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Underground mining and particularly dipping narrow tabular orebodies are difficult to mechanize appropriately, given the low gold price and other external factors. Particularly in the deep level mines in South Africa, there is little choice left but to mechanize if the industry is to remain competitive and a significant global player. This paper presents a design philosophy for appropriate mechanization intended to generate solutions that can be implemented using the people currently employed in South Africa mines. The design philosophy is based on the ability of high-pressure water (hydropower technology) to deliver enhanced performance to users and on simplicity in the eyes of the user. Four examples of systems and equipment are described to illustrate the approach to Appropriate Mechanization. These include: • The Development End System, • The Monorail Raise Climber, • Automatic Pump Control Valves, and • The Energy Recovery Pump. The equipment is presented with the following critical issues foremost in mind: Safety, Working Environment, Performance, Cost effectiveness and Implementation. Although the appropriate mechanization approach is described in the context of the South African underground mining industry, much of the Appropriate Mechanization equipment has worldwide applications. Key Words: Hydropower, Mechanization, Tunnel Development, Raise Development, Monorail, Raise Climber, Pump Control Valve, and Energy Recovery

Sep 1, 2001

By Robert Glass Cleland

THIS IS a history of a company whose roots run deep into the nation's past and whose field of operations has never been narrowly confined. The men who founded Phelps Dodge were men of initiative and imagination. They were men of strong convictions and upright character. They held fast to the simple virtues and traditions of the days when America was young. This heritage they passed on to their successors. From the very beginning, under such leadership, Phelps Dodge became a company of large affairs. It bought and sold, exported and imported, built factories and organized railroads, converted great forests into lumber, and operated coal and iron mines. Much of the iron, copper, and tin plate used in the United States for a generation was under its control. Its business abroad was extensive enough to warrant the organization of a separate partnership in England. Then, almost half a century after its foundation, the company began to substitute new activities for old and eventually transferred its major operations to the West, primarily to Arizona. The family partnership became a corporation. Exporting and importing gave place to mining and metallurgy. Phelps Dodge became one of the largest

Jan 1, 1952

By A. K. Haines, M. W. Godfrey, D. M. Miller, P. C. van Aswegen

The Bacterial Oxidation [(BIOX)] process for the pre-treatment of refractory ores for gold recovery developed by Genmin, the mining division of Gencor, has been operating successfully at the Fairvew Mine since October 1986. The continuous operation of a pilot plant at Genmin Process Research has resulted in further process developmenst to improve plant operating efficiencies. These new developments, which include a higher solids content of the pulp feed to [BIOX], lower retention times, higher operating temperatures, lower power utilizaton for oxygen dispersion and reduced nutrient addition, have all been successfully implemented on the Fairvew plant. It has furthermore been confirmed that the arsenic precipitate formed in the neutralization of effluent solutions complies to the United States of America EPA standards. Contineous cyanidation pilot plant work conducted on [BIOX] product has indicated that cyanide consumption can be drastically decreased if a continuons flowsheet is implemented in preference to a batch leaching system.

Jan 1, 1992

THERE are three chief production zones of tungsten ore in China. In the Province of Kiangsi mines are located at Kanchow, East River, and West River. Their combined production is understood to amount to 300 to 350 tons of ore per month, and their original exportation is made through the port of Kiukiang, largely to Shanghai. The second zone is in Kwangtung Province, the mines there being at Tayulin. Produc-tion reaches about 200 tons per month and cargo is gen-erally exported through the port of Hong Kong. In the Province of Hunan approximately 25 tons of ore are produced monthly in the mines at Ton-on. Tungsten ore from Kiangsi and Kwangtung Prov-inces is generally about 70 per cent WO, (tungstic acid), while that from Hunan is of lower quality, run-ning about 65 per cent WO3. Kiangsi ore is received from the mines in 100-1b. and Hunan in 224-lb. gunny sacks. No repacking is done except as it is made neces-sary by the condition of the sacks. Kiangsi Province contains the Chinese districts pro-ducing the largest amount of salable wolframite or tungsten. Many districts west and south of Kiangsi have been found to have wolframite deposits.-Com-merce Reports.

Jan 1, 1928

By J Kinal

Plant trials are at the best of times difficult to perform; given variations in the ore, operating practice and economic constraints placed on a plant. Testing grinding media at industrial scale adds a further level of complexity that needs to be accounted for.Laboratory test programs consistently demonstrate that altering the grinding chemistry through the application of inert grinding media has the potential to provide significant metallurgical benefit. However, prog- ressing from laboratory testing to industrial trial is often an agonisingly slow process that can lead to inconclusive results which raise more questions than give answers. There are many factors that need to be considered when conducting plant trials aimed at demonstrating the impact of inert grinding media on metallurgical performance. The decisions (or lack thereof) made during the planning stage can heavily impact on whether a statistically meaningful result is achieved. Various factors such as how the trial is conducted (dumping or purging the charge); the circuit configuration; collection of the right data; and even the human factor will affect the outcome. The authors will use examples to demonstrate the importance of proper planning and controlled operation on grinding media plant trials.

Jan 1, 2009

By Hajialilue Bonab M.

The soil-pile interaction under lateral impact loads is not yet completely well known. Many tests on single piles under static lateral loads in centrifuge have been performed and P-y curves have been determined at different levels of the pile in soil. Following these static tests on piles, a large program is undertaken with the same piles submitted to impact loads. The pile equipped with various pile caps has been impacted under variable amplitudes of shock. The behavior of the pile under different impacts was studied and dynamic parameters of the soil-pile system have been determined. Many cases of loading constituting various load histories have been analyzed. They are resulting from parametric centrifuge tests run out, on the one hand with constant and cumulative impacts and on the other hand, variable and cumulative ones. The Influence of each type of loading was studied. Using a finite element method, a non-linear pile-soil system was conceived and a transient dynamic analysis have been performed. The results of the non-linear analysis and experimental data were compared giving a good agreement.

Jan 1, 2002

By P. Barnes

(Read at the Philadelphia Meeting, February, 1878.) SOME statements have already been made to the Institute in reference to the cost of other departments of the above-named works, and some details have been given in tabular form.* For the purpose of the present paper it may be sufficient to say that this converting works is made up of three buildings, a cupolahouse, an engine-house, and a converting-house. The machinery and fixtures comprise two blowing-engines, two pressure-pumps, two five-ton converters, five hydraulic cranes, three pig-iron cupolas, four spiegel cupolas, two lifts for the cupolas, together with the usual arrangements of smaller parts. Every effort was made in the construction to combine efficiency of operation with durability, and the general course of the operation of the works during two and a half years seems to warrant the belief that the large outlay has been fully justified. • In the accompanying tabular statement all items on vouchers less than ten dollars, and all freight items have been omitted. * See Transactions of the. Institute, iv, 105, v, 427; also, Engineering and Mining Journal, vow. xxi, 561, xxiii, p. 439, xxiv, 419.

Jan 1, 1878

This brief resume of the events transpiring in Mexico, culled from the daily New York newspapers since the last Bulletin went to press, does not show any degree of improvement in the situation. MEXICO SEEKS TO AVOID BLAME FOR BANDIT RAIDS All foreign passengers leaving Nogales for Mexico on the Southern Pacific or Mexico Railroad. whose business would take them through territory occupied by the Yaqui Indians or Mexican bandits were requested by Mexican Consul Emilio Tamez to sign a statement that they relieve the Mexican government of responsi-bility for anything which might happen to them while in that part of Mexico. The Mexican consul stated, says the N. Y. Tribune, that this was by order of Mexican Ambassador Ignacio Bon ill as, at Washington. When the State Department was advised of this activity Secretary Phillips, in a message to the consulate at Tampico, according to the N. Y. Tribune, asserted that "compliance with the waiver requirement will not interfere with the relation existing between the United States and its citizens and that Americans so complying will in no way lose the protection of this government."

Jan 11, 1919

By Henry E. Bakkila

Introduction United States Steel Corporation's, Texas Uranium Operations operates in-situ mines located approximately 70 miles north of Corpus Christi near the town of George West in Live Oak County, Texas. In 1977, Texas Uranium Operations became the operating entity for the Burns Ranch mines 100% United States Steel ownership and also operates the Clay West mines a 50150 joint venture of United States Steel Corporation and N M Uranium, Inc. Until mid-1982, Texas Uranium operated eight (8) satellites where uranium was captured on resin and two central plants where the loaded resin was eluted, acidized, precipitated and dried to yellowcake. At present, the Clay West Central Plant is operating, as are four (4) satellite plants in a mode designed to optimize results while depleting remaining reserves. United States Steel's Texas Uranium Operations, as have some other uranium producers, managed to continue successful production during the plunge to the recent floor price of $17. Despite the fact that United States Steel does not intend to continue as--a uranium producer beyond the life of its present reserves, we naturally hope the recent trend to the pre- sent price of $24 will continue to increase.

Jan 1, 1984

A wide range of models are available to computer process simulators that require a large number of parameters which often are physical measurements, coefficients, calibration factors and functional forms. This makes it intuitively difficult in the majority of cases, to tune the parameters in order to simulate a circuit in agreement with experimental results. Unit calibrators operating on the principle of least squares minimisation of the difference between predicted and observed plant data, are relatively successful when the parameters are unconstrained and independent of each other. In the case of constrained parameters, a set of carefully chosen transforms is presented which map the unconstrained variables being minimised into the constrained parameters required for the model. This technique has been used successfully with the Powell minimisation algorithm and it may also be applied to other unconstrained minimisation methods. Necessary model characteristics are discussed to enable these transforms to be applied to interdependent model parameters such as points of a graph. Examples of the calibration of several unit models using these transforms are presented. KEYWORDS: Calibration, optimisation, transforms, process simulation.

Jan 1, 1993

By Willard P. Ward

It is the object of the present paper to bring to the notice of members of this Institute, the results of experiments made during the past six months in the manufacture of the alloys of iron and manganese in the blast-furnace. The ores at hand and available for the purpose were brown hematites, containing but a very small percentage of manganese, and various manganese ores containing a small percentage of iron. It is hardly necessary here to call attention to the statements regarding the production of iron-manganese alloys from such ores, which are given by all the well-recognized authorities on metallurgy. Suffice it to say, in a few words, that they hold that the operation is practically impossible, and that in the use of oxides of iron and manganese, mechanically intermixed in the same ore, much difficulty has been found in producing spiegeleisen. Spathic ores, containing manganese chemically combined, are alone recommended for the production of spiegel, and even then it is said that well-managed furnaces produce only about 75 to 80 per cent. of spiegel, the balance of the production being white laminated pig or gray iron.

Since 1960, the Dongchuan Copper Mining Bureau, Yunnan Province, China, has treated copper oxidised ores by sulphidisation - flotation technique only to recover copper. In order to improve the metallurgical performances and economics of flotation, extensive development work has been carried out during the past 30 years: several specific flotation flowsheets have evolved from the originally selected `stage - grinding and stage - flotation' flowsheet to suit various ores; the overall grinding size of the ores has been increased from 80 per cent - 200 mesh to 90 per cent - 200 mesh, resulting in significant increase in copper recovery; the substitution of CaS for NazS proved to be successful in sulphidisation of copper oxidised minerals, and also in avoiding the depressing effect of Na2S on copper sulphide minerals; the application of a number of activators of copper oxidised minerals, especially ethylene diamine phosphate, has considerably improved the flotation performance and decreased the consumptions of other reagents. Finally, the combined use of sodium hydroximate with butyl xanthate has been shown to be effective in enhancing the floatability of both copper oxidised and sulphide minerals.

Jan 1, 1993

Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, 76 Beaver St., New York, N. Y. Percy E. Barbour, Secretary and Treasurer. This Society issues Bulletins each year containing papers presented, and accounts of Society business. The Bulletins each year are collected in a volume as the Proceedings for that, year. In 1931 Bulletins numbered 216 to 222, inclusive, were issued in the Proceedings for that year (vol. 24). In addition to the Bulletins two special volumes have been published: International Control of Minerals, $1; and World Survey of the Zinc Indusry, $2.25. A selected list of paper,,-from the last two volumes of the Proceedings: Vol. 24 (1931) : Bull. 216 The cycles of prices of non-ferrous metals, by L. Vogelstein; 218, Marketing problems, by T. M. McNiece; 222, Copper tariff number (a discussion of the copper tariff by a number of authors). Vol. 23 (1930): Bull. 208 to 215, inclusive: Bull. 208, Some aspects of the copper industry, by L. C. Graton; 209, The ethical question of developing Soviet mines; 213, Legal recognition of geophysical prospecting, by A. H. Rogers; The evolution of the metal cartels, by L., Domeratzky and L. Vogelstein; 214, Geological justification for "exploration permits," by L. C. Graton; 215, The future of nickel, by A. J. Wadhams.

Jan 1, 1933

This paper quotes the results of many years of experiments and observations concerning ore drawing from mining blocks in major ore deposits mined by bulk induced caving of ore and country rock. Numerous laboratory and commercial test results of Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh mines have been used and processed. Over 35 per cent of all ferrous, non-ferrous and other ore mined in the Russian Federation by the underground method is drawn underneath overlying caved rock (including ore drawing after bulk caving of pillars). The complexity of the process denies a logical or engineering calculation answer to many commercial production questions. Hence the massive research of ore drawing issues targeted at ore recovery forecasts in specific instances in order to assess an engineering solution or to define the design or planned ore draw performance. At first, the conditions were pictured as ideal. Subsequently, it was attempted to take into account the side contacts of ore with the country rock and the caved barren rock, the small size stuff in the caved rock, the unevenly loosening ore, end draw, and so on. The ore draw information available provides ample qualitative characteristics of the phenomena and only approximated and partially quantitative characteristics for individual cases. Many specific situations require individual studies of subject specific models.

Jan 1, 2000

By Manula C. B

The total systems model for underground oal mining planning and design is a set of omputer programs which encompasses a realis- ic reproduction of the interaction between he geological, environmental, equipment, meth- ds and the health and safety aspects of the ining plan. The total system includes nine ajor subsystems - Geology and Reserves, Meth- ne Generator, Roof Support, Subsidence, Pro- uction, Rail Haulage, Cost, Water Generator, nd Ventilation. The subsystems themselves re divided into two categories based on the requency with which they are executed. Event riented Subsystems are executed either inde- endently, or at discrete intervals when cer- tain specific events occur. Dynamic subsystems 'unction interactively during the production :ycle. They transfer data to or request data `rom event oriented subsystems only when spe- ific events occur. Three specific areas for iodel application are in the measurement of system performance, the development of the '_ nterrelationships of the components of deep Wining process and the evaluation of new and Lnnovative mining technology.

Jan 1, 1977

By S. H. Ash

With statistics still incomplete, it appears that the safety record of the mineral industry for 1955 will do well to hold its own in comparison with 1954. On the one hand, metal mining shows an improvement in its record, due in part to intensive campaigns for preventing ground fall accidents. Coal mining, on the other hand, is showing a poorer record in 1955 than for the preceding year. While no major disasters occurred during the year, increased fatalities resulted from ground fall, haulage, and machinery accidents. It seems probable that increased job training may serve to improve the situation. Health: Utilization of diesel equipment continues to increase in noncoal mines, in spite of existing prejudice. In 1955 two types of diesel-driven tractors and one shuttle car were approved by the USBM. Where diesel engines are used controlled ventilation is mandatory in order to keep the CO content under 20 ppm, but such ventilation is not difficult to achieve with normal equipment.

Feb 1, 1956

By C. J. Cattarello

"The Langmuir Mine is located seventeen miles south-east of South Porcupine in Langmuir Township.The property was developed as a Joint Venture between Noranda Mines Limited and the International Nickel Company of Canada with Noranda responsible for the operation of the property.The Mine came into production in June 1973 at a rate of 700 tons per day of nickel ore.MINING The mining method selected for the Langmuir Project was a sub-level retreat method. This consisted of driving sub-levels longitudinally in the ore body at 35 foot, intervals with the sub-levels being connected by a ramp from each main level for the use of trackless mining equipment.GENERAL GEOLOGY OF THE LANGMUIR MINE The deposit is situated about 1,000 feet west of the shore of Carmen Bay at the south of Nighthawk Lake in Langmuir Township. The area is underlain by andesite and rhyolite flows with iron formations which are intruded by gabbro, diorite, peridotite and late precambrian diabase dikes."

Jan 1, 1975

By E. S. Moffat

Members of the Institute who have visited the works of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company at Scranton, will remember the exposure of a large vein of anthracite coal in the rocky bank on the south side of Roaring Brook, near the blast-furnace. The vein is quite flat, and is exposed to view for several hundred yards along the banks of the brook, a few feet above the surface of the water. It is some ten feet in thickness, and is known as the Big Vein. At a point just opposite the blast-furnace, much of the coal from this vein was mined out many years since, the usual pillars being left to support the overlying rock and drift, which are here some twentyfive to thirty feet in thickness. Over thirty pears ago fire was communicated from an ore-roasting pile on the surface of the ground at this point, through an old shaft, down to the refuse and pillars which had been left in the mine

Jan 1, 1887

By L. Salinas

Lance injection of gas and particles into a molten bath is currently practised in metallurgical processes (Mitsubishi lances for example). Several experimental and theorical studies have been conducted in the past on this topic. However, neither detailed calculations nor experimental studies of local flow patterns have been published. In the present work, a numerical simulation of the interaction of a gaseous vertical descending jet and a liquid surface was done, using the turbulence k-e model. There is a fair agreement between the calculated and the experimental values. The results of this study demonstrate that it is crucial that the gas jet velocity profile and turbulent characteristic are correctly formulated in order to correctly simulate the system.

Jan 1, 1999

By Todd R. Taubert, Kenneth L. Bickel

The U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) pioneered the development of disposable filters for reducing diesel particulate emissions from permissible mining machines. The USBM is now evaluating filter media that can withstand the high exhaust temperatures on nonpermissible machines. The goal of the evaluation is to find an inexpensive medium that can be cleaned or disposed of after use, and will reduce particulate emissions by 50 % or more. This report summarizes the results from screening tests of a lava rock and woven fiberglass filter media. The lava rock media exhibited low collection efficiencies, but with very low increases in exhaust back pressure. Preliminary results indicate a collection efficiency exceeding 80 % for the woven fiber media. Testing of both media is continuing.

Jan 1, 1995