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IT is very difficult for a founder engaged in jobbing work, comprising all sizes and classes of castings, to appreciate that the analysis of the iron he is using cannot entirely fill the situation he desires for his varied classes of work. Neither is there any panacea in the shape of an iron mixture that will suit the whole of his floor for the day.From his own experience he generally alters his cupola charges during the cast, endeavouring to meet at the same time the requisite metal composition for the castings he is about to pour.The founder on repetition work is in a much better position to stabilise his methods, arrive at a certain pig-iron' analysis, regulate...

Jan 1, 1926

By J Nixon

I have to say that my story is not too much different to many others who grew up and worked in the great mining fields like Broken Hill, Mt Isa, Rosebery, Kalgoorlie or Kambalda and any one of them could have stood up here and spun you a good yarn.What does my paper offer you in this volume? By sharing my experiences I want to encourage you to consider your own experience with leadership, taking on change, learning from and contributing to the development of others.I have been very fortunate to be part of many new innovations into underground mining over the past 40 or so years; most of it with Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia (CRA)/Rio Tinto operations.•From hand-held drills and a homemade single boom Jumbo mounted on an old Airtrak, to the sophisticated twin boom jumbos with high speed drifters all controlled by an on-board computer;•from a Scraper winch and a Wagner 2D loader to fully automated electric LHDs that navigate to the tipple, empty the bucket and return to where they come from;•from hand-held cut-and-fill and timber stoping in Broken Hill to the bulk mining methods of a block cave where at Northparkes we mined more ore in a month than we mined in the total five years of operations at Currawang;•from hand-held scaling and bolting with no skin protection to installing ground support with Jumbos and sophisticated Cable Bolters and the introduction of in cycle shotcrete;•from hand-held ladder rising and shaft sinking to Box Hole rigs, Raise Bore Machines and Blind Hole shaft sinking; and•from Gelignite based AN60 stick explosives, ANFO, fuse firing and half second detonators to Powergel, Emulsions and electronic computer programmed detonators that can somehow be initiated by ‘Blast Ped’ travelling through the rock.

Mar 21, 2011

IN carrying out experiments to determine the amount of metal taken away by fume or fine dust the apparatus used requires to be strong and compact, as it is generaIIy necessary to work on a staging fixed at considerable distance above the ground and against a smoke stack or flue. It is essential that the test be carried out at a part of the stack welI away from any bends, to prevent eddies. The method described below has been used for estimating the dust losses from Dwight & Lloyd sintering machines, antimony drossing furnaces, pot sintering trials, etc., and has been founc! satisfaetory. It is welI to bear in mind that the longer the period over which dust coIIection is extended, the more valuable the result is likely to be. The rateof aspiration of the gases through the apparatus is kept as regular as possible by changing the filter thimbles frequently, and the rate of flow should correspond closely with the rate of flow of the gases up the stack.The apparatus required for carrying out a test is as folIows :-{a) Thermometers : two are required, one for taking the temperature of the gas in the stack and one for giving the temperature of the gas in the aspirating drum. If the temperature in the stack is over 400° C., it is advisable to use a pyrometer such as the "Bristol" the couple being standardized before use at about the temperature of the stack.(b) Pilot Tube: The foIIowing sketch (Fig. 1) iIIustrates the principle of the pitot tube. The readings are to be taken in a straight flue, or stack, preferably 20 diam. away from any bend. A, which is open, faces the air current and...

Jan 1, 1922

By Plamer D. J, Newman O. M G

The Effluent Treatment System at Pasminco Metals - EZ (PMEZ) was commissioned in December, 1991 and has operated satisfactorily, ensuring that aqueous discharges from PMEZ comply with the Tasmanian Environment Protection Act. The system treats both spills and run-off from the Zinc Plant, and acidic liquor generated in the gas cleaning section of the Sulphuric Acid Plant. The spills and run-off from the Zinc Plant are collected in a large catchment pond. The pond liquor, after partial neutralisation with sodium hydroxide to pH 4, and removal of suspended solids, is preferentially recycled to the Zinc Plant, for example, for washing of residues. Liquor which cannot be recycled, is treated in the Lime Neutralisation Section. The other input to the Lime Neutralisation Section is the acidic liquor from the Sulphuric Acid Plant from which mercury has been removed by contact with aluminium pellets in a fluidised column. In the Lime Neutralisation Section, the liquors are blended and neutralised to pH 10 by the addition of slaked lime. The heavy metals and most of the fluorine are precipitated. The precipitated solids are removed in a thickener with part of the thickener underflow being filtered. Most of the thickener underflow is recycled to generate solids that settle rapidly and filter well. The filter cake is returned to the Zinc Plant for the recovery of contained heavy metals while the thickener overflow is discharged to the Derwent River.

Jan 1, 1993

The Hail Creek coking coal deposits are situated in Central Queensland, inland from the port of Mackay. A joint venture of Australian and Japanese companies has been formed to examine the feasibility of developing these deposits for sale on the overseas markets. The project envisaged involves large scale mining operations and on site benefic- iation to wash the coal to marketable quality. Infrastructure items include a 140 kilometre railway to the coast, a port facility, and at Ilail Creek, power and water supplies, roads and communications, and accommodation for a substantial workforce. The need for town development and the responsibility for the development are established. The town planning implications of coal production at the rate of five million long tons of washed coal per annum from open cut and underground mines are considered. A procedure for estimating the size of the town is expounded and the town size is determined. The factors influencing site selection are explained and a site is suggested. A method of designing the town is described and comments are made on developmental aspects. Spaciousness and preservation featuring the natural environment will be the theme of the town development.

Jan 1, 1973

By R Higashi, D Maruoka, T Murakami, Y Iwami

The ironmaking industry consumes a large amount of fossil fuel derived carbon as heat source, reducing agent of iron ores and carburising agent of reduced iron. Although the demand for drastic decrease of carbon dioxide emission, carbon is an essential element for smelting process of molten iron. The carbon recycling ironmaking process by circulating CO has been already proposed to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the production of molten hot metal is not considered in this process because sufficient amount of carbon does not dissolve in reduced iron by CO. Therefore, our group has suggested a new carbon recycling ironmaking process which can produce hot metal. In this process, free carbon and iron carbides produced by carbon deposition reaction using metallic iron as a catalyst are used. It is known that only Fe3C is obtained as iron carbide by using CO gas, however, Fe5C2 is also produced by adding H2 gas. The composite agglomerated with these carbonaceous materials and fine iron ore (Deposited Carbon-Iron oxide Composite: DCIC) is reduced and melted in a furnace. It is reported that Fe3C in DCIC accelerates the reduction reaction and melting of the composite. In this study, the effects of iron carbides and free carbon on the melting behaviour of DCIC are investigated. Fe3C, Fe5C2 and free carbon were produced by vapour deposition using porous iron whiskers and CO-CO2-H2 gas. These were agglomerated with hematite reagent at a certain ratio to prepare DCIC samples with and without Fe5C2. The samples were heated up to 1300°C in inert atmosphere. The DCIC containing Fe5C2 completely melted and iron nuggets were obtained after the experiment. This behaviour was not observed in the composite without Fe5C2. This indicates that using Fe5C2 is more preferable than Fe3C for molten iron production using DCIC.

Jun 19, 2024

The Australian bulk explosives industry has matured significantly over the last five years and it would appear that the rest of the world is following suit. This maturity is characterised by the technical sophistication of modem bulk explosives, an increase in the technical competence of the explosives consumer and a greater openness in the debate on the quality and performance of explosives. The principal mechanism by which these advances have been made is undoubtedly commercial competition in the market place although a new element, technical competition between manufacturers and independent professionals, has and will continue to play an important role in the development of the industry. The relationship between the explosives manufacturer and consumer is necessarily both complementary and competitive. This paper identifies the need for the consumer to take a more prominent role in the critical analysis of the performance of explosives and to use his commercial influence to direct explosives manufacturers at least in the direction required for the future technical development of the industry.

Jan 1, 1990

The Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company of Australia Limited (ER&S) operates a copper smelting and refining plant and is situated close to the heart of the highly industrialised area of Port Kembla. In March, 1982 the Company entered into an undertaking with the State Pollution Control Commission (SPCC) to monitor ambient levels of sulphur dioxide (S02) gases present in the atmosphere in the surrounding urban area. Despite the use of a 200 metre high stack for dispersal of the smelter waste gas stream at ER&S, two local suburbs, Warrawong and Primbee were experiencing on occasions high ambient concentrations of S02 resulting in discomfort to local residents. In late March 1982, ER&S installed a highly advanced S02 monitoring system to continuously monitor the levels at Warrawong. The system was extended to include S02 monitoring at Primbee in November 1982, and further extended in June 1983, to include an input of meteorological data. Initially the system was designed to monitor and react to high concentrations of S02 at either of the two monitoring stations. Currently however, refinement is taking place to allow a predictive nature to be built into the system such that it not only reacts to an adverse situation but can predict weather patterns likely to cause high concentrations and thus avoid these events. The entire system is still undergoing a growth and development period, however the results obtained to date are pleasing to both the Company and the SPCC.

Jan 1, 1984

By E Jak, G Khartcyzov, M Shevchenko

The increasing complexity of ore resources and recycled materials in the feed of pyrometallurgical processes present a technical challenge to the metallurgical engineers working on maximising the recovery of the valuable elements and minimising the environmental impact of the processes. To address this challenge, the availability of computational tools that can predict the mass and energy balance in complex systems is required. Then the accurate description of phase equilibria in the complex multicomponent systems describing the chemistry of the pyrometallurgical processes becomes critical for the correct implementation of the indicated tools and facing the outlined industrial challenges. In the present study the distribution of selected elements (Pb, Zn, Fe, As, Sn, Sb, Bi and Ni) between oxide liquid and metal in the ‘CuO0.5’-CaO-AlO1.5 system in equilibrium with Cu metal at 1400°C (liquidus of CaAl2O4) was experimentally studied using the equilibration and quenching technique followed by the electron probe X-ray microanalysis of the resulted samples. The study covered a wide range of effective p(O2) over the system from 10-11 to 10-3.5 (corresponding to formation of immiscible CuO0.5-rich slag). To avoid loss of volatile elements (Pb, Zn, As, Sn, Sb and Bi), a correlation between ‘CuO0.5’ in oxide liquid and p(O2) in open system was obtained first, followed by studying the volatile elements distribution in closed conditions (Al2O3 crucible sealed in SiO2 ampoule), where ‘CuO0.5’ concentration was used as a marker to evaluate the effective p(O2) over the system. The experimental results were then used for the optimisation of the thermodynamic model parameters of the system as part of the integrated experimental and self-consisting thermodynamic modelling research program of phase equilibria in the Cu-Pb-Zn-Fe-Ca-Si-Al-Mg-O-S-(As, Sn, Sb, Bi, Ag, Au, Ni, Cr, Co and Na) gas/oxide liquid/matte/speiss/metal/solids system.

Jun 19, 2024

This paper presents a resume of the likely profitable mining areas in New Zealand. It covers the main "minerals" - gold, coal, oil and gas, ironsands, silica sands, clays, lump silica, perlite, sulphur and limestone.The potential mining projects are depicted on a map of New Zealand together with the associated works involved in hydro-electric and geothermal power development requirement for industries such as aluminium, nickel ferro-silicon or silicon carbide production.The political need for mining development to relieve unemployment and reverse emigration is stressed. A case is made for exploration and development assistance by government in labour re-training, energy supply and transportation, if the tremendous losses through lack of use of human and industrial resources are to be rapidly reduced. These losses are currently estimated at $10,000,000,000 per year.The need for protection of the sanctity of contract and security of tenure of all mining operations is touched on briefly as is the need for a reasonably balanced view on conservation. However as both of these are more properly covered in papers on the legal and environmental aspects of the mining climate they are presented here only as they affect the economy of the mining operation.Finally there is a brief comment on the mining climate in New Zealand relative to Australia and South Pacific mining operations.

Jan 1, 1990

Economic conditions dictated the lead time from concept to commissioning of the Kambalda C.I.P. Plant. The high gold price prevailing at the time the Victory ore-body was discovered provided the impetus to establish a treatment plant with the utmost haste. Consequently only limited metallurgical testing was possible. Fortunately the Kambalda Metallurgical Department had experienced gold metallurgists among its' staff. This enabled a rapid assessment to be made of the ore types to be treated. Flexibility was the keynote in the plant design. Overseas practice and experience was drawn upon extensively, but it was known that problems uniquE to the Kambalda Plant would be encountered due to the high nickel content of the C.I.P. Plant feed and the difficult clays in some of the areas. These fears were well founded and problems have been experienced. However the plant design has enabled these problems to be absorbed, if not overcome, and design production rates were achieved and maintained within three month; of start-up.

Jan 1, 1982

By D Ford

BHP BillitonÆs new rotary iron ore car dumper installation at Finucane Island (Port Hedland) was constructed to increase the total capacity of the port facility from 110 Mtpa to 120 Mtpa and to allow for incremental capacity increases in future. The arrangement of the dumper is similar to other car dumper installations existing on site. To construct the facility, approximately 120 000 m3 of material was excavated in six months, to a total depth of 22 m. The saline water table was nominally 6 m below ground level and the materials excavated varied depending on depth, ranging from sand to mangrove muds. There was a need to retain the sides of the excavation and limit the amount of water from entering the excavated area. This was required to allow excavation to progress and had to be maintained during construction of the permanent concrete and steel facility. The excavation was backfilled progressively as construction progressed. Various retaining wall methods were investigated with the preferred option being sheet piles secured by walers and ground anchors. Detailed electronic models were developed and assessed to complete the final design arrangement. Dewatering bores around the perimeter of the excavation removed the groundwater to intercepted sumps within the site. A strict and methodical program was developed to monitor the integrity of the temporary works and the quality of the groundwater. The works were completed on time despite the following challenges being encountered: availability of resources and equipment, movement of mobile plant on æboggyÆ materials, difficulty driving sheet piles into material at depth, drilling of ground anchors to 32 m, grouting of ground anchors, greater than expected groundwater flows, and the risk of hydrocarbons within the groundwater. The lessons learned from the use of the retention system and, in particular, the associated construction challenges overcome, provide a sound basis for similar work in this buoyant resource market. The conference paper describes the temporary works options investigated, design considerations and processes, construction methodology and challenges encountered, and the monitoring systems developed. Lessons learned are also discussed.

Jan 1, 2007

The mining industry, both here and internationally, is continually developing increasingly sophisticated software to compute mineral resource estimates, but these processes cannot compensate for a flawed geological interpretation of the geology of the economic commodity(s) concentrations. Quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) is becoming increasingly common in association with the sampling and assaying practices within the industry. However, it is rare in the case of a geological interpretation associated with mineral resource estimation. Why? In the context of this paper, QA/QC relates to the use of statistical and graphical tools to show that the geological economic commodity concentrations have been appropriately domained. Domaining is essential to improve the chance of getting a mineral resource estimate right. Commodity value and acceptable concentration variation within a mineral resource can be ingredients that make mineral resource estimation difficult to get right. But it is possible to get it right a very high proportion of the time. It is more likely to occur when inappropriate data consolidation is minimised. In any case, inappropriate data consolidation is significantly reduced when the geological interpretation is strongly consistent with the data and it is demonstrable. To achieve quality global estimates of geological domain concentrations, it is essential that the geology of the prospect is understood sufficiently that the deposit is appropriately domained. Appropriate domaining occurs when sample populations are separated in such a way that only data in harmony with each other within the population contributes to the domainÆs concentration estimate. The paper will use four brief case studies to illustrate how QA/QC can be used to display data and validate the underpinning geological interpretation through its associated domaining to get it right when it comes to a mineral resource estimation.

Jan 1, 2007

By Trudinger J. P

Concern for the environment by the public and by mining companies, has led to many recent attempts to revegetate areas disturbed by mining activities. The problem of successfully revegetating disturbed areas and mine wastes is often difficult, even under favourable conditions. Under the severe conditions that prevail in and and semi-arid parts of Australia, such difficulties may be extreme. An approach is described in which field trials are used to investigate factors which adversely affect revegetation and to evaluate optimum methods and treatments..A wide range of methods suitable for use in and situations is described. These include grading and cultivating operations, topdressing with natural soil materials, selection of suitable plant species, mulching and the use of fertilisers and supplementary irrigation. It is concluded that such a programme provides the best approach to this complex and expensive problem.

Jan 1, 1976

Carbonatites - igneous carbonate-silicate rocks - host the world's major resources for niobium, phosphorous and REE (rare earth elements).Carbonatites represent the least common products of mantle and igneous processes and their emplacement is principally controlled by lithospheric domes and rift structures. Intrusive carbonatites frequently comprise carbonate-amphibole-apatite-pyrocWore assemblages, occur as plugs, cores, dykes, sills sheets, veins, pipes and irregular bodies, are gecichemically anomalous (Ba, Ca, Cl, F, Hf, Mg, Nb, P, REE, S, Sc, SO4, Sri Tb, Ti, D, V, Zr), are associated with alkaline silica-undersaturated igneous rocks forming carbonatite complexes, and display large, intensive alteration haloes. Also carbonatites are similar to limestones, prone to weathering, and may form thick laterite profiles.Magmatic ores (pyrocWore, apatite, bastnaesite, monazite, magnetite, baddeleyite, phlogopite, fluorite, calcite) and weathering related residual and supergene ores (pyrochlore, apatite, magnetite, anatase, vermiculite) are currently being mined on all continents except Australia. Australia is underexplored for carbonatite associated primary magmatic and especially residual-supergene ore deposits. Chances are very high for the finding of new carbonatite, occurrences and associated ores.

Jan 1, 1994

The high cost of sampling systems is largely due to the fact that indiv- idual mechanical type sampling units must be installed at the discharge end of ore/pulp pipelines, that is, at points where the pipeline discharges into pump sumps or the like. A considerable economic advantage may be obtained in the use of a samp- ling device that can be installed at any point in the path of the trans- porting pipe line. Initial tests on a vertical line with an injection sampler using iron ore concentrates reveal the validity of this type sample versus that taken with a mechanical sampler. A descrip- tion of the injection sampler shows its simplicity of installation, requir- ing minimum downtime on existing lines.

Jan 1, 1976

The Jacobs Sliding Floor (Floor) is experiencing a surprisingly long competitive life. The first Floor was used on the Camino Tunnel in California in 1960. At that time the Robbins Company had built only seven TBMs, and the future for such machines was considered doubtful by many, as compared to drill and blast methods. This was then, and still is, commonly called the "conventional" method. Robbins' TBM No. 8 was for the Hydro Electricity Commission of Tasmania (HEC) for their Poatina Hydro Project in 1961. In this writer's view, the Poatina experience was the start of successful hard rock boring machines. But, by coincidence, the HEC is using the newest Floor for their King River Hydro project, where driving with the Floor started in July 1986 on the King Tunnel. This paper examines the history and developments in both Floor design and other "conventional" tunnelling equipment, and the site specific conditions that have allowed this old concept to still be competitive in certain select situations. Parametric costing data and some actual progress records are included.

Jan 1, 1987

By Lynch AJ, Musgrove NH

The behaviour of chalcopyrite and pyrite in the rougher-scavenger and regrind-retreatment circuits in the Warrego concentrator is discussed. The effects of change in xanthate addition on the separation of chalcopyrite and pyrite is described. The effect of the regrind mill on the (flotation rate of particles containing chalcopyrite and pyrite is discussed with particular reference to the importance of removing sub-mesh particles from the feed to the regrind mill.

Jan 1, 1975

The earliest suggestions that some metallic ore deposits might have resulted from seafloor volcanic exhalation seem to have been those of Elie de Beaumont in 1847 and Henry de la Beche in 1851. In 1885 Tinoco, and Bouglise and Cumenge, independently investigating-.the manto copper deposits of the Boleo district of Baja California, proposed that these had formed on the seafloor by precipitation from "hydrothermal submarine emanations". Some twenty years later the Japanese geologists Kukuchi and Tsujimoto (1904) put forward the idea that the Kuroko ore- bodies were seafloor volcanic sinter deposits and in 1919 this was re-affirmed by Ohashi. In 1909 the English geologists Thomas and MacAllister postulated a similar origin for some of the gold deposits of Mount Morgan in Queensland. Between the wars the great European economic geologists Niggli and Schneiderhohn both clearly recognized a class of seafloor hydrothermal deposits. The idea rose again immediately after the Second World War in a very clear statement by Hegeman in 1948, which was followed by contributions by Ehrenberg and Kraume and their co-workers on the submarine volcanic origin of the Meggen and Rammelsberg orebodies in 1954 and 1955 respectively. In 1955 the present writer, quite unaware of early or contemporary work on volcanic exhalative ore deposits, proposed a volcanic sedimentary/diagenetic origin for the stratiform base metal ores of SE Australia. In doing so the writer emphasized the probable importance of island arc volcanism, suggested that some "metallogenetic regions" of ancient terrains were in fact old island arc systems, that the composition of the ores might be related to the composition of the associated volcanic rocks and that such ores would be tied to volcanic stratigraphy. Ideas on relations between volcanism and stratiform ore genesis have thus been evolving over.a period of some 140 years and, beginning with the observations on Baja California in 1882, work round the rim of the Pacific has made an important contribution over a period of more than 100 years.

Jan 1, 1987

By Nilsson C

Man has always been and will always be part of his environment, in ,a good, bad or indifferent manner. Until quite recently, this environment has been the atmospheric boundary layer above the land masses, and to a limited extent the air-sea interface of the oceans. Since the days when he lived in caves, he has built up a wealth of observations on these two environments,-with ever-increasing scientific precision which unfortunately until quite recently was completely insufficient for modern capabilities of data analysis. Consequently, in a sense, he has left in his wake thousands of years of missed, opportunities for making exact observations and increasing his understanding. The data of the past are lost and he has to be satisfied with what he can assemble from now on when his environ- ment, largely as a result of his actions, is exhibiting more and more rapid variations in time; in other words, time series of observations of phenomena are required, the length of which is critical for most purposes of analysis.

Jan 1, 1970