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By Thomas W. Healy

Particles present in mineral processing systems that are termed ultrafine are those that are small enough to be unaffected by gravity or the flow conditions imposed on the pulp. As such, their interaction with one another and with other larger particles are controlled by specific attractive and repulsive colloidal or surface interactions. Electrostatic repulsion between ultrafines is dominated by surface potential, double layer thickness and specific adsorption potential effects - controlled by pH, salt and complexing ion concentrations. Attraction due to van der Waals interactions must be assessed in terms of bulk and surface coating effects and of particle size and shape. The net effect of attraction and repulsion must finally be related to the average kinetic energy of particles in the real system.

Jan 1, 1979

The plant, animal, and mineral arts and sciences are interrelated, interdependent, equally distinctive subject-matter fields. The artificial, erroneous, and popular idea that minerals occur in great storehouses in nature's treasure room to be removed at will at fabulous profits is about as correct as the assumption that the farmer's life is one of ease in which the crops spring miraculously from the ground. However, both of these fundament-a1 industries, mining and agriculture, have much in common. The extraction of minerals from the ground and the extraction of plants from the soil for immediate use, or conversion to meat, are fundamental activities and subject to many common economic laws. In other words, in many important basic concepts there is little difference between surface and subsurface crops. The farmer owner working the surface of the earth and the owner of a fraction of the oil or coal rights in the subsurface, from which a small yearly income is derived, are interested in the best management of the land for the mutual benefit of all concerned. Therefore, it is essential that in any planning or political action intended to create a new scheme of things, it should be remembered that one plan must fit all sources of primary wealth, whether coal or wheat, petroleum or milk, iron ore or beef.1 And what basic economic difference is there in the processing of a gallon of petroleum and a bushel of corn?

Jan 1, 1950

By Esteban Domic, Eugene O. Brimm

The Lo Aguirre ore deposit of Sociedad Minera Pudahuel is expected to have a life of 12 years, producing 16,500 mt per year of copper cathodes. The total copper content of the ore ranges from 2% in acid-soluble form to 2% as sulfides. Sociedad Minera Pudahuel chose TL leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning as the processing steps to give low investment and operating costs. Design and operating criteria of the TL leach plant have been obtained in an experimental program carried out since 1974. Bench scale tests indicated that 90% of the oxidic copper and 35% of the sulfidic copper could be extracted to give 5 gpl copper by treating crushed ore with acid, curing, and rinsing in a column with a dilute acid solution containing ferric sulfate which is requllred to solubilize the sulfides. These results were verified in a pilot plant which combined leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning. Raffinate was recycled to the leaching circuit after oxidation to regenerate ferric ion. Refinements in the processing have resulted in significant improvements in extraction to give 95% to 98% recovery of the oxidic copper and 55% and 60% of the sulfidic copper. The plant is expected to give this degree of recovery. As a consequence, the original plan to include a concentrator in the plant has been abandoned.

Jan 1, 1980

One of the results of the work of the Committee on Precious and Base Metals is that the present Bulletin is as large as some of. the annual volumes of Transactions of the Institute, and we extend our. compliments and thanks to the Committee and express to the members thereof and to. the authors, who have so bounteously given of their time and information, the. sincere gratitude of the Institute. In order to get all these papers printed and distributed to the membership in advance of the meeting, it was necessary to divide the work between two printers. This accounts for the discrepancy in the pagination of the Bulletin; and we also ask the indulgence of our readers in case errors have crept into this preliminary edition during the period of unusual pressure. Program of the Butte Meeting.-The program of the Butte meeting will include six technical sessions for the presentation and discussion of papers and five half-clay visits to mines and metallurgical works. The following program is practically in final form, with slight additions which may be necessary later. Every effort will be made to have papers presented and discussed on scheduled time, so that members who are unable to attend the entire meeting may so plan their trip as to hear and discuss papers in which they are especially interested.

Jan 8, 1913

Attention! Engineers! Geologists! Here is your Opportunity to be of Professional Service The war has interrupted the supply of many minerals, which were normally imported. In view of present transportation conditions, a serious shortage exists in certain materials and will soon develop in others. Some immediate action is imperative. The first thing is to take a careful inventory of American resources. We must know where the ore deposits are, what has hitherto hindered their utilization, what methods must be used, and what equipment will be needed if an emergency demands their rapid development. Many properties must be re-examined from a new point of view, that of present necessity rather than of normal profit. When the shortage is realized, the preliminary steps for relief should have been completed. It is a necessary and patriotic form of mineral insurance. Will you have a part in it? Do not forget that these are war times, and that what may have been valueless a year ago may be a "life-saver" now; an abandoned copper prospect of 1913 might make a successful pyrite mine in 1917. We are fighting an autocratic enemy who knows his resources to the last pound, and uses them with most efficient organization. We have no Kaiser, so each of us must do his share to put our Government in the same situation. The Government needs your facts.

Jan 8, 1917

By J. T. Burwell

THE crystal orientation in silicon iron that has been given a particular treatment described by Goss,1 has been studied by Goss, by Bozorth2 and by Sixtus,3 but their results do not agree and are almost entirely qualita-tive. The following pages give a description of the orientation of the crystals in the material as determined by means of X-rays and expressed graphically in a pole figure. The treatment consists of hot-rolling the material into strip and then giving it two cycles of cold reduction followed by recrystallization. This produces remarkably good properties in the rolling direction, the product having a maximum permeability in this direction of more than 25,000 and a permeability at 16,000 Gauss of more than 2200, It is now generally agreed that Goss's original conclusion' that the crystals in the final product are randomly oriented was incorrect, since Bozorth2 and Sixtus,3 using different methods, have shown that there is a decided preference in orientation. Those writers, however, expressed their results only in terms of one or more ideal orientations with deviations therefrom.

Jan 1, 1940

By F. W. Bradley

This chapter on the Alaska Juneau mill is intended to make clear that "choice of methods," or the selection of proper methods, is the first essential step in launching a new enterprise; and to illustrate that when entering into new country where local conditions and physical features are new or strange to an engineer, he should respect the practices already adopted and followed in meeting peculiar conditions in these new countries that may seem strange to a casual visitor. For example, Americans going into Malay Peninsula with their most up-to-date machinery for drilling placer prospect holes found their cost to total about $3 per foot; by adopting native methods, it was found the same work could be done for 50 cents per foot. Also, those not used to frozen road conditions in a country of arctic climate might scrape the snow off such a road and cause unending road troubles into the following spring and summer; while natives understanding local conditions would leave the snow on the road. So in the neighborhood of Juneau, Alaska, where successful gold-milling operations had been going on for

Jan 1, 1932

By S. K. Kawatra, R. A. Seitz

Various mathematical models and expressions to describe the behavior of a hydrocyclone have been presented in the literature (Lynch and Rao, 1977; Plitt, 1976; Plitt and Kawatra, 1977). Two of these models, by Lynch (1977) and by Plitt (1976), have been extensively used for process control studies (Kawatra and Thayer, 1879; Seitz and Kawatra, 1984). However, neither of these models relates the fineness of grind in a hydrocyclone overflow to the corrected efficiency curve of a hydrocyclone. If such a relationship were available, then one could relate fineness of grind to the operating variables using equation (1) or (2). A plant metallurgist is interested in knowing the fineness of grind rather than the dso(c) of a hydro- cyclone. As a consequence, several empirical relation- ships between fineness of grind and hydrocyclone operating variables are available. These relationships (Fewings, Wickham, and Wiseman, 1979; Manning, 1978; Watson, Cropton, and Brookes, 1970; Watts, Thompson, and White, 1978; Wiegal, 1973) have only a limited relationship with each other and have met with varying degrees of success. The object of this paper is to develop a fundamental relationship between fineness of grind and the efficiency curve of a hydro- cyclone

Jan 1, 1986

Where Does the Mine Dollar Go? BY PAUL M TYLER (Min & Met, April, 183 3900 words) Wage earners on the job get nearly 50 per cent of the mine dollar; salaries normally take over 5 per cent (less for large metal mines); and less than 20 per cent is expended for supplies, materials, fuel, and power The total of all such specified expenditures, which may be loosely described as "direct costs," has tended over several decades to decline from over 75 per cent to under 70 per cent of the gross receipts from the sale of products of mines and quarries The item of supplies and material is far less important in the extractive industries (mines, forests, and fisheries) than in manufacturing For manufactured products the average cost of raw materials was 30 4 per cent of gross sales, almost double the proportion for the mineral industries, whereas factory wages and salaries accounted for only 33 2 per cent instead of 51 9 per cent Within reasonable limits, the margin above direct costs as herein calculated affords a measure of capital's share in the total realized from sales A preponderant group of mineral industries operate under conditions that permit or require a margin of 25 to 45 per cent At one end of the scale are highly organized industries such as sulfur, fuller's earth and iron ore mining employing much

Jan 1, 1935

By B. C. Scott, A. Baker

The Pitch mine of Pinnacle Exploration, Inc. is in the Marshall Pass district, thirty miles east of Gunnison, Colorado. This is a new mining district, having come into existence as recently as 1955, when uranium mineralization was discovered rather late in the days of the uranium boom. There have been three other mines in the district, all of them now inactive. Two of these produced a few hundred tons of very high-grade uranium ore, and the third, Pinnacle's Little Indian 36 mine, produced a few thou- sand tons of lower grade ore. Pinnacle was one of the first companies in the district, and was able to acquire a large acreage. The first two years of exploration were essentially wasted in looking for Plateau-type deposits in a mineralized sandstone bed, but this "wasted" work produced two specific items that paid off. One was an ore-grade outcrop that ultimately became the Little Indian 36 mine, and the other was a boulder of very high-grade uranium ore that eventually led to the discovery of the Pitch mine; however, the actual source of the boulder still has not been found.

Jan 5, 1961

By Paul H. Lu

This report by the Bureau of Mines, U.S. Department of the Interior, presents several practical and inexpensive types of rock mechanics instrumentation for ground control around longwall panels. Application of these critical parameters, determined by this instrumentation, to the design and modification of rational longwall-mining systems is also discussed. In order to design or select an optimum mine structure or system, realistic and precise values of the design parameters must be determined in operating mines by measuring (1) existing ground stresses, (2) mining induced load transfer, and (3) strata movements as well as deformation moduli and rock strengths. Based on these parameters, rational and realistic criteria for mine design can be established by conducting case studies. It was found that several basic design parameters can be easily measured or determined in situ with simple, inexpensive, and practical instruments such as hydraulic borehole pressure cells, automatic recording convergence meters, automatic recording multiple-anchor-point extensometers, and hydraulic pressure recorders.

Jan 1, 1982

By Thomas A. Lang, John A. Bischoff

The use of rock bolts for the support and stabilization of coal mining excavations was introduced over 30 years ago and, since that time, has progressively increased until today it is the primary means of support and stabilization of large underground openings. Early analytical studies and work with photoelastic and physical models established that even highly fragmented rock could be stabilized by rock bolting and form a load-carrying structural member that would span an opening. For stability, interaction of the bolts is essential and it depends on the bolt tension, the length and spacing of the bolts, the characteristics of the rock, and the applied load. However, the development of an explicit functional relationship embracing all these factors proved to be elusive. A review of the early rock bolting investigations led to the concept that the basic element of a rock bolted roof is the reinforced rock unit (RRU), consisting of an individual bolt and the rock immediately surrounding and adjacent to it, and to the development of mathematical equations which give the minimum bolt tension required to ensure that the RRU's are stable relative to one another and act together as a structural member. Analytical procedures have been developed for integrating RRU's into a reinforced rock structural (beam-arch) member which spans an underground opening and providing a rational basis for the design and installation of rock reinforcement systems.

Jan 1, 1982

By J. E. Burke

THE origin of recrystallization textures continues to be a matter of controversy. One explanation is that a recrystallization texture occurs because only grains having a limited range of orientations ever appear in the deformed matrix—the oriented nuclea-tion* hypothesis. Another explanation is that grains essentially having all orientations are nucleated but that those having certain orientations grow much more rapidly than any others in the deformation texture, and thus only the rapidly growing grains survive when recrystallization is complete. There has recently appeared a great deal of evidence'- indicate that recrystallized grains of face-centered cubic metals are frequently related to their parent grains by rotations of 20" to 40" about a common [lll] direction. Furthermore, it has been observed that the growth rate of the new grains depends upon their orientations with respect to the matrix, and that the most rapidly growing grains lie within the stated range of orientations. In a recent note, Beck7 has concluded from observations of this type that oriented growth alone is responsible for the appearance of preferred orientations in re-crystallized metals. It should be pointed out. however, that many of the available data indicate that oriented nucleation operates in addition to oriented growth. Thus, while oriented growth may permit a selection to be made among nuclei of several orientations, only a limited number of orientations are available in the first place for such selection.

Jan 1, 1953

PUGET SOUND SECTION SIMON H. ASH, Chairman, I. F. LAUCKS, Vice Chairman, CHARLES SIMENSTAD, Sec.-Treas., 425 Lyon Building, Seattle, Wash. GLENVILLE A. COLLINS, JOHN N. POTT. The Puget Sound Section met at the Arctic Club, Seattle, Wash., on Jan. 20, 1917. Sixteen members and five guests were present. Dinner having been served, the meeting was called to order. A letter from secretary of Associated Engineering Societies was read, requesting payment of this section's assessment to the quarterly budget, and upon motion it was voted that the Secretary-Treasurer be instructed to pay this assessment. It was moved and carried that this section join with the Chemical Society in a meeting. At the, close of the business meeting, Mr. Asa C. Baldwin gave an illustrated lecture on the "Alaska Boundary Survey." On Feb. 24, the Puget Sound Section again held a meeting at the Arctic Club, 16 members and three guests being present. Chester F. Lee, as member of a committee representing this section in the joint council of the Associated Engineering Societies, reported that by lots it had been decided that the term of service of said committee would be as follows: Chester F. Lee, two years; George. Watkin Evans, one year. Following adjournment of the business meeting, Prof. Joseph Daniels, of the University of Washington, delivered a very interesting lecture on "Milling Practice of The Alaska-Castineau Mining Company." CHAS. SIMENSTAD, Secretary.

Jan 5, 1917

By Edward A. Vitunac

The emerging importance of pneumatic conveying systems for bulk materials is largely due to the economic advantages such systems frequently exhibit when compared to alternate methods. Included in these advantages are relative simplicity, ease of installation, flexibility, ease of maintenance, cleanliness, safety and ease of automation to the degree desired. In general, installed costs favor a pneumatic system when compared to competing mechanical systems if the transporting distances are long or to and from many points. In addition, supplemental use such as cooling, heating, or drying may supply the incremental value required to justify its selection.1 The main disadvantages of a pneumatic system are the greater horsepower required per unit weight of material conveyed, material limits in abrasiveness, and density. In addition, material breakage tends to increase at changes of direction and at any obstruction such as that caused by the imperfect butting of two pipe sections in the conveying line. Classification of the material at the discharge may also cause problems in dusting and segregation. Materials weighing less than 4 lb per cu ft tend to cause feeding and collecting problems although they can be conveyed easily. Material between 4 lb and 20 lb per cu ft can be handled with fewer problems, but flow rate is hard to predict. The 20-60 lb per cu ft range offers best results, whereas materials of over 60 Ib per cu ft tend to drop out of the air stream and settle in the pipeline unless careful pro- visions are made to prevent this.2

Jan 5, 1968

BLAMEY STEVENS, Nogales, Ariz. (written discussion *).-This subject should be approached boldly from the purely physical standpoint. There are usually many known ways of making chemical deposits of any particular mineral and probably many more ways that are still unknown. With-physical-effects; .however, there-are, in-general, only one or two, or possibly three, ways that will pass muster before the physicist, when he realizes the geological conditions to be harmonized with the physical ones. Let us consider the second way that Mr. Taber describes: "It (the mineral matter transported in solution) may enter along a fracture, bedding plane, or similar passage, and, as it is deposited, force the wall rock apart, thus making room, for the growing vein," because it is the one Mr. Taber chooses for the great bulk of metalliferous veins. By "forcing the wall rock apart" Mr. Taber indicates that he means that the process of crystallization or-solidification of the mineral in the vein forces the walls apart. To prove this, he offers a great variety of geological evidence, which, from the physical standpoint, is entirely superficial. From the geological standpoint the evidence is the best to be had, but it is entirely negative and one single grain of really positive evidence will entirely offset it. Suppose it be granted that there is a considerable force of crystallization. It is well known among physicists that, other circumstances being equal, the crystal would rather form where it does not have to exert that pressure; or, to be more exact, where it is not necessary for the crystal to

Jan 12, 1918

By S. W. Parr

THE low-temperature carbonization of coal involves the carrying out of the coking process under conditions wherein neither the coal mass nor any of the passageways through which the volatile products pass are heated above 700° or 800° C. For convenience in this discussion, the single number 750° will be used to designate the maximum range. This temperature is not selected arbitrarily; it is the result of certain natural conditions that are inherent in the substances involved. Two of these conditions arc sufficiently pronounced to suggest a line of demarcation at this point as follows: (1) Below 750°, all the heavy hydrocarbons are expelled, which means that, at these lower temperatures, the illuminants, the gases of high calorific value, and the condensible oils are discharged; above 750°, there are given off the lean, non-illuminating gases consisting for the most part of hydrogen and marsh gas and having no condensible constituents present. (2) Below 750°, there is substantially no secondary decomposition; above 750°, the volatile products are readily decomposed, forming tars, naphthalene, free carbon, etc. It is not intended to maintain that no secondary decompositions occur below 750°. Many recent studies have demonstrated the practicability, especially in the presence of catalytic substances, of cracking certain of the hydrocarbon compounds; but at these lower temperatures the step is a moderate one, as, for example, from xylene to toluene or from toluene to an anthracene. These changes are moderate in amount. Not only do the reactions proceed slowly but they are subjected to the decomposing conditions for only a short time. This is evident when it is recalled that at these initial temperatures the decomposition, of the coal is very rapid and, if anywhere near a neutral pressure is maintained, the movement

Jan 2, 1920

By Henry Souther

It is generally admitted that a god, practical and commercial set of specifications for the use of the many purchasers of cast-iron does not exist. A few good sets are in the hands of large buyers, but even these are very different, contradictory, and not intended to cover a wide range of product. Furthermore, most of them have been prepared to cover but one branch of the industry. It is strange that purchasers of cast-iron have not looked into this question long ago and demanded good, uniform cast-irou. Probably cast-iron has been discarded from many uses because of its failure in a few instances, even though the failure was due to ignorance of the quality of the iron, or perhaps to abnormally bad iron. Some foundrymen seem to consider all gray iron from a given foundry as uniform, especially if they know that it has been made from certain well-known brands of pig. It is likely that with standard specifications and the increase of knowledge necessary for their intelligent employ-

Jan 1, 1905

By T. M. Morris

R. T. Hukki (Finland Institute of Technology, Helsinki, Finland)—Two schools of thought are developing concerning the order of the rate of flotation. The paper by Morris is intended to show experimental evidence in favor of the first order rate. Arbiter, on the other hand, has presented an earlier paper" to demonstrate the validity of the second order rate equation. Unfortunately his method of plotting is open to criticism, as pointed out by Morris." A more sensitive method of plotting has been described by the writer,= whereby the data presented by Arbiter demonstrate the superiority of the second order plot. The general rate equation may be written in the following forms for the integrated first and second order equations: (A) t = -1/k In Co-R/Co (first order) [4] 1 (B) 1/t = - kCo + kCo2 1/R (second order) As a first approximation the value of Co may be taken as a unity, 100 pct or 1. Whether or not this is the case in all tests performed by Morris is impossible to judge, owing to the fact that the flotation times are extremely short, e.g. 150 sec in tests A. It would, indeed, be very interesting to know what the total recovery R would be after 1 hr of flotation, for example, instead of after 150 sec. Certainly there are circumstances when C, approaches unity within a very small margin of error. Morris has used the same approximation in his example D "since the feed to this cleaner

Jan 1, 1954

The Library of the above-named Societies is open from 9 A.M. to 10 P.M. on all week-days, except holidays, from Sept. 1 to June 30, and from 9.A.M. to 6 P.M. during July and August. The Library contains about 55,000 volumes, including sets of technical periodicals and the publications of scientific and technical societies. Members of the Institute, with few exceptions, are forced to spend a portion of their time in localities isolated from sources of information. To these the Library can render valuable service through correspondence; letters requesting information will receive special attention. The Library is prepared to furnish references and copies of articles on mining and metallurgical subjects; to determine the existence of mining maps, and to furnish general information as to the geology and mineral resources of all countries. All communications should be made as definite as possible so that the information received may be what is desired and not include collateral matter which may not be of interest. The time spent in searching for such collateral matter will be saved, and the information will be sent more promptly and in more usable shape. The members of the Institute can be of service to the Library by forwarding copies of mining reports, maps privately issued, and similar material, which will be classified, indexed, and made available to other members. Suggestions for additions to the Library, either by purchase or personal solicitation as gifts, will be welcomed. It is hoped that members while in the city will use the Library freely, and assurance is given that most careful service will be rendered to them.

Jan 4, 1916