Search Documents

By D. A. Norrgran, J. A. Wernham, D. E. Walsh

A qualitative test program was sponsored jointly by the University of Alaska and Eriez Magnetics, in order to study placer gold nugget recovery using an eddy-current separator. Various gold nuggets from Alaska, ranging from 6.4 mm to 63.5 mm in size, were tested. All testing was performed using an Eriez Laboratory ESC, Model REA, fitted with 2000 gauss, surface field strength magnetic rotor. The belt speed was set to 91 meters per minute and the rotor speed was set to 2500 rpm in the forward direction. The splitter was adjusted to just reject the largest pieces of rock that measured an average 76 mm x102 mm x 127 mm. Based on the results of this limited test work, it can be recommended to placer gold mine operators, that Eriez Magnetics ECS technology is a viable and practical concentration technology for coarse gold recovery. Silver and platinum were also tested.

Jan 1, 2003

By AIME AIME

ED DIX, after studying both mechanical and electrical engineering at Cornell, started out to be an electrical engineer, then taught material testing at Cornell, and decided to become a metallurgist. He was successively employed by the Morse Chain Co. as metallographist, by the Baltimore Copper Smelting and Rolling Co., as chief of the testing department of the Bureau of Aircraft Production, as assistant engineer of tests of the Aluminum Castings Co., and as chief of the metals branch, engineering division, U. S. Air Service. Since 1923 he has been with the Aluminum Co. of America, now as chief metallurgist.

Jan 1, 1936

By William Gleason

"The Colorado School of Mines has used the Edgar Mine in Idaho Springs as an experimental mine to teach students since 1921. Since the school acquired the former gold, silver, lead and zinc mine, countless students have received hands-on engineering lessons on their way to earning mining engineering degrees. On Dec. 14, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a historic field hearing about the future of mining education in the United States in a classroom about 300 m (1,000 ft) inside the Edgar Mine. Representatives Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Cresent Hardy (R-NV) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) were on hand for the first ever congressional hearing held in a mine where they heard testimony supporting the Mining School Enhancement Act, which was introduced to Congress by Hardy and Perlmutter on Oct. 9, 2015. The act, which is part of a larger mining development and reclamation reform package, seeks to address the absence of a viable pipeline necessary to replenish current faculty vacancies in United States Mining Schools. “What better place to hold a hearing to discuss the need for future mining engineering experts,” Subcommittee Chair Lamborn said in his opening statement. “It is a need felt by industry, states, the federal government as well as nonprofits.” The Mining School Enhancement Act would redirect millions of dollars in fees that are being collected from active mining operations to fund the research and educational programs at engineering schools with mining programs. Those fees now are being used in the form of grants awarded by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMRCA)."

Jan 1, 2015

By Berger. P.

The accepted definition of the function of an edge protector fails to specify adequately the several tasks which it must perform to be functionally effective: detailed analysis of these tasks leads to the reasoned conclusion that they cannot satisfactorily be fulfilled by the conventional types of "edge-strips". The true cost of edge protector failure is cumulative: renewal costs are dwarfed by the increased operating expenses and production losses which result from but partial or incipient failure of the edge-strip; yet, the several supposedly improved types, for use with starter-blanks, generally were "built down to a price", prolonging the agony, as it were. Clearly, a fresh appraisal of the problem was overdue, and more especially so with the advent of "permanent" cathodes. As a result, new methods of edge .protection have been developed, including the so-called "EDGEWISE" system in which the present author as patentee *) has a vested interest-which he hereby declares. Due mention is made of recent progress in protecting the edges of aluminium "Jumbo" cathodes in zinc electrowinning operations, although the present Paper is more concerned with edge protection of starter-blanks and permanent cathodes in copper ER/EW processes, where most of the "old" problems now may justifiably be claimed to have been overcome, Mention is also made - albeit at this time necessarily only briefly, and confined to edge protection - of "rigidized" metal blanks and permanent cathodes: a most recent development**) which may prove to represent a "breakthrough": time will tell.

Jan 1, 1987

POLITICAL developments, the impact of Korean warfare necessitating immediate rearmament plans, and recent developments in mining taconites have focused attention on their immediate exploitation to fill the gap created by diminishing reserves. The question of rich foreign ores versus low grade development is past-we need both sources with emphasis on the immediate large scale mining of taconites. In the past three months several things have occurred which add to the taconite picture: (1) Pellets have been used successfully in the blast furnace by Armco. (2) In Congress HR 8512 was introduced by Congressman Blatnik of Minnesota to amend the lending powers of RFC to permit long term loans on basic mining developments, particularly the taconites, which may be needed for the strengthening of the national economy. (3) Walter S. Tower, president of the American Iron & Steel Institute, announced that American steel companies are planning expansion of 6,000,000 tons of steelmaking capacities in the next few years. (4) The outbreak of war in Korea has obliged the United States to rearm and make plans for a semipermanent defense establishment to which 10 to 12 pct of the national income will be budgeted. (5) Startling new advances have been made in the Linde Air Products Co.'s jet-piercing drilling. The United States is now confronted with the problem of increasing its steel capacity and at the same time of securing enough iron ore to supply this increase as well as make provision for the rapidly decreasing supply of rich iron ore on the Mesabi range. Taconites, the low grade iron ore at the east end of the Mesabi, of which there are literally billions and billions of tons of easily concentratable magnetic ore, are the immediate answer. According to the Wall Street Journal on July 24: "Reserve Mining Co., backed by such steelmakers as the Armco Steel Corp., Wheeling Steel Co., Republic Steel Corp., is reported ready-as soon as the pending bill clears (HR 8512)-to seek a $100 million federal loan to build a taconite processing plant at Beaver Bay, Minn., to produce about five million tons (of pellets) annually of 60 pct to 65 pct in iron ore . . ." Experimental work indicates that pellets may be the final form, rather than nodules, agglomerates, or sinter. At Ashland, Ky., the Reserve Mining Co., which has obtained a

Jan 9, 1950

THERE have been two important accomplishments of the Truman administration; the Hoover Commission report on inefficiency and waste in government and the report of the Paley Commission on the natural resources of the United States. Both reports are in the interest of the American people and should transcend the boundaries of political parties. Both reports are starting points for the formulation of policies which must be continuously revised to meet changing conditions. Regardless of the outcome of the election the principles embodied in these two great documents must be kept alive. The Paley report is right in our own bailiwick of mineral raw materials and it behooves us to study it carefully as our responsibility to posterity. To those in the mining industry who have limited their field of observation to moving rock or to metal prices it may come as a surprise that our production of such staples as copper, lead, and zinc has fallen behind increased requirements to the point that substantial tonnages must be imported. Iron ore is next on the list and everybody knows that such metals as tin, tungsten, chromium, manganese, nickel, and cobalt are imported almost exclusively. The crisis in raw materials pointed up by the Paley report has been reported annually by Elmer Pehrson and others to small gatherings at the Mineral Economics Division sessions at the Annual Meeting for as long as we can remember. In September 1949, the United Nations Economic and Social Council held an international resource conference at Lake Success which disclosed these same grave conclusions: - Consumption of raw materials is multiplying at an alarming rate, faster than discoveries or replacements are being made. - Production has been wasteful and utilization lavishly beyond enginee¬ing and practical requirements. - Industrialized nations are depleted and many raw materials consumed by industry are not found in the industrialized countries. - Nations formerly exporters of raw materials are increasingly building their own consuming industries. - Political forces in the world are limiting access to raw materials. The Paley Commission selecting the quarter century, 1950 to 1975, to project raw material requirements for the United States, pointed out obstacles to meeting these requirements, and made recommendations for procurement. It is not important that we disagree that cobalt consumption will reach 344 pct of present, or fluorspar 187 pct when iron and ferroalloys are only expected to increase 75 pct. What is important it that the fabulous appetite of the United States for mineral raw materials has consumed more since World War I than was consumed by the entire world in all recorded history prior to 1914. And, unless the people of the United States are satisfied to remain at their present standard of living (which is unthinkable) this consumption is correctly plotted by the Paley Commission as continuing to expand. If the U. S. is to continue on a course of progress, it must procure raw materials wherever it can at the lowest possible cost. Natural resources are clearly an area in which the broadest cooperation between industry and government must exist to achieve efficient exploitation, economic consumption, and expansion of sources of supply. The message of the Paley report requires action comparable to that of the North Atlantic Pact. Its implication is as significant as military preparedness. It is a world problem. It is a mining engineering problem. Don't let it die!

Jan 1, 1952

RECENTLY, we were asked to name the greatest contribution to progress in mining technology during the past 25 years. Immediately, the introduction of the pneumatic hammer for making blastholes came to mind because it can be credited with speeding the excavation of rock and the elimination of hand drilling. Possibly this answer was so spontaneous because we were working on this "drilling issue" Of MINING ENGINEERING. Present drilling tools have devel¬oped so rapidly, that a great deal of engineering is. required in the selection of bits, steel, and machines for the drilling conditions at each mine. Formerly a modicum of engineering was utilized in selection of equipment for it was purchased from manufacturer preference. With the development of alloy drill steels, tungsten-carbide bits, throwaway bits, and the jackleg drill, mining companies began doing more experimental work before making selections. It is unfortunately true, that each operator must begin at the beginning by doing his own test work before choosing his drilling method, and tools. Some of this work has been done very well-under controlled conditions and obtaining proper data on the variables. Such data should be accumulated from the various mines, tabulated, and published. Such a volume would be of tremendous help to the small operator in selecting equipment and would permit the research departments of the larger companies to formulate some measure of rock drillability and to undertake more specialized research on the different phases of drilling.

Jan 1, 1952

BEING at the crossroads, metaphorically speaking, seldom has the advantages of the literal sense of the words. One seldom has precise knowledge of the existence of the metaphorical crossroads or forks in the road of life. A case in point is the Committee on Education of the Engineers' Council for Professional Development, which for twenty years has been accrediting the engineering curricula in the educational institutions of the United States. The committee is now at odds with itself and with the National Council of State Boards of Engineering Examiners over the accrediting of courses which in the opinion of many engineers are not strictly speaking engineering curricula at all. Such courses include: fire protection engineering, crystal engineering, nuclear engineering, and geological engineering. The crossroads might be placed arbitrarily somewhere between 1936 and 1938 when the committee first started accrediting curricula and included the first course in industrial engineering. Purists might argue that the committee first wandered from the straight and narrow when it recognized subdivision of engineering into the major branches of mining, metallurgical, civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering. Accrediting is certainly an important function because it provides a standard for engineering education and it should be done on a national basis by an unbiased group like the Education Committee of ECPD. Students, educational institutions, and industry derive great benefit from proper standards. The autonomous State Boards of Engineering Examiners have long accepted ECPD accreditation as evidence of the required academic training of engineers aspiring to licensing. But the State Boards today question the wisdom of applying the name engineer to graduates of some of the so-called fringe curricula. The Education Committee, having gone so far in accrediting some of them, has numerous applications pending for accreditation of similar curricula and even new courses never before accredited. Arguments against recognizing highly specialized engineering curricula are numerous. The Salary Stabilization Board has disallowed industrial engineering from classification as engineering for its purposes. A graduate of a specialized course in geological engineering at a school in the Southwest slanted heavily for practice in the petroleum industry might not be interchangeable with a graduate of a similarly designated curricula at one of the institutions in the North Central states where the emphasis might be on metallic. mineral deposits. Industry in general should not expect the universities to supply a degree in each of the specialized engineering classifications it might set up for purposes of salary or job designation. Having gone so far, it is easy to understand the difficulty of the Education Committee. ECPD might well call a moratorium for the purpose of taking stock of its position. If the present trend is allowed to continue, it is apparent that an engineering institution could be subdivided into a multiplicity of departments teaching specialized curricula resulting in a subordination of the basic concepts of engineering. Although the parallel of the medical profession is trite, it should be pointed out that degrees in medicine are not labelled by the numerous specialities practiced by doctors. For practical purposes the ECPD would do well to accept the fact that the crossroads have been overreached "and protect the engineering profession by coming up with minimum standards for an engineering curriculum.

Jan 1, 1952

IT is certainly fitting and proper that the shortage of engineers should be the topic of frequent editorials in the professional magazine of mining engineers, but many of you are directly concerned with another shortage; namely, the shortage of skilled miners. It is often said that the military organization is built around the noncommissioned officer and it is similarly true that the mining organization depends for its production on the skilled miner-the NCO of the mining industry.

Jan 10, 1951

AN unprecedented expansion of the mineral industries began in mid-1950. There are few minerals on the strategic list for which some source of supply here at home has not been found. All types of inducements have been utilized, ranging from RFC loans to guaranteed-price purchase contracts. No one can deny that tremendous progress toward mineral self-sufficiency has been made. Despite the greatness of these accomplishments, made' in the name of national defense, one cannot help but. have a feeling of uneasiness over the price which has been paid-in indebtedness, in freedom, and in the sacrifice of private enterprise. The people of the Soviet have been enslaved by a military state which attempts complete control of the economy. A similar yoke has been imposed on the business life of this nation. Of course, there is a difference in degree of control and in purpose. We are dedicated toward defense and the resistance of aggression. And, our personal liberties have not been usurped. The realization of the extent to which this nation has been forced by Communist aggression to adopt the practices of the socialized state is appalling.

Jan 1, 1952

“IT is decreed by Divine Providence that those who know what they ought to do and then take care to do it properly, for the most part meet ' with good fortune in all. they, undertake; on the other hand, misfortune overtakes the indolent and those who are careless in their work." These are the words of Georgius Agricola. to. those who are engaged in mining, taken from De Re Metallica, Book II, second paragraph. Safety in mining is just that simple, when considered on the basis of the individual. The words imply a .knowledge of what is to be done and how to do it. Armed with this knowledge it is only necessary to proceed with diligence and care to achieve the desired end without personal or financial mishap. Obviously the complication arises in the large company operating numerous mines and the consequent ramifications of company structure embodying management, supervision, engineering, and labor. Agricola stresses later on the importance of supervision and direction by the owners of the mine. We know that this principle is recognized today by the frequency with which the statement is repeated "a safety program must stem from management." People charged with responsibility for safety and management also stress the importance of securing the cooperation of the employees in formulating and carrying . out safe working practices. Safety committees consisting of employees, supervisors, and. representatives of management are recognized as the most practical method of achieving safety consciousness in all levels of mining company organization.

Jan 1, 1952

IN the western mines, the boss, engineer, geologist, or nipper in making rounds have a password which usually guarantees safe entrance to a working place from below the working miner. Most men won't climb a raise or enter a stope from below where a miner is working until they have shouted "nothin' down" and heard those words shouted back by the miners above. "Nothin' down" is a safety pledge as necessary and as binding as the truce flag to the soldier. It implies mutual confidence that work will be suspended until the person below has come abreast of the workers; and also confidence that the miner who replies "nothin' down" is reasonably sure the place is safe to enter. Like truce flags which are not infallible, so is this password subject to human errors or unexpected falls of rock, tools, or timber. Everyone knows these unavoidable hazards, but what is important to the exposed man is that in that precise moment of time when he has heard the reassurance of "nothin' down," he knows that safety is uppermost in the minds of the men above him. With such assurance we would go anywhere and so would most mining men. If that period of safety consciousness, procured by the utterance of two words, could be multiplied to equal the hours in the working day, there would not be any accidents but those by "the act of God." It is the aim of every safety program to make safety as natural as breathing. That is the reason for the posters, the conferences, instruction periods, safety engineers, and the inspections. But none of these are as effective as one accident, which keeps men on their toes for weeks to come. This is not the price we want to pay for safety consciousness. This Annual Review number of Mining Engineering is full of talk about production. Production for defense, production for profit. In this tremendous surge of industrial might . to make this nation and our very families safe S from the predatory forces abroad in the world today; let us not lose sight of the fact that the . safety of our manpower is more precious than any commodity. Production without safety is detrimental to the national interest, to that of the company, and to the individual. If the words "nothin' down" can give us the best human guarantee of safety, for however brief a time, let us adopt them at least in principle as our slogan in 1952. Production for preservation in '52 - but NOTHIN' DOWN!

Jan 1, 1952

COLLECTIVE bargaining, hereto-fore loudly proclaimed as one of the stout timbers of the Republic, has passed from the picture. The coup de gr[a]ce was struck by the President of the United States when he ignored his vested legal prerogative and seized the steel industry by the dubious authority of, his "inherent powers." Autocratic judgment by a single official replaced arbitration by the steel industry and labor union. This is the outcome of a battle which has been bitterly waged for months in the hazy atmosphere created by well oiled propaganda machines. Prior to government intervention, there was no clear picture of the issues at stake. All parties concerned marshalled their accountants to conjure up figures proving their respective contentions. The results were fed into public relations departments for embellishment and dissemination. Thus, the public was asked to believe on one hand, that the steel worker, who is second only to the coal miner in hourly wages, was entitled to an increase in pay and other benefits. Nothing was said about the effect-of such an increase on the national economy. Industry in turn pointed to declining profits after taxes, but failed to mention the more than a billion dollars spent on plant expansion, in addition to the payment of substantial dividends for 1951. With the intervention of the administration, the immediate issue became clear to freedom-loving Americans. Is the executive branch of the government above the law, or is it supposed to uphold and carry out the .laws of Congress? The present administration forgot that it is a servant of the public and has become despotic. The American people must obliterate this dangerous precedent which has been set by the administration or accept the. ominous consequences of submission. Fortunately, the strongest weapon of the citizen-the ballot -still remains. When democratic procedure is restored, stabilization of the economy will continue to challenge us. This is the main public stake in the steel controversy. Only a solution based on bed-rock democracy will work. If the emergency is real, and we must assume that it is, this is the time for sacrifice. Industry and labor must meet without rancor to resolve wage contracts through collective bargaining. The government role, under emergency conditions, must be to objectively maintain wage, and price ceilings in the interest of stabilization. Political expediency cannot be permitted to' influence these controls. Politics and not the public weal have been the guide lines for too long. We are at the cross roads. By all sober judgment, this is the time for Americans to take a militant interest in their government today. Tomorrow will be too late.

Jan 1, 1952

Changes have been made in the Bulletin, Section I., for this month ; Personal and Employment columns have been added, and a Forum, in which will be included letters and discussions of general interest to members of the Institute ; live news and new matter have been inserted near the front; lists of officers and committees are placed next to the technical section, while standing matter and other information which is interesting chiefly when sought for, has been segregated as much as possible. Members are urged to co-operate with the Editor by sending in news items of themselves and others, and by giving some of their spare time to this department each month.

Jan 4, 1913

The celebrations which took place in 1986 to mark South Australia's Jubilee 150 served to focus attention on all aspects of the State's heritage. Until that time the sites and relics of South Aus- tralia's early mines had been generally neglected. Marked by the ruins of enginehouses and littered with the remains of the massive technology of the Industrial Revolution, these sites have now been recognised as containing the threads of a fascinat- ing story. In the early days of settlement the economy of the Colony was based on land and farming. Droughts caused periods of economic depression which were alleviated by chance discoveries of gold, lead, silver, and copper ore. Some of the mines which were opened on the copper deposits were the largest in the world at that time and their names well-known throughout mining circles. Working by hand with primitive equipment, the early miners excavated vast networks of shafts and stopes often extending to great depths: at Moonta- Wallaroo Mines for example workings extended to 860 m below ground. Because of the presence of underground water, mining to these depths would not have been possible without the Cornish pumping engine. Operated by steam power these massive engines and their associated equipment were transported from Cornwall by clipper and delivered to the mines by bullock cart. At this time the engines were at the peak of their devel- opment and, although expensive to import and install, they were highly reliable: the engine oper- ating Hughes pump at Moonta worked continu- ously for sixty years without a major breakdown.

Jan 1, 1987

By Steve Skelhorn

Edmonton South LRT is the latest expansion of the Subway system in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: Consisting of twin 5.8m segmental lined tunnels, 280m long, driven by a Lovat EPB machine. The key challenges were as follows. A 6% downhill grade. Tight radius curves of 250m.Overlying structures within 3m of the tunnel. Strata consisting of sand above the water table, glacial tills and bed rock below the water table. Located within The University of Alberta Campus and adjacent to a hospital. Northern Alberta climate with winter temperatures routinely falling below—minus 30 degrees Celsius. This paper provides a case history and outlines the challenges involved in completing this project.

Jan 1, 2005

By AIME

BORN in 1899, in Bridgeport, Conn., E. A. Anderson grew up in a center of the nonferrous metal industry. Perhaps that had something to do with his selection of mining as a career while an undergraduate in Yale. After securing his Ph.B. in mining he worked for a year at Handy & Harman. By this time physical metallurgy had supplanted his interest in mining and he entered the Yale graduate school where he secured his M.S. degree in metallography under C. H. Mathewson. After completing his graduate work he entered the employ of The New Jersey Zinc Co. in their research division where he has remained ever since. The transition from graduate study to industry involved no disruption of technical interests. Academic research relating to the zinc-aluminum alloys, then coming into use for die-casting, was followed by extensive and productive industrial research in the perfection and commercialization of these alloys. Research on rolled zinc and rolled zinc alloys, corrosion and stress corrosion, dry cells, electroplating on zinc, and electrodeposition of zinc followed in overlapping succession as time passed.

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME AIME

NOT a few physical metallurgists started their profession- al careers as chemists or physicists, only to surrender later to the attractions of metallurgy. The present Institute of Metals Chairman varied this more usual sequence in hat his first love was electrical engineering, when as a recent graduate he served on the staff of the General Electric Co., of Schenectady. Soon turning to metallurgy as a more interesting field, he was metallurgist and then chief engineer of the Wads- worth Watch Case Co. from 1920 to 1927. Since 1927 he has been with the International Nickel Co. at the Bayonne, N. J., research laboratories where he is staff adviser.

Jan 1, 1940

By Walter Campos, Yuri Gallegos, Sául Vigil

El proyecto Educación Digital Rural ha sido analizado con instrumentos de corte cuantitativo, a través de la aplicación de encuestas a docentes y personal directivo de escuelas del área de influencia directa de Minera las Bambas; además, del uso de la técnica de análisis documental sobre el estado de las matrículas y situación final de estudiantes en el año 2020 y 2021 (Hernández et al., 2020). Los resultados muestran que la intervención ha evidenciado la importancia de tener el personal capacitado sobre el aprovechamiento de las tecnologías digitales en el proceso educativo y sobre la intervención clave del liderazgo del directivo para orientar el trabajo docente y asegurar condiciones que permitieron dar continuidad al servicio educativo en las II.EE. rurales de Fuerabamba, Huancuire y Pamputa.

Sep 30, 2022

By Cynthia Faura

Educando para tu Futuro es un proyecto de inversión social dirigido a las comunidades de influencia de la refinería Cajamarquilla. Fue creado en 2013, a través de una alianza entre Nexa Resources y la ONG Perspektiva, con el objetivo de contribuir a la mejora de la calidad educativa y brindar mayores oportunidades de educación superior e inserción al mercado laboral formal. Este proyecto beneficia directamente a alumnos de 4° y 5° de secundaria de las dos instituciones educativas públicas más grandes de Cajamarquilla. Hasta 2019, ha atendido directamente a más de 2000 jóvenes, a través de una intervención educativa integral que incluye tanto las necesidades académicas como el desarrollo psicoafectivo del alumno y su creación de un proyecto de vida. Asimismo, el proyecto involucra a docentes y padres de familia y ofrece un programa de becas para estudiantes destacados.

Sep 20, 2019