interesting statements Congressional Record, vol. xxix, p. 1409):

Jan 1, 1915

By W. J. McKenna

The International Smelting Co. concentrator at Tooele, Utah, first operated on a custom basis for the treatment of lead-zinc-iron ores on Nov. 1, 1924, with a capacity of 500 tons per day. On May 1, 1925, the capacity was increased to 1000 tons per day by the addition of another 500-ton section. The concentrator has since operated on the two-section basis, each treating 500 tons per day entirely by flotation. Laboratory and Test Mill In connection with the concentrator, a well-equipped laboratory and small continuous testing plant are maintained. The flotation equipment in the test plant is of both the Callow and Mineral Separations Sub-"A" types, so that actual concentrator conditions may be duplicated as closely as possible. Purchasing of Ore A new shipper usually sends to the plant a 25 to 50-lb. samplc, representative of the ore to be shipped. Batch flotation tests are made on this sample to determine its amenability to the concentrator treatment flowsheet and reagent combinations. The results of these tests, which are accurately correlated with those obtained at the concentrator, both as to grades of products and recoveries, determine the actual value of the ore as submitted in the ore purchasing department's treatment schedule. Hearty cooperation has existed at all times between the ore purchasing and operating departments in the selection of ores as conccntrator feed. Ores Treated The basic tonnages for mixtures on the two sections come from the Park City and Bingham mining districts. The Park City tonnages arc received by rail and consist of crude ores and gravity mill products. Those from the Bingham district arc received by rail and aerial tramway,

Jan 1, 1928

By M. W. Legatski, D. L. Katz

The best currently available description of the longitudinal mixing properties of a porous medium is an equation of the form which relates the effective longitudinal dispersion coefficient Dp to the molecular diffusion coefficient Do, the electrical resistivity factor F, the porosity <f> and a Peclet number. If the parameters dpa and m are determined for a porous medium of known porosity and electrical resistivity factor, then a dispersion coefficient may be estimated for a given flow rate and a given gas pair. A new method, featuring on-line gas analysis by thermal conductivity and on-line data reduction by analog computation, was developed and used to determine these mixing parameters for eight naturally occurring sandstones and two dolomite samples. The exponent m of the above equation was found to vary between 1.0 and 1.5. The characteristic length dpa in the above equation was found to vary between 0.25 and 1.9 cm, with an average value of 0.4 cm for sandstones. Measurements were made on two cores in which paraffin wax had been deposited by evaporation from a pentane solution. They indicated that the presence of an immobile phase such as connate water could increase the dispersion coefficients significantly. INTRODUCTION While the petroleum and chemical industries have studied the mixing of miscible liquids flowing in consolidated porous media and of miscible gases flowing in unconsolidated porous media, relatively little data have been presented to describe the mixing of gases flowing through consolidated porous media. Such data are of particular interest to the gas storage industry. For instance, the U. S. Bureau of Mines is storing large quantities of a rich helium-nitrogen gas in contact with a natural gas in a dolomite reservoir. Since the rich gas occupies only 15 percent of the total reservoir volume, it is essential that the extent of rich gas-natural gas mixing be predicted and understood as a function of rock properties, pressure and rate of movement. This investigation was concerned only with the determination of longitudinal dispersion coefficients. It is understood that a transverse dispersion coefficient, which characterizes mixing perpendicular to the direction of flow, may be an order of magnitude less than the coefficient characterizing mixing in the direction of bulk flow.5719 It should also be recognized that the use of any dispersion coefficient is in itself a simplification. It is necessary to assume that mixing in a porous medium may be characterized by the equation for flow in a single direction. A number of authors1 l8,19 have pursued the mixing problem, not in terms of the so-called "dispersion model" described by Eq. 1, but in terms of a "mixing cell model". This model supposes that a porous medium is constructed of a large number of small mixing chambers and that the concentration of the diffusing component within each mixing chamber is uniform. Fick&apos;s law (Eq. 1) assumes that there is no gross by-passing of one fluid by another, and that there are not stagnant pockets of gas in the system under consideration as discussed by Coats and Smith.8 These assumptions are not always valid for flow through porous media and it is important to recognize the limitations upon Eq. 1. The most serious limitation upon the assumption of Fick&apos;s law mixing in a porous medium is

By Kingman, Robert I.

SUFFICIENT testing has been .performed with the Dutch State Mines Cyclone for thickening and desliming flotation feed at the concentrator of the National Lead Co., Tahawus, N. Y., to prove its application for this work. It is the purpose of this article to present some of the test results, operational details and advantages of cyclone thickening and classification. The metallurgy of the mill operation was described by Frank R. Milliken, assistant manager of the titanium division.

Jan 1, 1950

By James E. Hoffmann, John A. Bonucci, Peter D. Parker

A hydrometallurgical process has been developed for the recovery of high-purity silver from sulfated residues. The process eliminates the high temperature operations ordinarily associated with silver recovery and refining. The crux of the process is a metathetical leach which maintains the sulfate ion concentration at a level which both allows silver nitrate to be freely soluble and simultaneously depresses the solubility of lead nitrate. The subsequent hydrolytic purification of the silver nitrate solution, the recovery of high-purity silver by electrowinning in a diaphragm cell, and the final product purity are discussed.

Jan 1, 1981

Jan 1, 1956

Western Mining Corp. has announced plans to expand its mining operations at Kambalda, and to build a nickel refinery at Kwinana, near Perth, Western Australia. The refinery will use the ammonia-leach hydrogen reduction processes of Sherritt Gordon Mines Ltd., and it is expected that by 1970, when the expansion is scheduled for completion, Western will be the world&apos;s fourth largest nickel producer. Although estimates have not been finalized, the total cost is expected to be about $55 million. The mine and mill facilities at Kambalda, which began production in June 1967, are now producing at the rate of 11 million lb of contained nickel per year. The company estimates the sulfide ore reserves at Kambalda and St. Ives at 10.4 million tons averaging an usually high grade of 3.8% nickel, or about 790 million lb of contained nickel. In addition, silicate and oxidized ores have been located in both areas.

Jan 3, 1968

Jan 1, 1969

By Gerald M. Friedman

CONVENTIONAL usage defines emery as a natural aggregate of corundum and magnetite. Because emery bodies contain abundant spinel two types are recognized, spinel-bearing and spinel- free. Watson and Steiger1 introduced the name spinellite for emery in which spinel is a major constituuent, but this term has not been generally adopted. Spinel emery grades locally into spinel magnetite rocks with or without accessory corundum. Even this variety has been used commercially in the past. The term emery therefore applies to natural aggregates composed of corundum and magnetite; corundum, magnetite, and spinel; and spinel and magnetite.

Jan 7, 1957

By William G. Fricke

MaCROSEGREGATION, as distinct from microseg-regation, is often inverse in nature. That is, the eu-tectic solute elements, which are expected to be con-

Jan 1, 1970

By D. B. McWhorter, J. D. Nelson

Conventional analyses of seepage through saturated media do not apply when tailings impoundments are located above a partially saturated zone. Three stages of seepage are identified and methods for estimating the seepage rates and duration of each stage, based upon flow in partially saturated and saturated porous media, are demonstrated. The effectiveness of earthen liners is discussed and procedures for estimating the required properties of the porous media are provided.

Jan 1, 1981

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Jan 1, 1907

New Products Equipment

Jan 3, 1951

Jan 1, 1902

By Fred Hellmann

IT IS hardly to be doubted that the opportunity within the grasp of the mine manager for beneficent and helpful action in relation to young engineers seeking employment under him is very broad and very big. It is my experience that a manager usually has a strong inclination to help along those who have chosen the career which he has selected for himself, and to aid them and support them as their steps tread the paths which his own feet have previously followed. He has .a strong sympathy for them in their efforts, he almost yearns to shield them from the mistakes into which he himself fell, and to assist them to avoid the pit-falls of which he knows by bitter experience. Yes, this tendency and inclination is strongly developed in most managers, and they would welcome the opportunity of extending the helping hand, if they knew precisely how best this could be done.

Jan 5, 1923

Jan 1, 1912

Jan 1, 1895