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By James E. Jopling

The county of Marquette, Michigan, includes nearly all the iron-mines that have been worked on the Marquette range, which stretches in a generally western direction from the mines at Negaunee, 10 miles from Lake Superior, to those beyond Michigamme, some thirty miles further. The geographical position of this range, nearer to eastern ports than the other iron-ranges, and its ready access from the lake, gave it for a long time a controlling advantage. The country in which the mines are situated is from 800 to 1000 feet above the level of the lake, and is for the most part broken by steep hills, which rise from 100 to 200 feet; between these the land is rolling or

Jan 1, 1898

By Thomas M. Drown

THE means relied on to attain uniformity in Bessemer steel may be enumerated as follows : I. The appearance of the flame. II. The appearance of the slag. III. The spectrum of the flame. IV. Examination of the steel itself. At present, I wish briefly to bring forward a few considerations with reference to the last two mentioned, namely, the conditions favoring the employment of the spectroscope and examination of the steel. From the amount of careful investigation which has been devoted to the examination of the Bessemer flame by the spectroscope, both on the part of scientists and practical metallurgists, one might reasonably expect some results definite and satisfactory in their nature, first, as regards the nature of the flame, and second, as to the practical value of the spectroscope as a guide in conducting the process. We find, in fact, however, that uncertainty and confusion still exist. In Germany, where this subject has received the greatest attention, it is now very generally conceded that manganese is the cause of the well-known groups of dark bands that characterize the Bessemer spectrum. Nor is it easy to see how we can avoid accepting this conclusion, when Wedding and Von Lichtenfels have produced the manganese spectrum and found it to correspond closely with that shown by the Bessemer flame. But it is evident, on a moment's reflection, as Roscoe has recently brought forward, that manganese cannot be the only cause of the Bessemer spectrum, for we notice the characteristic bands quite as

By Max Stern

ROOM and pillar coal mining methods employed in the United States keep the roof at original height by leaving untouched pillars of coal in the face area. But, German coal mines of the Ruhr district are exclusively operated on the longwall system. With this method the whole length of the coal face advances and the roof in the face area sinks 10 to 15 pct of seam thickness. Behind the face the roof may drop 50 to 80 pct of seam thickness due to the high rock pressures encountered at average mining depth of 2250 ft. Mining depth is increasing 20 to 30 ft per year.

Jan 5, 1953

By V. T. Stringfield

ONE of the earliest investigations of ground water in Florida was made in 1513 when Ponce de Leon arrived at St. Augustine in search of the Fountain of Youth. The history of the development of the water resources of the State shows that the large artesian reservoir that underlies Florida was discovered in the latter part of the last century. Part of that history is given by L. C. Johnson1 who states that the first successful artesian well in Florida was drilled at St. Augustine between 1880 and 1882. After the City of Jacksonville failed to obtain a flow of artesian water at a depth of nearly 400 ft and abandoned the drilling, R. N. Ellis, City Engineer, and L. C. Johnson, using Johnson's knowledge of the geologic structure of the artesian reservoir, estimated correctly that artesian water could be obtained at a depth of about 500 ft. Thus began the development of the large artesian system in the northeastern part of the State. In 1908, the Florida Geological Survey issued its first report on the ground water of central Florida.

Jan 6, 1951

By D. R. Semmes

The possible oil territory of Alabama can be readily divided into two regions, the Paleozoic area of the north, and the Coastal Plain province of Cretaceous and younger formations lying to the south. This latter area has received much attention in the last few years and has been described by a number of writers.' Although the possibilities of the Cretaceous series have been much emphasized by recent writers, the fact remains that the two, or possibly three, localities where oil or gas have been found in anything like paying quantities are confined to the area of Carboniferous rocks. Moreover, almost all of the oil seeps and a good percentage of the gas seeps are confined to this area.2 Topographically, as well as structurally, the Paleozoic area can be divided into three rather well defined provinces: (1) The broad, open Coosa Valley lying adjacent to the crystalline oldland, with comparatively little relief, except for occasional longitudinal ridges and rather intense folding; (2) the plateau region of horizontal or gently warped Pennsylvanian strata broken by occasional anticlinal valleys aligned northeast and southwest, outliers of the Coosa Valley proper, in which the older Paleozoic formations are exposed—a region of much relief (200

Jan 1, 1921

By C. H. Gorski

A method for preparing titanium tetrachloride is described which consists of reducing rutile with coke and chlorinating the reduced product at 200° to 500°C. The crude distillate is purified by treatment with copper powder and distillation. Recoveries, exceeding 90 pct of the titanium in the rutile, were obtained. IN recent years considerable interest in metallic titanium has been aroused because of its outstanding physical and chemical properties. The present commercial processes for preparing titanium are modifications of the Kroll1 process and consist essentially of the reduction of titanium tetrachloride with magnesium in an inert atmosphere to produce metallic titanium with magnesium chloride as a byproduct. At present,' commercial titanium tetrachloride costs $0.32 a pound, which makes the price of the included titanium $1.28 a pound. As the titanium tetrachloride must be purified further before processing into metal, its ultimate cost obviously will be higher. Consequently, one of the prime requisites for the production of lower cost titanium metal is a source of low-cost titanium tetrachloride. Recently, Knickerbocker, Gorski, Kenworthy, and Starliper3 escribed a method for preparing titanium tetrachloride from low-grade Arkansas rutile by smelting the rutile with pyrite and coke to form a titanium matte and then chlorinating the titanium matte to prepare a crude titanium tetrachloride. This process had several inherent advantages. Low-grade rutile concentrates were utilized, the chlorination temperature was relatively low (approximately 200°C), and the reaction was strongly exothermic. However, this process had several disadvantages, chief of them being the rather low recoveries of titanium tetrachloride (65 to 81 pct) and the difficulty in purifying the crude titanium tetrachloride obtained. Because of the high-titanium and low-iron con- tents of rutile as compared to ilmenite, rutile should be of greater potential value as a source of titanium tetrachloride than ilmenite. Rutile, however, is not chlorinated directly in commercial practice, because reaction temperatures above 700 °C are required, at which point chlorine attacks most of the common materials of construction. The process now in use consists of converting the titanium in rutile to the cyanonitride by high-temperature reduction in an electric furnace, and then chlorinating this compound. The disadvantages of this process are the difficulty of producing the cyanonitride, the use of high-grade rutile concentrates in the charge, and the presence of several percent of silicon tetrachloride in the finished product. It would be of considerable interest to develop a new process for the preparation of titanium tetrachloride from rutile by chlorination at 200" to 500°C. Process Development Several investigators'-' have studied the reduction of titanium dioxide with carbon in an effort to prepare titanium monoxide. Invariably, the titanium monoxide formed in this manner was not pure, as it contained titanium carbide and one or more of the lower oxides of titanium. As these lower oxides of titanium are more reactive chemically than rutile, and as it is known that titanium carbide may be chlorinated readily, a study was made of the chlorination of carbon-reduced rutile. A sample of rutile concentrates from Hot Spring County, Ark., containing 76.19 pct TiO,, 5.65 pct Fe2O3, 4.18 pct SiO2, and 2.88 pct Al2O3, was used for this investigation. The experimental procedure consisted of making an intimate mixture of —100-mesh rutile and petroleum coke, adding water and molasses as a binder to foi-m a paste, charging into a graphite crucible that was covered, except for a vent to allow the

Jan 1, 1952

By P. Greenfield, P. A. Beck

The phase is a hard and extremely brittle material with a tetragonal crystal structure, containing 30 atoms per unit cell' It occurs in many binary and ternary alloys of the transition elements. The existence of twelve a phases has been reported in binary alloys of metals from the group vanadium, chromium, molybdenum, and tungsten with metals from the group manganese, iron, cobalt, and nickel. It is a characteristic fact that the composition of the o- phases in the various binary systems is not the same. Rather, there is a gradual shift in composition, for instance in the series of chromium a phases, approximately as follows: CrMn,, FeCr, Cr3Co,. In recent years several ideas have been put forward to account for this variability of composition. SullyZ proposed that a was a type of electron compound, characterized by 1.7 electrons per atom in excess of the number required to fill the Pauling atomic orbitals. These excess electrons were supposed to just fill the first Brillouin zone of the u structure. However, later work indicated that the phase is ferromagnetic at low temperatures, so that a- is unlikely to be a full zone compound.~ Another proposal,* which is also based on the structure of the transition elements advanced by Pauling, and in fact leads to essentially the same a compositions as Sully's theory, suggests that the u phase is characterized by a constant number of electron vacancies per atom. The electron vacancy numbers N,. used were originally the same as those in the Pauling theory, but were later modified empirically vn order to bring about better agreement with data for the p phase in certain ternary systems. For alloys, N,, was calculated on the assumption of simple additivity from the electron vacancy numbers of the components, as follows: N,. = 4.66 (Mo + Cr + V) + 3.2 (Mn) + 2.2 (Fe) + 1.71 (Co) + 1.6 (Ni). On this basis a reasonably constant value of N, = 3.4 was obtained for all of the binary u phases and a fairly constant value of N,, = 3.1 for the various p phases. More recently, Bloom and Granta pointed out that a similar correlation with the total number of 3d and 4s electrons per atom is also fairly well fulfilled and concluded that no reference need be made to the Pauling theory. This proposal does not lead to the same binary a compositions as the one described above, so that the relative merits of the two proposals may be determined on the basis of direct comparison with experimental composition data. The purpose of the present paper is to provide such a comparison. Since the experimental data for the composition ranges of several of the known u phases were rather incomplete, it was decided to carry out new experimental determinations for many of the binary systems. Experimental Procedure The alloys were prepared by induction melting in recrystallized alumina crucibles, either in vacuum or in helium atmospheres. Some aluminum was picked up from the crucibles in the alloys of high vanadium content, but this was minimized by keeping the alloys in the molten state for as short a time as possible. The maximum aluminum impurity was 0.13 wt pct by chemical analysis, in an alloy containing over 50 wt pct V. In general, the as-melted compositions agreed accurately with those obtained by chemical analysis. In the case of manganese, however, losses inevitably occurred; consequently all manganese alloys were analyzed. Specimens of all alloys were annealed at temperatures ranging from 1000" to 1300°C in an atmosphere of purified 92 pct helium and 8 pct hydrogen mixture. All manganese alloys were sealed in quartz tubes under vacuum before annealing. The specimens were held at temperature for between four and eight days before being quenched into cold water. Alloys were prepared for microscopic examination by mechanical polishing, usually followed by electrolytic etching. X-ray diffraction specimens were prepared by crushing the homogenized alloys, and by reanneal-ing the obtained powders in evacuated quartz tubes for a few hours at the temperature of the lump anneal. X-ray diffraction patterns were made with unfiltered chromium radiation, using an asymmetrical focusing camera of high dispersion. Using microscopic and X-ray techniques jointly, the accuracy

Jan 1, 1955

By John T. Galey

The outstanding developments of the year in southwestern Pennsylvania were the establishment of the Summit Fayette County gas pool and the gas pool in Nicholson township, Fayette County, and Monongahela township, Greene County, as major producing areas, and the indication of four new shallow gas pools. Curtailment of drilling for shallow gas is expected to follow order M68 of the Office of Production Management. Gas completions were approximately 70 per cent higher, oil completions nearly 25 per cent lower, dry holes were unchanged and drilling wells as of Dec. 31, 1941, nearly loo per cent higher than last year. Shallow Development Oil.—Outside Butler County, only 11 producers were drilled, with a total initial of 221 bbl. The best of these was in a portion of Gilmore township, Greene County, which ordinarily produces gas. This well flowed 77 bbl. in 11 hr., along with about one million cubic feet of gas from the Fourth (U.Dev.) sand. Washington County had a 10.20 and a 25-bbl. well in Morris township and a 20-bbl. well in South Franklin township. These were all in the Fifth Sand. The price of oil to Jan. 27 was $1.80 per barrel, when a 15¢ increase was made. This was followed by a raise of 20¢ on Apr. 23, 15¢ on May 21, 20¢ on June 18 and 25¢ on Aug. 14. The last increase was canceled on Aug. 23 by the Office of Price Administration, which pegged southwestern Pennsylvania crude at $2.40 per barrel. Gas.—An almost doubled initial production of natural gas is the result of the large increase in number of wells drilled. The outstanding discovery of the year was in the vicinity of Armbrust, Hempfield township, Westmoreland County, where a well drilled to what at first was considered the Bayard sand, but what is now known to be the Fifth (U.Dev.) sand, at 2100 ft. found nearly 5 million cu. ft. of gas. Since this completion 14 wells have been finished, only one of which was dry, giving a combined total open flow of approximately 15 million cu. ft. The sand is 35 to 40 ft. thick and the saturation extends through most of that thickness. Rock pressure, which is 1040 lb. per sq. in., is abnormally high. An area of only about one square mile has been proven but some of the 24 new wells drilling as of Dec. 31 will no doubt extend it considerably. This development has taken place in an area heretofore considered to have had little prospect. There were three good wells in other parts of Westmoreland County. One well in Franklin township, which had 12 million cu. ft, of gas in the Fifth sand, was entirely surrounded by dry holes but is still pro- . ducing at a high rate. In Bell township a 1.6 million cu. ft. well was found in the Speechley (U.Dev.) sand and in Washington township the same sand produced 2.7 million cu. ft. with shut-in pressure of 970 Ib. at 2820 ft. This well is offset by two dry holes and one well with a capacity of only 10 M cubic feet.

Jan 1, 1942

By Fred W. Stiefel

This paper covers the operation and maintenance of Diesel locomotives underground on a portion of the Delaware River Aqueduct. † This part of the tunnel is 15 miles long, with shafts 14 ft. in diameter spaced about 5 miles apart. These shafts (2, 2a and 3) are 825 ft., 1551 and 840 ft. deep, respectively. The grade of the tunnel is almost level, except for the 12,100 ft. north of shaft 2, which has a grade of 2.31 per cent. The tunnel is circular, 17 to 19 ft. in diameter. It lies at a depth of 400 ft. below sea level, with a maximum overburden of 2400 feet. The tunnel driving was carried on in six headings, using 15 storage-battery locomotives, each of 13 gross tons and having a maximum speed of 8 miles per hour. The longest haul was 3 miles, which proved to be the maximum distance for which storage-battery locomotives could be employed economically for the amount of material to be moved. One locomotive was used for switching cars at each heading, one for switching cars at the bottom of each shaft and one on the main-line haul from the heading to the shaft. The maximum amount of material hoisted in one shaft from two headings when 104 ft. of tunnel was driven in 24 hr. was 1000 cu. yd., or about 2000 tons of rock in place. The total quantity excavated was 750,000 cu. yd. (1,500,000 tons of rock). The tunnel-lining operations using concrete presented a problem of hading a maximum distance of 5 miles in the tunnel. The concrete-placing equipment had a capacity of about 2000 CU. yd., or 4000 tons in 24 hours. Experience had shown that storage-battery equipment could not handle this quantity of material within the time required at the distance of 5 miles. Trolley-locomotive haulage was considered dangerous and expensive, and would cause interference because transmission equipment would be required. Therefore the performance of Diesel locomotives of 160 hp., with a speed of 18 miles per hour, in comparison with that of other types of locomotives, was studied. Choice of Locomotives In deciding upon the type of locomotive to be used for the 5-mile haul, four alternatives were considered, as follows: I. To purchase additional storage-battery locomotives with the necessary batteries over the 6 locomotives and 12 batteries available. 2. To convert the existing battery locomotives to the trolley type. 3. To purchase new trolley locomotives. 4. To purchase Diesel locomotives. Proposition No. i The 90-hp. storage-battery locomotives the (each weighing about 12 tons), when hauling a load of 64 tons, with a drawbar pull of about 1900 lb. on a level track, developed a speed of 8 miles per hour and could make five round trips in 8 hr. with a

Jan 1, 1943

By A. H. Lindley, R. Shorr, Frazier M. Stewart, F. Crerie

The mineral industry, so important to industrial development, faces a major challenge in creating the most effective financial structure to provide funds essential for seeking, evaluating, developing, and extracting minerals. The acquisition of funds for mineral development and plant erection do not differ greatly from fund-raising in nonmineral ventures because risks are essentially comparable. High-risk exploration funds, however, are more difficult for the mineral industry to acquire. With the world's ever-increasing appetite for minerals, the internally generated cash of major oil and mining companies cannot be expected solely to maintain the world's mineral supply. The augmented costs, risks, and difficulties of exploration have been shared increasingly by the smaller independent operator and by private and public participation drilling programs within the petroleum industry over the past 30 years. Only recently has the mining industry awakened to the need for utilizing exploration and development funds derived from sources other than established mining and banking circles. Almost from its inception, the oil industry was forced to drill deep holes through overburden without the aid of a mineral "outcropping" which required geological, and in subsequent years, geophysical interpretation. The poorly financed, nontechnical prospector, who depended on a mineral outcrop, was not to play an important role in oil exploration as he did in mining. Because of the high cost of drilling and the demands for technical judgment to locate an exploration drill hole, corporate and sophisticated private funds generally financed oil discoveries. When external funds were subsequently required, these financially sophisticated explorers would turn to the banking community from which came numerous ingenious innovations, taking cognizance of existing tax laws. Like the oil explorer, the miner is now faced with probing below the surface, relying solely on regional geology and geophysical anomalies. The day is gone, for practical purposes, when the prospector discovers a deposit from a mineral outcrop. There is little doubt that the mining industry will now follow the course taken by the petroleum industry in acquiring external funds if it is to meet the future raw material requirements of the world. The oil industry has been able to attract bank funds more readily than the mining industry after a mineral discovery has been made because: (1) with few exceptions, an oil discovery can be placed into commercial production and will generate cash at much less expense and time than a mine; and (2) generally, costs of oil production, the value

Jan 1, 1976

By Fred Bond

THERE is acute need for a method that will measure the size distribution of finely di-vided materials, particularly when the par-ticle sizes are smaller than the openings of the finest screen cloth regularly available for testing. Several methods and types of apparatus are in common use, but none are entirely satisfactory for all purposes. The commonest methods are microscopic grain counts, elutriation by liquids or air, and sedimentation. Valuable results have been secured by air elutriating devices, typified by the Haultain Infra-Sizer and the Pearson Air Analyzer. These are especially useful in obtaining sized fractions that can be examined and analyzed separately. They are particularly advantageous because the sizes of the sam-ples produced are adequate for a consider-able amount of subsequent manipulation and testing. The sedimentation methods, such as the Wagner and Klein turbidimeters, and the sedimentation balance, do not deliver sized fractions, but they do provide a means for reasonably rapid comparative determina-tions of fineness and surface area, which are important in many industries. The sedimentation balance consists essen-tially of a balance pan suspended in a liquid that contains falling particles. These are weighed as they settle onto the pan, and the time rate of settling is determined. The size distribution is computed from the set-tling rate. The balance appears to be in-herently more accurate than any of the other methods, and it has served a useful purpose in the study of numerous problems, but there have been limitations which have re-stricted its scope of application. Because of the essential simplicity of the method, it was felt that intensive investiga-tion might lead to modifications that would make it a valuable tool for the operators in industries that require precise information regarding the results secured from grinding equipment. A large number of size-distribu-tion determinations below 200 mesh were required in connection with a particular research problem in fine grinding. The sedimentation balance was used, in this investigation, and a technique was gradually developed that ultimately gave good results. A serious difficulty appeared, early in the work. It was discovered that less material always settled on the sedimentation pan and more on the bottom of the containing jar than could he accounted for by calculation, and also that the material that settled to the bottom of the jar outside the edges of the pan was considerably finer than that on the pan. This segregation was so great that the dis-tribution obtained for the finer sizes was obviously very much in error; material ground to about the degree of comminution of cement might have only 60 per cent of the calculated weight actually settling on the pan, and the error increased with the fine-

Jan 1, 1939

By J. S. Kasper, R. M. Waterstrat, B. F. Decker

THE existence of v phase in the Mn-Mo system was discovered in this laboratory several years ago,' but neither the conditions of its formation nor its composition were known, and preliminary attempts to reproduce the phase were unsuccessful. We wish now to specify the information appropriate to phase formation on the basis of experiments performed since that time. The starting materials were in every case electrolytic manganese and high purity molybdenum. Two methods of preparation were employed: l—arc-melting varying combinations of the elements in an inert atmosphere and subsequent heat treating, and 2—sintering compressed mixtures of finely divided powders of the elements. In the latter method, the powders were first passed through 200 mesh screen and then compressed into cylinders of % in. diameter and % in. length, which were sintered at elevated temperatures in an atmosphere of dry hydrogen. For some samples, the sintering temperature was 1200°C (for 1 hr), and these were then heat- treated at lower temperatures for times up to 24 hr. Eventually it was found, for the proper composition, that essentially pure a phase could be produced by sintering at 1125°C for 3 hr. Quenching to room temperature was effected by means of a stream of cold, dry hydrogen in a water-cooled chamber. The arc-melting procedure was found to be unsatisfactory after an investigation of many samples at different compositions and temperatures. Large quantities of manganese were vaporized during melting and none of the products were homogeneous or contained extended regions of pure phase. Nonetheless, these experiments established that no formation occurs in the Mn-Mo system below 1115oC, and indicated, at least roughly, the composition range of interest for further exploration. The more definite results obtained from samples produced by the second method are given in Table I. A portion of sample 2 heated for 16 hr at 1000°C in a Vycor tube transformed to molybdenum plus unidentified phases of complex X-ray pattern. From these few results it appears that the region of phase is quite narrow in composition. It is of interest that the composition is such as to make for difficulties in correlating this structure on an electron atom basis with other a structures of iron, cobalt, and nickel. In that respect Mn-Mo shows the same anomaly as Mn-Cr and Mn-V systems.' A second feature is that in common with the two other known molybdenum (Fe-Mo and Co-Mo), Mn-Mo v exists only at elevated temperatures. The X-ray powder pattern of the pure a phase of Mn-Mo is given in Table 11. It agrees well with the patterns established for other structures, especially with that for Fe-Mo as given by Goldschmidt.An attempt is being made to establish whether an ordering of the respective atoms occurs and such information will be reported in a future publication. Acknowledgment The authors acknowledge gratefully the assistance of Mrs. J. R. Belanger in some portions of this work. References 'J. S. Kasper, B. F. Decker, and J. R. Belanger: Journal of Applied Physics (1951) 22, p. 361. 2 A. H. Sully: Journal Inst. Metals (1951) 80, p. 173. H. J. Goldschmidt: Research (1949) 2, p. 343.

Jan 1, 1954

By G. C. Gould

The nature of freckle segregation is determined by chemical analyses, microradiograplzy, and electron microprobe. In addition, the influence of chemistry variation on freckle formation is studied in laboratory experiments. It is demonstrated that controlled laboratory solidification can produce freckle segregation. "FRECKLE" segregation is a discontinuous, rod-like segregation observed in vacuum consumable -electrode ingots. Figs. 1 and 2 show this segregation as pencil-like, dark etching areas of segregation found in longitudinally and transversely sectioned consumable-electrode ingots. In most cases the segregation is perpendicular with respect to gravity and parallel to the longitudinal axis of the ingot. The segregation is most often encountered at or around midradius in large vacuum consumable-electrode ingots. The austenitic alloys, A-286* and 718, † have shown particular susceptibility to this mode of segregation. The origin of these rodlike pockets of segregation is not well-understood. It has been suggested that the segregation is a result of a portion of the electrode dropping off and passing through the arc un-melted. On the other hand, smeltzer1 has demonstrated the freckle segregation in A-286 to be comprised of low-melting constituents relative to the matrix melting point. The discontinuous nature of the segregation is the most perplexing facet of the freckle-segregation problem. It was to gain some insight into this part of the problem that this work was undertaken. I) PROCEDURE At the outset of the work identification of the phases present and the elements concentrated in the freckle areas was undertaken. The electron micro-probe was used to determine general enrichment as well as -specific phase chemistry. Microradiography using cobalt and chromium radiation was also used on the freckle areas again to determine the elements involved in the segregation. X-ray diffraction patterns were made from portions of these same foil specimens. Optical microscopy and Knoop hardness measurements were also used

Jan 1, 1965

By Phillip B. Bucky, Fred D. Wright

The present known petroleum reserves are limited, and unless important new fields are discovered the Nation will be dependent, in the not too distant future, upon imports or upon synthetic liquid fuels to supplement domestic petroleum supplies. As a national defense measure, it would appear desirable to develop a substitute source of liquid fuels within the borders of the country if new discoveries of petroleum should Prove disappointing. Congress undoubtedly had this in mind when it passed the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act (78th Congress, approved April 5, 1944). The act directed the Bureau of Mines to construct and operate demonstration plants for producing synthetic liquid fuels from coal and oil shale, and from forestry and agricultural products. As a part of this program, the Bureau of Mines has built a demonstration plant at Anvil Points, near Rifle, Colo., for retorting the oil shale, and has developed a mine to supply the plant with oil shale. At the beginning of mining operations, the physical qualities of the oil shale, which would have a bearing upon the selection of mining methods and practices for exploiting the deposits, were largely unknown. A comprehensive mining-research program has been set up to determine the best methods and practices to follow to obtain the lowest overall practicable mining cost for producing the oil shale on a large scale. Unusually low mining costs will be necessary for shale oil to be produced commercially. Consideration now is being given to exploiting a series of flat-lying beds 70 ft thick by a room-and-pillar method of three benches with the advance heading at the top. This report is one of a series giving the results obtained in research on mining problems, The structure and physical qualities of the oil shale indicate that the 70-ft interval of the oil-shale measure can be safely mined in open stopes; studies indicate that this method would be the most economical one to use.' As labor will be a major item of expense, the largest equipment that could be operated efficiently in the workings would be required to obtain the lowest practicable mining Cost. It Was therefore desirable to know the maximum safe span of unsupported rooms and the size of pillars necessary to support the overburden. This paper describes the work done at the Columbia School of Mines Barodynamic Laboratory in determining the maximum safe unsupported roof spans and the minimum safe pillar dimensions for the oil-shale mine at Rifle, Colo.

Jan 1, 1949

By Fred W. Stiefel

This paper covers the operation and maintenance of Diesel locomotives underground on a portion of the Delaware River Aqueduct. † This part of the tunnel is 15 miles long, with shafts 14 ft. in diameter spaced about 5 miles apart. These shafts (2, 2a and 3) are 825 ft., 1551 and 840 ft. deep, respectively. The grade of the tunnel is almost level, except for the 12,100 ft. north of shaft 2, which has a grade of 2.31 per cent. The tunnel is circular, 17 to 19 ft. in diameter. It lies at a depth of 400 ft. below sea level, with a maximum overburden of 2400 feet. The tunnel driving was carried on in six headings, using 15 storage-battery locomotives, each of 13 gross tons and having a maximum speed of 8 miles per hour. The longest haul was 3 miles, which proved to be the maximum distance for which storage-battery locomotives could be employed economically for the amount of material to be moved. One locomotive was used for switching cars at each heading, one for switching cars at the bottom of each shaft and one on the main-line haul from the heading to the shaft. The maximum amount of material hoisted in one shaft from two headings when 104 ft. of tunnel was driven in 24 hr. was 1000 cu. yd., or about 2000 tons of rock in place. The total quantity excavated was 750,000 cu. yd. (1,500,000 tons of rock). The tunnel-lining operations using concrete presented a problem of hading a maximum distance of 5 miles in the tunnel. The concrete-placing equipment had a capacity of about 2000 CU. yd., or 4000 tons in 24 hours. Experience had shown that storage-battery equipment could not handle this quantity of material within the time required at the distance of 5 miles. Trolley-locomotive haulage was considered dangerous and expensive, and would cause interference because transmission equipment would be required. Therefore the performance of Diesel locomotives of 160 hp., with a speed of 18 miles per hour, in comparison with that of other types of locomotives, was studied. Choice of Locomotives In deciding upon the type of locomotive to be used for the 5-mile haul, four alternatives were considered, as follows: I. To purchase additional storage-battery locomotives with the necessary batteries over the 6 locomotives and 12 batteries available. 2. To convert the existing battery locomotives to the trolley type. 3. To purchase new trolley locomotives. 4. To purchase Diesel locomotives. Proposition No. i The 90-hp. storage-battery locomotives the (each weighing about 12 tons), when hauling a load of 64 tons, with a drawbar pull of about 1900 lb. on a level track, developed a speed of 8 miles per hour and could make five round trips in 8 hr. with a

Jan 1, 1943

By Leonard Larson

Before direct or wet smelting of copper concentrate was adopted at the McGill smelter, in November 1932, actual furnace smelting tests had indicated the possibility of smelting between 400 and 500 dry tons of wet concentrate per furnace day. Under calcine smelting practice, solid charge up to 116; tons per furnace day had been smelted. It was realized that in order to smelt wet tonnage in equivalent amount per furnace day, a higher combustion rate and higher temperatures would be necessary within the furnace. The reverberatory furnace considered in the following history of wet-smelting developments is a unit rz7 ft. long and 28 ft. 8 in. wide, inside dimensions (Fig. I). This furnace was in operation through all the years from 1934 to date. During 1933, the first complete year of direct or wet smelting, the plant was on a curtailed copper-production basis and the available concentrate tonnage to be smelted was limited. The average coal-firing rate in the reverberatory for that year was 124 tons per furnace day. This rate was lower than the average for years immediately preceding under calcine smelting practice. With this coal-firing rate, an average of 391 tons of new metal-bearing material (N.M.B.M.) was smelted per furnace day. The following year, 1934, the coal-firing rate was increased to 139 tons and the smelting rate increased to 448 tons N.M.B.M. per fur- nace day. In succeeding years production required that either more tonnage be smelted in the one furnace or an additional furnace be placed in operation. With this situation confronting the smelting department, it was determined to continue the program of increasing the coal-firing rate and also to intensify the temperature in the smelting zone of the furnace. In order to accoinplish this, various improvements were made to aid combustion within the furnace. The burners were enlarged, increased primary air was supplied to the burners, and changes were made in the furnace to enlarge and streamline the outlet, thus increasing the furnace draft. The coal-firing rate was increased yearly until 1937 when the firing rate averaged 210 tons per furnace day. Thereafter the firing rate fluctuated according to character of charge and production requirements. In general, however, with the same character of charge the smelting rate increased in almost direct proportion to the increases in firing rate. Table I shows the average coal-firing rate, smelting rate, and other pertinent data for the direct-smelting years of 1933 to 1939 inclusive, the first fivc months of 1940 and May 1940. These figures show that the water evaporated in the waste-heat boilers was in almost direct proportion to the coal-firing rate. In making comparisons in the table, it should be borne in mind that the figures, except for May 1940, are yearly averages. Because of changes in character of charge or operating conditions, records for individual days or even months

Jan 1, 1944

By C. P. Walker

Determining the distance to remote objects by observing the time required for sound to traverse the intervening space is an old practice. Attempts have been made to use this method for determining the fluid level in oil wells but as far as the writer is aware it was not found to be practicable, because vibrations in gas in the audible frequency range do not travel as well and as far as low-frequency pressure waves, which are capable of transmitting a greater amount of energy than can be transmitted by audible waves. Wood, in his book "Sound," states that in a given medium the range of sound transmission will vary inversely as the square of the frequency. The fact that the sound from a whistle having a low tone has a much lower attenuation rate than that from a whistle of high pitch is well known. Also, the pressure waves caused by cannon fire often rattle windows at points so distant that no sound of the cannon is heard. In 1932 P. E. Lehr and H. T. Wyatt, of the Shell Oil Co., experimented with the principle of the concussion, or pressure-wave echo, method of determining fluid levels in oil wells. They released compressed gas into the top of the casing, thereby creating a pressure wave, which traveled down the well and back again. Their experiments proved conclusively that, with the proper apparatus for recording the echoes and determining the velocities at which the waves travel, the method could be used successfully for determining fluid levels in oil wells. Wells are often equipped with from one to three tubing catchers and these together with the top of the liner are frequently above the fluid. Each of these obstructions reflects a part of the pressure wave. In such wells there may be, therefore, as many as five pressure-wave reflections. Thus it is obvious that in order to identify the various reflections and to determine therefrom the fluid level in a well it is necessary to obtain a graphic record of these reflections.

Jan 1, 1937

By Julian Szekely

Through the simultaneous statement of Maxwell's equations. the turbulent Navier-Stokes equations and the differential thermal energy balance equation, a mathematical representation has been developed for heat transfer and fluid flow in electric arc furnaces. In broad outline the theoretical predictions appear to be consistent with experimental measurements. A discussion is presented of the general arc furnace control and optimization problem, together with the potential for the incorporation of the mathematical model given in the paper, into future control and optimization schemes. ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE STEELMAKING accounts for about 24% of the total steel produced in the U.S., consuming about 550kw-hr/ton of steel which amounts to about 1.4x1010 kw-hr annually. The percentage of steel produced by the electric arc furnace route has doubled since 1960 and is expected to increase further in the foreseeable future, particularly with the more extensive use of direct reduction technology. Table I shows, in terms of percentages, the principal items that contribute to the cost of running an electric arc furnace. It is seen that in addition to the fixed costs (labor, depreciation, taxes etc.) electrode costs and power consumption are the dominant inputs, and it follows that process changes that would ultimately reduce any of these cost components would have a significant impact on the efficiency of the operation. There are three main areas where progress in arc furnace design and operation must be directed in the next decade (Committee on Technology, 1981). 1. Increased furnace productivity 2. Reduction in processing cost 3. Improvement in the thermal efficiency of the furnace An estimate of the current operating efficiency of the electric arc furnaces may be obtained by comparing the theoretical minimum energy consumption per ton of steel with those achieved in operational practice. Theoretically 330-360 kw-hrs of electricity are required to melt one ton of cold scrap. For superheating, 8-12 kWh per 100°F are required. The actual energy requirements are given in Table II. It is seen that furnaces currently operate at 70-80% efficiency, with the major heat loss from the furnace resulting from the waste gases (Committee on Technology, 1981). While it is apparent that operational experience has produced a technology that is reasonably energy efficient this has been achieved in the almost complete absence of any detailed knowledge concerning the fundamental heat transfer mechanisms occuring in the furnace. The purpose of the present paper is to present a case for the usefulness of mathematical models in increasing the thermal efficiency of furnaces by investigating these heat transfer mechanisms and then combining this knowledge with existing electrode regulator mechanisms to produce truly efficient power cycles for melting and refining. In particular, existing mathematical models describing convection, radiation, and electro-magnetism in the furnace should be employed, and the development of optimization models which balance the cost of electrodes and energy against the thermal efficience of the furnace should be undertaken. Recent work in this laboratory (Szekely, McKelliget, 1981, 1982, 1983; Szekely, McKelliget, Choudhary, 1983) has made a useful start towards solving the problem of heat transfer within the electric arc furnace but the work still needs to be directly related to existing furnace power cycles and tested against plant scale measurements.

Jan 1, 1984

By C. M. Schwartz, J. R. Bridge, D. A. Vaughan

THERMAL expansion coefficients of a uranium were originally reported' on the basis of X-ray diffraction measurement of lattice constants at 25°, 300°, and 650°C. These data have been reproduced by Katz and Rabinowitch.' CuK radiation had been used in this work, with consequent crowding of the patterns. Considerable overlap of the back-reflection lines was observed as the temperature was raised. Subsequent reexamination of the data led to the conclusion that errors had resulted from failure to obtain unequivocal indexing of the high angle reflections at elevated temperatures. The measurements have been repeated, using FeK radiation, which provided sufficient dispersion to assure proper indexing of the reflections, at each temperature level. The unit cell dimensions were re-determined at ten temperatures, from 25" to 650°C. Schuch and Laquer easured the macroscopic contraction from room temperature down to —253°C, and reported a negative value from —210" to —253°C; they suggested the possibility of the occurrence of a phase change. In the present work, the lattice constants of uranium have been measured down to —253°C, to test this hypothesis. Filings were prepared from a single piece of pure uranium bar stock. They were carefully cleaned with a magnet and pickled in nitric acid to remove traces of iron from the file. They were then annealed at 600°C in a sealed evacuated silica tube. The annealed filings were pickled in strong nitric acid to remove any oxide layer, washed in water and alcohol, quickly dried, and sealed in evacuated thin-walled silica capillary tubes. If properly sealed, the sample could be heated to the a-ß transforination temperature without significant buildup of the diffraction pattern of oxide. The high temperature X-ray diffraction camera was modified from the design of Hume-Rothery and Reynolds.' The thermocouple used to record the specimen temperature was calibrated from lattice-constant measurements of a standard silver specimen, using the Hume-Rothery and Reynolds values for silver over the temperature range from 25" to 700°C. Temperatures were reproducible to 210°C. Temperatures to —210°C were attained by passing precooled gas over the sample. The gas from the cooling train was directed over the sample capillary tube and thermocouple by means of a chimney of 1-mil polystyrene. The 36-gage Cu-constantan thermocouple had been calibrated by

Jan 1, 1957

By E. C. Wright

THE following article is based on observation of college graduates entering the steel industry in technical work made during the past 25 years, the first five of which were spent as a college instructor in two engineering schools, and the last 20 in the employ of a large steel company that has hired hundreds of engineering graduates for steel-mill operations. The college graduates encountered during this period have come from many, colleges representing schools in Eastern States, Midwestern Universities, many Southern colleges, and many smaller colleges and normal training schools mostly in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. The college training of these students for engineering work naturally has varied widely and the educational qualifications of the entrants have been in many ways different. It was found at an early date that graduates of standard engineering colleges were much more adaptable than graduates in science from nontechnical schools. The engineering students seemed to be more suited to actual work in steel' plants and in general were better able to grasp a knowledge of the operations they observed. However, although the graduates of engineering schools have had somewhat better training -in physics, mathematics, and engineering, it has been a general and continual observation that most of the students employed have had inadequate training in the fundamental sciences. Since this discussion relates entirely to metallurgical engineers, it should be emphasized that students taking metallurgical engineering courses in college seem to be poorly trained in organic chemistry, physics, physical chemistry, thermodynamics, and any higher form of mathematics than simple calculus. It has been noted frequently that young engineers faced with problems in a mill that involve some mathematics generally flounder badly, and that they have little conception of physical chemistry. Another common deficiency lies in the young graduate's lack of knowledge of where to look for the more detailed literature on any subject. He reverts instinctively to some college textbook whose coverage is usually very elementary. It is recommended that such textbooks contain a bibliography of the source literature, and that students be taught to use theoriginal data. Many of the students had had previous courses in college dealing with metallurgical work such as steel melting, metallography, etc., but it was found that their grasp of these subjects was extremely sketchy. It was soon realized that an ordinary engineering graduate could be taught more about steel melting and manufacturing processes in a, few weeks in a. plant than he could learn in a college course on such subjects. A similar statement may be made regarding the ability of students to conduct laboratory work. Their lack of technique and skill in handling equipment and setting up experiments was soon apparent. It became neces-

Jan 1, 1946