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By Juan Asalgado

The JORC and NI43-101 codes impose that mineralized material has a reasonable prospect of economical extraction to be classified as Mineral Resource. For deposits close to surface and amenable to open pit mining, it is easy to show reasonable prospect of economic extraction running a Lerch-Grossman optimization. The Lerch-Grossman pit provides a transparent and repeatable way of separating the Mineral Resource (within the pit) from the remainder of the mineral inventory (outside the pit). Deposits amenable to underground mining are more challenging because of the variety of the underground methods. AMEC developed a stand-alone software package that outlines the material which has reasonable prospect of economic extraction for open stoping, block caving, sublevel caving and room and pillar. The software takes a block model file in ASCII and exports a 3D surface outlining the part of the mineralization that has a reasonable prospect of economic extraction, and which the Qualified Person can smooth out manually if required.

Oct 1, 2009

By R. C. Annear

This report describes open, sublevel, and shrinkage stoping at the Greenwood mine, operated by Inland Steel-Co. The iron ore mine is in Marquette County, Mich., about 6 miles southwest of Ishpeming (fig. 1). The Greenwood is one of three active underground hard-ore mines on the Marquette range, the others being the Cliffs-Shaft and the Champion mines. The operation reflects an achievement in exploiting small, difficult-to-mine hard-ore bodies lying beneath a 200-foot overburden of glacial drift, which is partly water bearing. This report can indicate only briefly the efforts of personnel in overcoming adverse conditions in mining more than 2 million tons of ore, 80 percent of which was in lump form, for open-hearth production of steel. Significant data presented include descriptions of the principal mining methods employed, sublevel and shrinkage stoping; percent aged mining costs for the entire year 1957, covering both direct mining costs and general expenses; and performance records in units of labor, power, and supplies.

Jan 1, 1960

By Mosquera. J.

Tailings Storage Facilities (TSFs) are vast structures that respond to site-specific characteristics, rate of production, placement techniques, and the physical and mechanical properties of tailings. As a common denominator, TSFs are in some degree vulnerable to failure due to liquefaction, poor management, slope instability and/or unusual climatic events. In practice, stability of TSFS is determined by calculating a minimum Factor of Safety (FOS) using the Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM). However, it has been proven that relying exclusively on the limit equilibrium approach is not accurate because it is basically a static method that does not take into account the stress-strain distribution and displacement experienced by the constitutive materials of a TSF. In order to overcome these limitations of the LEM, the finite element method - Shear Reduction Technique (SRT) has been used as a more reliable tool for TSFs stability assessment. This paper presents a comparative stability analysis between an upstream tailings storage facility (UTSF), and a water retention tailings dam (WRTD) under static and pseudo-static states using simplified and rigorous LEMs and the SRT. Additionally, and taking into consideration the intrinsic uncertainty of tailings properties, sensitivity and probabilistic analyses in the form of Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and the Point Estimate Method (PEM) are applied to determine the Probability of Failure (Pf) and Reliability Index (ß) of each TSF. It is shown that the friction angle of UTSF?s foundation and the core?s cohesion of the WRTD are the main variables that govern stability. Further analysis shows that the WRTD has a higher reliability index and a lower probability of failure than the UTSF.

Aug 1, 2013

By Duberney Hincapie-Ladino

No presente trabalho analisou-se a influência de diferentes microestruturas obtidas através de tratamentos térmicos, sobre a resistência à corrosão de um aço microligado, na solução A segundo a norma NACE TM0284-11. Foi utilizada chapa de um aço destinado à conformação de tubo API 5L X65 para confeccionar as amostras. Algumas destas foram submetidas a tratamentos térmicos (Temperado, Temperado seguido de revenimento, esferoidização) e o restante foi utilizado tal como recebido. Os materiais foram submetidos a ensaios de polarização linear, num eletrólito composto por 0,5% ácido acético e 5% cloreto de sódio (solução A, NACE TM0284-11) fazendo-se purga com N2 e injeções de H2S. Foram realizados exames em microscópio óptico. Os valores de resistência de polarização mostraram que a ordem decrescente de resistência à corrosão de acordo com o tratamento térmico foi: (Esferoidizada) > (Tal Como Recebido) > (Temperada, Temperada e Revenida). Tal fato pode ser explicado pela quantidade de interfaces presentes em cada microestrutura (cementita globulizada em matriz ferrítica; ferrita com perlita; martensita e martensita revenida), sendo que quanto menor a área de interfaces, maior o valor para resistência à corrosão.

Aug 7, 2018

By R. Minnitt, C. Morgan, D. Fourie

The problems associated with outliers and their adverse effects on resource estimation in deep level South African gold mines are presented, and solutions suggested in available literature are reviewed. Traditional Witwatersrand type outlier capping uses the 99th percentile grade as the upper limit, a somewhat blunt approach. The occurrence of high and low grade areas in mining operations and the estimation of resources using geostatistical techniques require that the assumption of stationarity be upheld. Honouring the stationarity of data requires that mining areas be subdivided into appropriately sized and spaced domains. In order to overcome high-grade conditionally biased block estimates, the overly strong influence of extreme grades is mitigated by using naturally occurring grade sub-domains, by identifying outliers within the grade sub-domains, allocating relevant capping limits, and weighting them in a post-estimation process to. Rather than applying a capping value across a domain it applies a maximum cap based on the extreme value and its range of influence; the method also ensures that relevant capping occurs even in lower grade sub-domains. The proposed method for capping outliers recognises that metal contained in high grade chip samples should not be over-capped, and based on the grade of surrounding samples. The post-processing method of capping outliers does not interfere with the kriging equations. The method is simple, elegant, and can be easily applied. An advantage is that the output from the kriging process is not overwritten, allowing for comparison between original kriging results and post-processing results.

Sep 1, 2021

By Justin Cardwell, Alyson Cartwright

"Grade estimation is the cornerstone of longrange mine planning. Pit designs, metal recovery, mining costs, reserves calculations and reporting are all dependent upon a reliable grade model. If the geology is poorly understood or the interpolation methods and parameters have been haphazardly constructed, then massive financial losses will be the inevitable outcome. Therefore, a properly trained geologist must use all of the appropriate tools available including deposit knowledge and advances in modeling technology to construct the most geostatistically and practically sound long-range block model.Certain deposits, such as the sedimenthosted deposits at Tenke-Fungurume, require an interpolation method that best suits the style of mineralization. In 2014, Hexagon Mining developed a tool in MineSight called dynamic unfolding (MSDU) that has the potential to improve upon previous Euclidean-based interpolation methods. MSDU utilizes the nonstationarity of a folded grade trend to more accurately construct variograms and improve interpolation results based upon a modeled three-dimensional surface.Geology overview. The sediment-hosted Tenke-Fungurume mining district is located in the southeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Fig. 1). The rocks within the district are primarily dolomites and shales from the lower half of the Roan Supergroup that were mineralized by ascending pregnant copper and cobalt rich brines within a massive sedimentary basin (Cailteux et al., 2005) (Fig. 2). These oxidized brines likely found a fluid channel in the porous RSC unit. The surrounding rock units provided a redox boundary for copper and cobalt precipitation along organic rich beds, forming a massive stratabound deposit that was later broken up by several subsequent tectonic events (Dewaele et al., 2006)."

Jan 1, 2015

By B. R. Mohal, S. Chander

"The adsorption and wetting behavior of freshly ground and aged coals has been determined in the presence of a nonionic surfactant. The amount of surfactant adsorption changes with the concentration and ""age"" of the coal. The freshly ground coal has smaller amounts of adsorption at lower surfactant concentrations than the ""aged"" coal whereas at large surfactant concentrations, the order is reversed . In the latter case, more surfactant is adsorbed on fresh coal than on the ""aged"" coal . . It is proposed that at low concentrations, the surfactant adsorbs through both hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions with the molecule lying parallel to the· surface, whereas at higher concentrations surface micelles form at the hydrophobic sites. The wetting behavior correlates well with the adsorption behavior.INTRODUCTIONNonionic surfactants have many applications in the coal and mineral processing industry. They can be used as dispersing agents to modulate flotation, flocculation and filtration of particulates (1). They can also be used to increase the wettability of hydrophobic solids such as coal and can hence be used as dust suppressants (2,3). Although the adsorption of representative nonionic surfactants such as Triton N-101 (an ethoxylated nonylphenol with 9.5 moles of ~thylene oxide and HLB equal to 13.4) have been studied extensively on substrates such as calcium carbonate (4), silica (5) carbon black (6) and graphite (7), very few studies are available for coals. Coals differ from other substrates with respect to two important characteristics: 1) coal are porous and 2) coals consist of a patchwork of hydrophobic and hydrophilic sites (8). Since the adsorption characteristics of a surfactant are influenced significantly by the nature of the substrate the characteristics of the coals must be taken into consideration."

Jan 1, 1989

The Bureau of Mines has successfully used sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as a tracer gas to measure mine air flows under conditions where conventional methods have failed. SF6 was employed experimentally to measure accurately recirculation of return into intake air caused by leakage through an old stoped area, to check for potential leakage from an adjacent mine, to trace 10,000 cfm of "lost" air from an intake airway, and to measure transit air time through uranium mines. It proved useful as a means of accurately measuring airflow volumes in airways of large cross section and very low flow velocity, and in determining the recirculation resulting from underground cooling plants.

Jan 1, 1974

By Howard I. Young

WHEN so many statements are being made relative to the requirements of zinc metal, it is difficult for some of us who are acquainted with the industry to visualize how it is possible to step up production so as to supply some of the fantastic requirement figures that are published from time to time. I shall attempt to approach this subject from the standpoint of existing conditions which affect production, also keeping in mind the price ceiling under which the industry operates. Total production of primary and secondary zinc in the United States for 1941 will be about 878,000 tons, to which should be added about 36,000 tons of Mexican slab zinc available for consumption or export from the United States, giving a total available of 914,000 tons. Production of slab zinc of all grades in 1942 should be 953,000 tons. Adding the available Mexican supply should bring the total to 989,000 tons.

Jan 1, 1942

By H. A. Johansen

Recent advances in the metallurgy of chromium have enabled this metal to begin to take its place among the refractory metals. Considerable work is being done on the development of high-temperature alloys containing high percentages of chromium.1/2/ In spite of the relatively large amount of work done on these alloys, little is known of the properties of the pure metal. Information in the literature concerning the tensile properties of pure chromium metal is quite scant. This deficiency maybe explained by the great difficulty of preparing test specimens from such a brittle material, resulting in many losses in each phase of the specimen preparation and testing procedure.

Jan 1, 1954

By Nestor Ferreira Carvalho

Com o intuito de garantir a segurança das pessoas, meio ambiente e o patrimônio das empresas, os vasos de pressão e caldeiras instalados no Brasil devem ser protegidos por válvulas de segurança, cuja função é evitar que o equipamento seja pressurizado acima da pressão de projeto. A escolha do melhor local para instalação dessas válvulas deve levar em consideração, além dos itens usuais de projeto, os esforços gerados quando da abertura dessas válvulas. Esse artigo, faz uma análise da fratura, com o propósito de determinar as causas básicas da falha e evitar sua repetição. A análise foi realizada com o apoio de literaturas sobre fractografia e fadiga.

Aug 16, 2017

By Horst Kappes

Tradicionalmente, a escória é descartada em poços secos ou granulada com água, gerando um produto de maior valor agregado devido à vitrificação e consequente aproveitamento na indústria de cimento. Com larga experiência em granulação e mais de 260 referências do sistema INBA®, a Paul Wurth agora apresenta a solução mais robusta do mercado para granulação a seco. Promovendo a granulação através da injeção de esferas de aço, comprovou-se, através de uma série de testes, características iguais ou superiores à da escória granulada com água. Uma apresentação desta tecnologia bem como uma narrativa de sua trajetória e os resultados parciais obtidos é descrito neste trabalho.

Aug 2, 2018

By E. N. Gilje

"IntroductionDURING the past five years, over two miles of shaft sinking have been completed at Falconbridge. As sinking has continued, we have improved our equipment and technique with a resulting increase in efficiency. Throughout this period, all sinking has been done by contracting firms, under our direction and to our equipment specifications, with highly satisfactory results. Since 1949, Riddell shaft mucking machines have been successfully used in conjunction with the •benching method of sinking. Our most recent practice can best be illustrated by describing the method used in sinking No. 1 shaft at the Fecunis Lake mine.No. 1 Shaft, Fecunis Lake MineNo. 1 shaft, consisting of six compartments and measuring 13 ft. 11 l/2 in. by 19 ft. 9 3/8 in., outside timber (Figure 1), will be sunk to a depth of 4,170 feet. It was designed to accommodate two 10-ft.diam. Koepe hoists."

Jan 1, 1955

Council PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND NEW YORK, N. Y. (Term expires February, 1908 ) VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE COUNCIL. HENRY M. HOWE NEW YORK, N. Y. J. B. GRANT DENVER, COLO. JAMES D. HAGUE NEW YORK, N. Y. (Term expires February, 1908.) SAMUEL B. CHRISTY BERKELEY, CAL. JOHN A. CHURCH NEW YORK, N. Y. PERSIFOR FRAZER PHILADELPHIA, PA. (Term expires February, 1909 )

Jan 1, 1910

By S. Chama, P. Chishimba, Tina Chanda Phiri, J. Machona, S. Parirenyatwa, G. Kaluba, Y. R. S. Hara, D. M. Musowoya

The investigation focuses on leaching of copper (2 wt%), cobalt (0.5 wt%) and iron (2.4 wt%) from complex tailings material from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The highest recovery of copper and cobalt into the leach solution were 78 and 10%, respectively, under direct leaching with sulphuric acid. Higher recoveries (90% for copper and 96% for cobalt) were attained when the material was pre-reduced with coal for 1.5 h in the temperature range of 700–950 °C. The increased recoveries were due to metallisation of all the copper and cobalt which is in the silicate matrix. The effects of pre-reduction temperature and sample to carbon weight ratios were analysed and found to be important in; (i) achieving high recoveries of copper and cobalt and (ii) decreasing the amount of iron in the leach solution. The samples were characterised by atomic absorption spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques.

Mar 1, 2017

By Firat Atalay

Estimating the spatial distribution of ore grade is one of the most critical steps to proceed with an investment decision on a deposit. Kriging is the most widely used method to estimate the ore grade, but alternative techniques are being developed. Machine learning algorithms can be used as alternative methods to classical kriging. In this paper, the iron (Fe) grade of a deposit is estimated with the XGBoost algorithm, and the results are compared with kriging estimation results. For the estimations, samples collected from drillholes were used. Due to the different natures of the estimation methods, different steps were taken to perform the estimations. The results show that XGBoost produced higher-range estimates, which is a desired result in ore grade estimation, and the minimum and maximum of the estimates were lower and higher than the kriging estimates, respectively. However, like kriging, the estimation results were smoother than composites, and the variance of the XGBoost estimates was lower than the variance of composites. This means that even though estimation with XGBoost mitigates the smoothing effect, the estimation results suffer from smoothing like kriging.

Dec 1, 2024

By L Gobbo

X-ray diffraction (XRD) provides useful information about the composition of an ore sample in terms of quantification of crystalline phases and amorphous content. The use of new, fast detection systems implemented in CubiX FAST industrial diffractometers creates the opportunity to use this technique in exploration and modern process control. Besides the chemical composition of iron ores, their phase composition is also an important factor for exploration, quality control and processing. In the analysis of iron ore, XRD can identify the phases containing iron, such as haematite Fe2O3, magnetite Fe3O4, and goethite FeO(OH), and any other mineral phases present, especially silicas. Quantitative analysis is possible by various classical methods such as straight line or polynomial calibration with standards, but modern quantification analysis techniques such as Rietveld analysis or full pattern autoscale analysis are attractive alternatives, as they do not require any standards. These methods offer impressive accuracy and speed of analysis. Another analysis technique offering great benefit to ore exploration and process control is cluster analysis. This technique greatly simplifies the analysis of a large amount of data, eg from drill core samplings, and automatically sorts closely related scans of an experiment into separate clusters and marks the most representative scan of each cluster as well as outlying patterns. This can facilitate multi-dimensional compositional mapping of ore deposits, identifying regions of favourable mineral composition and allows fast and reliable tracking of the process. It is the most economic procedure to have automatic data evaluation without involving any dedicated personnel in the process. Details of the techniques used, sample optimisation methodologies, results, data precision and limitations will be discussed. The approaches have enormous potential as an inexpensive, reliable tool, useful in the characterisation of iron ore materials in an industrial environment.

Jan 1, 2009

By Michael Lenz

Predictive maintenance technologies including vibration analysis, tribology, infrared thermography, ultrasonic detection, and electrical measurements have been applied to large electric mining shovels. The predictive program was initiated on the P&H Model 2300 and 4100 electric shovels. The utilization of these technologies has shown the potential for improving electric mining shovel availability and minimizing maintenance costs. Predictive technologies provide the tools to assess machinery condition. Availability is enhanced by the condition based planning of component replacement. Maintenance costs are minimized by focusing resources through condition based prioritization.

Jan 1, 1997

By James E. Bell

Quartz crystals occur on a farm in the vicinity of Laurel Fork, Carroll County, Va., in abundance over a large area, This has been known for several years, but no work had been clone, up to the Bureau of Mines examination in 1943, to determine the amount of crystalline quartz of usable quality. Field exploration was undertaken throughout the month of June 1943.

Jan 1, 1950

By J. W. Butwell

Anaconda has been active In the Bingham mining district near Tooele, Utah since 1914 when the company acquired International Smelting & Refining Co. Over the years both custom ores and complex Pb-Zn-Cu ores from the district were milled and smelted at International. In 1948 Anaconda acquired the property that covers the present Carr Fork ore body. Since that time active exploration took place in the 50's followed by detailed geological evaluation in the 60's. Convinced that high grade Cu deposits would be found at depth, a deep drilling program commenced in the late 60?s, with intersection of the ore zone in 1969. Following extensive deep drilling in the early 70?s, a feasibility study was conducted in 73-74 with board approval given Sept. 6, 1974. The 9,000 t/d mine-mill complex was budgeted at $217 MM over a 5 year schedule with start-up in Sept., 1979. The following discussion includes the concentrator and surface facility portion of the budget or approximately $60 MM of the scope. Special emphasis will be made on equipment selection and layout.

Jan 1, 1980