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By Richard J. Mainiero

The Bureau of Mines conducted research to evaluate the optimum design for a rock-breaking explosive charge that could be fired unconfined in a gassy or dusty coal mine without the danger of igniting the flammable atmosphere. Charges of various shapes, with and without cavities, were tested in a gallery using 3-by 3-by l-ft concrete blocks as simulated boulders. For these tests the optimum charge, in terms of cost, weight, and convenience in handling, consisted of a flat l-1/2-lb charge of permissible explosive seven-eighths of an inch thick and 7 in in diameter encased in a l/2-in thick layer of fine salt (NaCI). This work demonstrated that it should be possible to produce an inexpensive explosive rock-breaker charge that would be safe to use in underground coal mines.

Jan 1, 1982

By Peter M. DiGiacomo

In situ leaching technology requires information about how injected fluids flow in the rock in relation to the localization of the valuable minerals to be leached. In oxidative leaching of sulfide copper ores, flow channels can be determined by the observation of residual iron oxides. In contrast oxide copper ores do not leave a detectable residue after leaching. Method is developed that allows a selective labeling of the leach residue with fluorescent compounds. The fluorescent zones can be detected in corings after the leaching operation.

Jan 1, 1981

By Sidney Katell

Covering the period from January 1961 through December 1961, this report is a continuation of the series that began with the publication of Information Circular 7516 in October 1949. It is also the third report in the series to be prepared as a cooperative effort by the Bureau of Mines and the American Association of Cost Engineers. The cooperative agreement between the two groups provides for the publication of an annual cost bibliography with the work load involved in the preparation shared equally. The abstracted articles, concerned with all facets of cost engineering in the field of chemical and petroleum plants and related facilities, came from the following sources: 1. A.A.C.E. Bulletin. 2. Bureau of Mines Information Circulars. 3. Bureau of Mines Reports of Investigation. 4. Chemical Engineering. 5. Chemical Engineering Progress. 6. Chemical Week. 7. Coal Age. 8. Coal Utilization. 9. Cost Engineering. 10. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 11. Nucleonics 12. Oil and Gas Journal. 13. Petroleum Engineer for Management. 14. Petroleum Refiner. 15. World Oil.

Jan 1, 1962

By N. Moony

The benefit of gravity separation in improving total gold recovery in grinding circuits has been outlined in a significant number of papers to date. However, the use of batch centrifugal concentrators (BCC) as an industry standard to extract gold has limited the potential for maximizing gravity recoveries -particularly in coarse gold deposits. This is a reflection of the high upgrade ratios obtained by BCC's which has an inverse relationship with recoveries. Survey work in Australia has indicated that installation of the InLine Pressure Jig as an alternative to the Bee will significantly increase recoveries of gold by gravity and, accordingly, increase total gold recoveries and lower operating costs.

Jan 1, 1998

By Frustino L. Prado

For more than a century, the AAC (ammonia I ammonium carbonate) process has been applied to the recovery of various metals. A variation of it, the Caron Process was first used in the early 1940's in Cuba for the extraction and recovery of nickel from laterites. The original Nicaro plant has been in continuous operation since then. Years later the Caron process was used again in Australia at the Greenvale (Yabulu) NickelICobalt plant, commissioned in 1974. Other projects (Sered, Niquelandia, Nonoc, Punta Gorda, Albania) as well as several studies have been carried out. The Caron Process is alive and still promising. Members of our organization have been working with AAC and the Caron Process since 1952. This paper will review current approaches and potential improvements (enhancement of recoveries of Ni and Co, reduced energy consumption and maintenance simplification). Keywords: Caron Process, Ammonia, Ammonium Carbonate, Laterites, Nickel, Cobalt

Jan 1, 2004

By J. R. Dyni

Colorado nahcolite deposits, estimated at 29 billion metric tons, formed in an asp metric permanent-lake basin whose waters were rich in algae and sulfate-reducing bacteria. Nahcolite (NaHCOg) occurs in oil shale of the Green River Formation (Eocene) as aggregates (62 percent), disseminated crystals (24 percent), and impure beds (14 percent). Because much of the nahcolite is nonbedded, it will be mined with oil shale and can be concentrated to marketable grade by crushing and screening Impurities in nahcolite are kerogen, quartz, pyrite, and carbonate minerals. A promising new market for nahcolite is in the process of removal of sulfur dioxide from industrial stack gases. When heated, nahcolite reacts with sulfur dioxide to form sodium sulfate. Differences in thermally induced microporosity may explain why nahcolite is more reactive than trona, a possible competitor with nahcolite for SO2 removal. Limited production of nahcolite at one or possibly two localities is expected in the next several years, but large-scale production is probably at least 10 years away.

Jan 1, 1980

By Bieniawski, Z. T.

The importance of understanding the phenomena associated with rock fracture has long been fully appreciated in rock mechanics. This is clearly apparent from the special attention paid to rock fracture in the comprehensive papers published within the past four years. These papers present a picture of how the knowledge of brittle fracture of rock was gradually enriched and also show that what was often taken for granted three or four years ago is no longer considered as valid today.

Jan 1, 1972

The 3.5 million tones per annum Enterprise mine is the newest underground copper mine at Mount Isa in northern Australia. At a depth of up to 2000 metres, it is the hottest and deepest mine in Australia. In situ rock temperatures sometimes exceed 60¦C requiring the installation of substantial amount of refrigeration to provide safe working conditions for mine workers. The latest refrigeration project at the mine, R67, required the design and installation of the worldÆs largest bulk air cooler and AustraliaÆs largest chilled water plant. The plant is mounted on the surface of the mine and provides 25 MW of refrigeration to cool some 580 kg/sec of ambient air to 11.4¦C. This is equivalent to the production of 6300 tonnes of ice per day. The plant was designed for high availability, as any downtime would result in substantial production losses to MIM, and also had the potential to quickly result in unsafe levels of heat stress within the underground workplaces. The bulk air cooler has been designed for a capacity of 34 MW(R), the expected ultimate carrying capacity of the 7 m vertical intake shaft. Being located well inside the tropics, technical issues such as control of thermal pulldown required special consideration. Also, the bulk air cooler had to be designed to handle whatever demand for fresh air was imposed by the mine below, with over 100 per cent variations in airflow expected, and without loss of thermal efficiency. A substantial program of risk assessment and HAZOP studies was used to protect underground miners from leaks of ammonia into the air or water circuits. Fully automatic control systems result in a totally unmanned plant that is supervised remotely. To improve efficiency, the plant is controlled by the outlet air temperature from the bulk air cooler û the first in the world to be controlled in this fashion. Engineering solutions to address environmental considerations were incorporated at the design stage through features such as the use of ammonia (a greenhouse-friendly gas) as the refrigerant, zero atmospheric discharge and a wastewater collection and re-use system.

Jan 1, 2002

By G. Hakes

A data bank on bolter technology was assembled which included state-of-the-art industrial equipment as well as new equipment currently under development for the U.S. Bureau of Mines. This information was augmented by field visits to selected USBM contractors, mine operators and others for the purpose of obtaining a thorough understanding of present coal mine roof bolting safety and productivity problems. These direct contacts provided valuable insight regarding requirements for new bolting equipment necessary to assure wide user acceptance. Using this background material and information, a series of roof bolter concepts was developed offering improved operator safety with minimum impact on productivity. The concepts developed utilize existing componentry and technology wherever possible. All of the concepts feature a fully protected operator station located 6' to 10' outby the active bolt line and the hazardous rotating machinery.

Jan 1, 1978

Jan 1, 1913

By Tex M. Kubacki

On August 6, 2007, the Crandall Canyon Mine experienced a collapse which trapped six mine-workers. An MW 4.1 seismic event was recorded in conjunction with this collapse. An additional 54 seismic events were detected and located in the vicinity via routine processing techniques during the month of the collapse. Waveformbased cross-correlation detection techniques have been used to uncover 1,328 small, previously undetected seismic events which occurred near the collapse area between July 26 and August 9, 2007. This work has resulted in lowering the magnitude threshold of completeness from ML 1.6 to ML -0.5, a 2.1 order-of-magnitude improvement over standard processing techniques. Event locations have been computed using a double-difference inversion. The spatial pattern of events ultimately helps to delineate the extent of the collapsed area. It is shown that many of the large catalogued events (>ML1.6) tend to be closely followed by numerous (often 20 or more) smaller aftershocks. Cluster analysis of the known catalog reinforces prior work indicating the existence of seismic clustering on the east and west sides of the collapse. Research now demonstrates that it is possible to differentiate events related to the main collapse from those related to the rescue attempt following the collapse. The cross-correlation techniques described herein greatly improve the ability to detect small mining-induced seismic events. These methods may lead to improvements in assessing seismic hazards for conditions similar to those observed at Crandall Canyon preceding the collapse.

Jan 1, 2013

The roasting of sulphide ores and concentrates is often the first step in the production of metals or chemicals. In many processes, the production of sulphuric acid is viewed as a by-product, while in some plants production is an important economic factor. Regardless of the purpose, a pyrite roasting plant consists of mainly three plant sections: roasting, gas cleaning and sulphuric acid. With the addition of air, the pyrite concentrates are transformed into solid oxides and gaseous sulphur dioxide at temperatures of 600 - 1000° C. After cleaning and cooling, the sulphur dioxide in the roasting gas is further processed to sulphuric acid. Two types of reactors are used depending on the application: stationary or circulating fluid bed . For over 60 years, Outotec has progressively been developing the principle of fluidised bed technology in several different reactor types for a multitude of process applications. The versatility of the fluidised bed reactor system has manifested itself in the treatment of minerals, including solid fuels, and for metallurgical processes both in the ferrous and non-ferrous fields. Process applications have included roasting, calcining, combustion and charring of coals, as well as off-gas treatment. This paper provides a summary of the pyrite roasting technology currently used along with a simple cost comparison of pyrite roasting and sulphur burning processes.

Jan 1, 2009

By I M. Platten, Y Xie

Narrow vein gold mineralisation generally contains both fine (<100 ¦m) and coarse (>100 ¦m) gold particles. The in situ size and shape, deportment, distribution and abundance of the particles controls deposit sampling characteristics, grade distribution and metallurgical properties. Particles can range from individual disseminated grains, clusters of particles and masses above 1 cm in size. At each end of the coarse-gold to fine-gold spectrum, the samplability of a deposit ranges from relatively simple for fine-grained disseminated gold particles, through to extremely difficult for very coarse particles. Deposits generally show a background grade of mineralisation dominated by disseminated fine gold particles. Drilling will resolve the background grade well, though is likely to considerably understate the grade related to the coarser gold particles. Gold mineralogy has a significant impact on metallurgy, with key factors affecting recovery being particle size, deportment, liberation parameters and silver content of gold minerals. For coarse gold particles the focus should be on liberation and the early removal of the particles from the mill circuit by gravity concentrators and gold traps. Finer particles will require more grinding to liberate prior to flotation or cyanide extraction. The determination of gold particle sizing is thus required to minimise evaluation and geometallurgical uncertainty and lower project risk.

Jan 1, 2008

By Kri Inwood

"IntroductionIn 1879, when the Dominion government initiated its controversial program of industrial promotion, iron smelting in Canada was limited to one company producing coke iron on the mainland of Nov a Scotia and three small charcoal blast furnaces in Quebec. There was no steel production. By the eve of the first great war, iron and steel were being produced in very large quantities, the companies active in 1879 had disappeared and new centres of integrated iron and rolled steel production at Hamilton, Sydney and Sault Ste. Marie had come to resemble the industry as we know it today.The most dramatic change was that at Sydney, Nova Scotia, where in the early 1900s, two steelmaking companies established works. The Sydney developments have been explained as the result of resource discovery and technical change. W.J. Donald, in his authoritative account of the Canadian iron and steel industry, observes:""The most rapid growth of the Canadian iron and steel industry has occured since 1897... The remarkable growth has been caused largely by the new conditions of the industry. The discovery and use of Newfoundland ores, together with the availability of Cape Breton coal, has made the Nova Scotia industry not only possible but profitable ... It is a safe conclusion that the Canadian industry would not have been an important one, had it not been for the discovery of the Michipicoten and especially the Wabana (Newfoundland) ores""Donald also argues that metallurgical progress had been necessary to render the ores valuable,""Newfoundland ores ... contain a considerable amount of phosphorus, and were made available for steel-making by recent inventions.""The purpose of this paper is to re-examine Donald's story. It will be argued that the origin of steel -making at Sydney is somewhat more complicated than Donald has indicated. The difficulty with Newfoundland ore extended beyond its phosphorus content and a resolution required more than the basic open hearth furnace identified by Donald. Moreover metallurgical change was only one of several developments necessary to induce industrial investment at Sydney. Surprisingly, however, the discovery of iron ore in the late nineteenth century does not appear to be part of the explanation."

Jan 1, 1983

By Mark S. Stagg, Stephen A. Rholl

The Bureau of Mines is studying blast delay timing influences on rock fragmentation in a series of tests that started in 3-ft concrete blocks, progressed to 45in-bench reduced-scale tests in massive dolomite, and has now included 22-ft-bench full-scale tests in a thin-to-thick horizontally bedded dolomite. This paper discusses the full-scale test results and how they compared to the concrete block and reduced-scale studies.

Jan 1, 1988

By Ronald D. Hill, Elmore C. Grim

To better appreciate the problems associated with surface mining, it 1s imperative that the stripping operation be understood. Surface mining is a very broad term and refers to any process of removing the earth, rock, and other strata in order to uncover the underlying mineral or fuel deposit. Strip mining is a type of surface mining in which the overburden is removed in narrow bands, one cut at a time. Strip mining methods employed to recover coal can be divided into two general types: area and contour.

Jan 1, 1974

By J. B. Zadra

Tungsten metal, chemically equivalent to commercial grade, is produced by electrolysis of impure tungsten compounds or scheelite in an alkali, phosphate or borate electrolyte. A preliminary investigation of fused-bath electrolysis shows the effect of electrolyte composition, temperature, and current density on current efficiency, yield, crystal structure, and purity of product. Experiments show that tungsten can be electrowon from scheelite in a fused alkali, phosphate, or borate bath with similar results. Studies on electrolyte composition show that the addition of sodium chloride is essential to both electrolytes in treating scheelite. Although its main function is to react with or flux the CaO, it also increases the bath fluidity. Temperature studies revealed optimum ranges between 900° and 1,100° C.; 900° C. proved satisfactory for tungsten trioxide, and 950° to 1,050° C. for scheelite. Current efficiencies were satisfactory for all current densities ranging from 10 to 57 a./dm.2. Yields were 400 to 650 g./kw.-hr. over the same current-density range. Crystal size and purity of the product are functions of temperature, current density, and amount of impurities in the electrolyte. Deposited crystals vary in shape from spherical grains to clusters of dendritic hexagonal needles, and in size from smaller than 35 to 570 microns. The purity of the tungsten metal produced ranges from 99.7 to 99.94 percent.

Jan 1, 1959

By G V. R Goodman, G J. Chekan, J M. Listak

The extraction and transport of coal from underground coal mines can result in significant liberation of coal and/or silica dust into the mine atmosphere. Mine operators have long used ventilating air as a primary means of diluting generated dust, removing dust from the working faces and preventing dust from reaching the minersÆ working environment. As production levels have increased, mine operators continue to be challenged in maintaining dust concentrations below compliance levels. The need for maximising the effectiveness of available ventilating air in conjunction with other effective controls, such as water sprays and dust collectors, continues to be critical to the long-term health of mine workers. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has conducted full-scale laboratory and mine-site research to evaluate improved application of dust controls for both longwall and continuous mining methods. A summary of recent research results and recommended practices will be provided.

Jan 1, 2005

By Bern Klein, Givemore Sakuhuni

Flotation is the dominant base metal extraction technique and it requires ore to be ground below the liberation size for effective recovery due to its dependence on mineral surface properties. For a poly-metallic ore, differential hardness of constituent minerals leads to over grinding of softer minerals before the harder minerals are fully liberated, which makes selection of a target grind size complex, and the complexity increases when treating leaner ores. Flotation recovery deteriorates above 100 and below 10 microns causing significant loses of valuable minerals in most flotation circuits. Although enhanced gravity concentration is known to be effective at recovering particles above 100 microns, which are difficult to hydro-dynamically transport, exploiting differential specific gravity for base metal separation was not an option in the past. This was partly due to the absence of high mass yield gravity techniques. The advent of continuous gravity concentrators with flexible mass yields, in the past two decades, has necessitated investigation of possible base metal applications. The Knelson CVD, one of the continuous discharge centrifugal concentrators, has an established application niche for sulphides associated with gold. However, its base metal applications have never been rigorously tested. Considering the dependence of flotation recovery on particle size, continuous discharge centrifugal concentration can be integrated in flotation circuits to capture flotation non-recoverable coarse particles. This paper explores how particle size, liberation and mineral hardness influence application of continuous centrifugal technology to regulate galena deportment in a polymetallic base metal plant. The results show that particle size affects galena recovery more than liberation. In view of these results, the CVD can be integrated in the primary grinding circuit to pre-concentrate the heavy sulphides at a coarser grind size with potential grinding energy savings.

Jan 1, 2014

Control of flotation processes is mostly managed by plant operators, who assess the performance of the plant based on their own experience and other heuristic rules. These rules tend to be subjective or ill-defined, since most of them are concerned with the structure of the flotation froth, such as colour, bubble size and shape distributions, froth mobility and froth stability. These phenomena are very difficult to quantify objectively, and inexperience on the part of the operators, human error, etc., can lead to significant inefficiencies in plant operation. In this paper the development of a fuzzy system to support the control decisions of plant operators is described, which leads to significantly smoother control action and more stable plant operation than could be obtained with crisp sets of rules or manual control strategies. Keywords: flotation, fuzzy logic, image analysis, genetic algorithms, rule induction

Jan 1, 2000