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By M. T. Abasov

Among a host of challenges dictated by the explosively developing scientific and technical revolution, the improvement of control and management is one of the most essential problems. This problem is also of far-reaching importance for the oil and gas industries. An oil and gas extracting complex is an involved multilink system characterized by a great number of elements and by intricate interconnections between these elements. Of paramount importance for these systems is the quality of control. Any deviation of the control from the optimum reduces the effectiveness of the system and deteriorates its basic technical and economic factors. In case of large systems, even a relatively small deviation from the optimum may result in considerable material and power losses. Optimization of control of large production systems is therefore one of the basic means to enhance their effectiveness. The present paper discusses a development control problem for a multilayer gas deposit using the method of simultaneous exploitation of several strata by means of a single well. The optimum control is achieved by determining the dynamics of changes in the number of producing wells in a reservoir with regard to the depth of occurrence of these reservoirs as well as the difference in the time of introduction of the wells from drilling and their transfer to another reservoir. A mathematical model was constructed for the problem under consideration and a method was given to solve this problem. The problem was dealt with under the assumption that either each of the reservoirs or a part of them have vertically overlying areas and that there is no hydrodynamic interference between the horizons. It was

Jan 1, 1977

By Robert Forsyth

IN working the Bessemer process, the bottom of the converter has always been a source of trouble and annoyance, and the subject of more experiments, probably, than any other part of the complex mechanism called a Bessemer plant. This will not appear remark- able when the duties this important piece of refractory material has to perform are taken into consideration. In the first place, by means of the tuyeres, it delivers at a high pressure the air necessary for the conversion of the bath of metal, and has then to resist the intense

Jan 1, 1876

By Edward H. Robie

SEPTEMBER usually being a fine month for motoring, we set out with our better half at the end of August in our Studebaker for points West. A combined business trip and vacation. The first night found us 392 miles away, at the Statler Hotel in Buffalo, and the next morning we revisited Niagara Falls for the first time in some forty years. The cataracts were as impressive as ever and certainly worth a day of any vacationist's time, instead of the half hour we could spare before going on to Chicago. The Centennial of Engineering, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the ASCE, no doubt attracted the greatest gathering of engineers in history but still the attendance was disappointing to most of the forty or fifty societies that participated. Perhaps the time-the two weeks following Labor Day-was unfavorable. Few could afford to spend ten days away from home and business at that time of the year. Fall meetings of the AIME normally attract far more than the 300 that registered in Chicago. The technical program, however, was excellent, especially that arranged by the Minerals Beneficiation and Industrial Minerals Divs. The mineral industry papers of a more general nature that were presented as a part of the Centennial program on Monday and Tuesday of the following week were of high quality and offered by top names but had a meager audience. Undoubtedly the celebration brought engineers and engineering to the attention of millions of people. The pageant at the Museum of Science and Industry proved continuously interesting, showing the progress of engineering following the first use of fire. The show continued for many weeks. A special stamp was issued by the Government, which engineers might well use on their Christmas cards or other mail this year. After six days in Chicago we set out north, first visiting Fairbanks Morse in Beloit and Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee. Will Mitchell's Basic Industries Research Laboratory is doing interesting work and being installed in more comfortable quarters. The next day at Ishpeming, C. W. Allen arranged for luncheon with a local group of AIME members and we then looked over the new surface plant of the Mather B mine, a model of modern functional design. Then on to a small dinner meeting at Calumet following cocktails at Endicott Lovell's attractive summer home on the lake at Point Mills. The new Memorial Union Bldg. at Houghton, where we were domiciled for the night through the courtesy of Roy Drier, is a beautiful modern addition to the college, a model of its kind.

Jan 1, 1952

By J. E. Norton

Production statistics show that during the period of emergence from the depression the coal industry was becoming increasingly cognizant of the economic and competitive necessity for mechanizing. About 1935 many of its leaders were becoming aware also of the alarming scarcity of men properly trained to cope with the new problems of mechanization. In order to get a factual statement of this problem, a special AIME Coal Division Committee was requested to survey the condition. Its investigation disclosed that graduates of mining schools going into coal mining numbered 16 in 1937 and 15 in 1938. With this as a background, Pittsburgh Coal Co. foresaw that a comprehensive program was necessary if it was to enlist the services of trained technical men, who were an indispensable part of a mechanization program. The purpose of this paper is to review the program set up, to comment on the successes and failures and to outline the future course of action. Summer Work An inescapable conclusion from the mechanization statistics was that the opportunities in coal mining were good. Not only was there a void in technical skill to fill from past years, but the accelerating rate of mechanization indicated an increasing demand for technically trained men for the future. The remedy lay primarily in presenting facts con cerning the coal industry to the undergraduate engineers before they made their professional occupational choice. Based on this idea, one of the key points in the program was summer vacation work for the undergraduate, which, through the inducement of summer earnings, brought men into the mines to take a look at the prospects. This was more successful than statistics indicate because the war scrambled badly the orderly working of the program, but it could not obscure the value of a summer work program. A decided advantage was that it gave the company a preview of the graduate. An observation on this part of the program is that it is extremely hard to gauge lower classmen, and we found it wise to give them the benefit of the doubt, as the last two years in college bring about surprisingly rapid development in some men. We could readily single out the men at the opposite ends of the scale of competence. Comprehensive Training Program Having adopted summer work as a means of interesting undergraduates, the Location Weeks Introduction............................... I Underground mining operations............... 27 Coal preparation............................ 24 Inspection—safety, mech., prep............... 31 Mine engineering and survey................. 16 Industrial relations.......................... 12 Operating staff—costs, time study............. 8 Miscellaneous............................... I Total.................................... 120 problem of attracting graduates was met by establishing a training program that covered approximately 120 weeks and

Jan 1, 1949

By Edwin Ludlow

ONE of the most unusual features in connection with the strike of the union coal miners in the bituminous fields, now in its sixth week, is that the public interest seems to have completely died out. There is nothing on the front page and very little on any other page of the daily newspapers in connection with the strike. The United Mine Workers' officials must be rather disappointed to find that the only way in which they are being featured in the papers at present is in the reports of the trial for treason that is going on in Charlestown, West Va., against the local leaders of that organization for their responsibility in connection with the attack of the miners' army last summer against the non-union mines of Logan and Mingo Counties. Recent reports state that there are 13,000 cars of coal standing on the sidings at union mines for which no billing has yet been found. The output of the non-union mines has been gradually increasing but has never reached the maximum that they are capable of producing, owing to their inability to obtain enough orders to make it possible to run full operating time. The, present output is estimated at, 4,500,000 tons a week. It is possible, with a full car supply and full demand, to bring this output up to approximately 6,000,000 tons per week, and it is very doubtful whether, at this season of the year when probably there is less consumption of coal than, at any other season, the requirements of the country are greater than the 6,000,000 tons which the non-union mines are capable of producing. It would appear, therefore, that there is no immediate prospect of any settlement of the bituminous strike, and there is certainly no reason why the operators of the union mines should show any anxiety to begin operations as long as they have unbilled coal standing on their sidings.

Jan 6, 1922

By Jacob H. Masliyah

The dynamic simulation of a gravity separation vessel (a high throughput classifier) has been developed. The feed slurry was assumed to contain light (oil droplets) and heavy (mineral solids) particulates of various size. The feed slurry was characterized by the particle size distribution of both the light and the heavy particles. The equations describing the slip velocity for each specie and those defining the time variation of each specie concentration were solved implicitly using Runge-Kutta algorithm. The dynamic simulation was capable of predicting the movement of the froth layer and the density variation of the under- flow. Field data are in agreement with the simulation model and it is shown how this model could be used to develop a control strategy.

Jan 1, 1984

By Jens P. Nielsen, W. H. Justice

This paper describes an improved acidizing technique which has been applied in acidizing gas wells in the La Gloria Field. Wells acidized in this manner exhibited a much greater increase in deliverahility than wells acidized in the conventional manner. The acid is injected into the well in small slugs separated by a small volume of high pressure gas. The acid and gas are displaced from the tuhing by high pressure gas to reduce the hydrostatic head on the well when the acid is recovered from the well. The well is opened for production as soon as the acid and gas are displaced. This procedure permits a very rapid recovery of the acid which results in large increases in the deliverability of the gas wells. It has been found advantageous in the acidization of gas injection wells to inject the high pressure gas directly after the acid without backflowing the acid out of the well. This practice has made it possible to inject the gas in the injection wells of this field with a much lower pressure differential. This reduces the horsepower required to inject the gas and also decrease:, the number of injection wells required per reservoir. INTRODUCTION The results obtained by acidizing gas wells ill the La Gloria Field have varied considerably in the past. For this reason. a planned study of the acidizing procedure was undertaken in order to obtain more consistent results. The Frio Sands of the La Gloria Field are rather permeable and it was not necessary to acidize many of the wells when they were originally completed. At the completion of an eight-year cycling program in several of the gas reservoirs, it became necessary to recomplete many wells in other reservoirs. It was found that the opan Flow potential of the wells recompleted in different sands was not as large as wells that were originally completted in that reservoir. A study of the drilling records of several of these wells indicated that the sands had originally been subjected to considerable hydrostatic drilling fluid overload while the well was being drilled to the deeper sands of the field. It is indicated that during this eight-year period, the drilling mud and water that were lost into the formation when the well was being drilled had formed a relatively impermeable Eone around the well bore. This impermeable zone around the well bore made it very difficult to obtain high deliverability wells when the original wells are recompleted in other zones. Muskat' has shown that in uniformly permeable and porous formations a zone of partial plugging one ft in radius around the well would drastically decrease the productivity of the well. The analysis for this problem shows that the production capacity of a well is very sensitive to the value of the permeability of the zone immediately surrounding the well bore. This is to be expected in view of the highly localized character of the pressure drop in a radial flow system about the well center. The reduction of the deliverability is not proportional to the thickness of the mud-affected zone as the major portion of the reduction in deliverahility IS caused hy the

Jan 1, 1952

FREderick H. Davis, Electrical Engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., in charge of the plant at Bodie, Cal. (communication to the Secretary): I beg to offer, to complete the information conveyed in Mr. Leggett's paper, the following report of tests of the electrical efficiency of the power-transmission he has described:

Jan 1, 1895

By C. Richard Tinsley

Non-ferrous econometric metal models available from consultants are reviewed for structure and computer access, using copper as an example The evolution of a computerized metals price forecasting system for a consumer of non-ferrous metals is outlined including front ends, bridge equations, and supporting databases. An empirical sensitivity analysis technique is described. A postscript discusses the subscription costs of these models.

Jan 1, 1977

By John T. Galey

Oil and gas development in southern Pennsylvania during 1937 was marked by considerably increased activity in deep-sand drilling. Nine tests were completed to the Oriskany sand: one in Independence and three in South Beaver townships, Beaver County; one in Franklin township, Butler County, two in Slippery Rock township, Lawrence County; one in Mt. Pleasant township, Washington County, which is drilling below the Oriskany, and one in Fairfield township, Westmoreland County. Two of these wells, both of which were in the Blackhawk pool, South Beaver township, Beaver County, obtained wet gas with open-flow volumes of 1.5 million cu. ft. and 3.1 million cu. ft. and closed-in pressures of 1900 Ib. The remaining seven were unproductive in the Oriskany. Two wells, one in Hampton township, Allegheny County, which is shut down temporarily as a result of a gas pocket, and one in South Beaver township, Beaver County, are drilling to the Oriskany. One deep test on the Chestnut Ridge anticline, South Union township, Fayette County, was completed after considerable difficulty as a dry gas well in the Onondaga limestone. At this locality the cherty limestone is porous as a result of fracturing. Three additional tests are under way in the area, one in South Union township, a second in North Union township, and a third in Wharton township. Completions Oil.—Despite price cuts and production curtailment of Pennsylvania Grade crude, caused largely by a decreasing demand from export markets, operation in the shallow oil areas continued at a fairly high rate and a number of good wells were completed. Some of these were new wells in close proximity to old production and others were old wells drilled into deeper pays. One new well of a number of producers drilled to the Nineveh Thirty-foot sand in the Harvey pool, Center township, Green County, made 400 bbl. of oil and 500 million cu ft. of gas the first 24 hr. The Chambers dam pool of Amwell and South Franklin townships, Washington County, yielded a number of Fifth Sand producers with initials as high as 200 bbl. Several wells in the old Mars-Butler field

Jan 1, 1938

By Herbert Hoover

THERE is one problem of the new administration that has received the attention and thought of the organized engineers of America for many years past. This is the problem of the reorganization of the Federal Government. The, inadequacy, the wastefulness, and the inefficiency of our federal organization was evident, enough under pre-war conditions. These inadequacies, these inefficiencies, these wastes were exhibited to the country during the war at the cost of millions. Congress has placed the problem in the hands of a very able Congressional Joint Committee, but if this Joint Committee succeeds in securing the imminently necessary results it will only be by full insistent support to it by public opinion. Many attempts have been made at reorganization before but all, of them have gone to the same crematory-the interminable differences in opinion among the executive and legislative officials over details.

Jan 1, 1921

Jan 1, 1970

By Stewart K. Griffiths

A general method-of-lines numerical approach for modeling gas driven fractures has been developed and tested. The numerical solutions agree very well with known similarity solutions for laminar and turbulent flow. Acceptable accuracy is obtained with a very few numerical grid points and with modest execution times. The model has also been checked against the results of several field tests, in which air was used to drive axisymmetric fractures into permeable tunnel-bed tuff.

Jan 1, 1984

By J. L. Wright

When management is confronted with the risk of constructing a waste disposal well, these are some of the questions which may arise. Should the company expand the present waste treatment plant? More lagoons will cut into valuable acreage which might be needed later, and yet the pollution engineer says he can guarantee results. On the other hand, does the formation being used for those successful disposal wells off to the west extend over far enough to be used for the company's own well? Will the formation be thick enough? Will it be too deep? Will it be porous and permeable enough? Apart from needing to make a profit on the products made at the plant, plant officials must sometimes act under pressure to comply with pollution standards. The manager must build the cost of the pollution control system into the price of the products made by the company.

Jan 1, 1970

By Burt A. Waite

The new OSM regulations for ground water monitoring of underground coal mines have been the source of many concerns for the mining industry. Because the regulations were initially written at the federal level, but are being administered at the state level, considerable confusion still exists within the industry as to what is really required. Based on submission and/or approval of more than 30 monitoring plans for existing mines in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, three basic sections are necessary. They are: 1. background data on the hydrogeologic setting of the mine, 2. the monitoring plan itself, and 3. mining procedures to minimize adverse effects on ground water. Like all of the OSM requirements, ground water monitoring will be a new burden the coal industry must bear, but with proper planning and communication with the regulatory authorities it need not be as bad as originally feared.

Jan 1, 1983

By L. D. Jaffe, D. C. Buffum

The importance of temper brittleness in alloy steels has long been realized in Europe. In the United States recognition of its importance has developed within the last several years. Many brittle failures encountered in parts made of alloy steel are undoubtedly attributable, wholly or in part, to temper brittleness. These failures have occurred particularly at low temperatures, under shock loading, and in the presence of notches, restraints and combined stresses. It has been almost universally accepted that plain carbon steels are not susceptible to temper brittleness. As a result, considerable effort has been expended in attempts to discover the manner in which alloying elements introduce temper brittleness. It is desired to raise the possibility that plain carbon steels are not only susceptible to temper brittleness, but are much more susceptible than alloy steels, in the sense that they embrittle much more rapidly. It is suggested that previous views, (that plain carbon steels are not susceptible), are based upon an erroneous interpretation of the experimental results. Interpretation of Previous Data For many years the standard criterion for susceptibility of a steel to temper brittleness consisted of comparison of the energy absorption, in a notched-bar impact test at room temperature, of specimens that had received two heat treatments.' One specimen (or group of specimens) was quenched, tempered, and quenched from the temper. The other specimen (or group) differed only in having received an embrittlement treatment, which might consist of a slow cool from the tempering temperature, or of an isothermal hold in the range 45w550°C subsequent to quenching from the temper. If the energy absorption of the specimen receiving the embrittlement treatment was lower than that of the specimen not given this treatment, it was said that the steel was susceptible to temper brittleness. If the energy absorptions were the same, it was said that the steel was not susceptible. Several investigators2J found that plain carbon steels showed negligible difference in energy absorption in such tests (at least when their manganese content was below 0.60 pct), and concluded that plain carbon steels are not susceptible to temper brittleness. Recently the deficiencies of the criterion mentioned above have been pointed out.'-= The criterion now generally used for susceptibility to temper brittleness retains the heat treatments used in the earlier scheme, but instead of the notched-bar impact tests being made only at room temperature, they are made over a range of temperatures, covering the transition from ductile to brittle fracture. If the transition temperature of the specimens receiving the embrittlement treatment is higher than those

Jan 1, 1949

By Terkel Rosenqvist

J. Chipman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.)—The fact that the experimental work has been applied to copper rather than iron and that the paper is presented to the Iron and Steel Division, I regard as rather significant. It shows the unity of metallurgy and the fallacy of trying to cut it up by metals. This result for the solubility of sulphur in molten copper correlates with Professor Schuhmann's finding that the published data on the other side of the copper-sulphur miscibility gap are also in error. I should like to ask the author to say a little bit more about the sulphur capacity of the slag. T. Rosenqvist (author's reply)-—I hope that Dr. Chipman will find the derivation of the expression for sulphur capacity more clearly explained in the printed version of the paper than in the oral discussion at the meeting. I feel that this quantity, which actually is the ratio of two activities, can be measured more easily than the individual activities. Even if the ratio CaO/CaS is chosen as the standard state, the expression can be used for any slag, even for slags completely free of lime, and it represents a way to put the desulphurizing power of all slag constituents into one bag. Some doubt has been expressed as to whether oxygen ions really exist in calcium oxide and in molten slags. From a thermodynamic view point that question is of minor importance. The term oxygen ion activity, or any activity for that matter, is defined rigorously by the equation: activity = exp p/RT, where p is the change in free energy connected with the transfer of one mol of ions from the standard state into the slag. Whatever happens to the ion in the slag is of no concern to the thermodynamicist. Regardless of whether the ion is "free" in the slag or not, or whether it is present in a very small amount, its activity can always be expressed, and for a thermo- dynamic calculation that is all we need. However, ionic activities will only be of some real value if they are simple functions of the slag composition, or can be measured easily. Concerning the real nature of the oxygen in the slag, my feeling is that the oxygen atom has a rather multiplex nature depending on how strongly it is tied by covalent forces or polarized by the other atoms or ions present. The oxides of iron, cobalt, and nickel differ from calcium oxide and blast furnace slags as to the amount of free electrons that can give rise to electronic conductivity. In slags we know that the conductivity is mostly ionic. The fact that reversible emf's can be obtained with oxygen electrodes in certain salt melts, indicates a significant amount of oxygen ions in these melts. But extended work, e.g. polaragraphic studies and measurements of transference number; are needed to obtain quantitative information about the real structure of the slags. D. E. Babcock (Republic Steel Corp., Youngstown, Ohio)—-With reference to the ion, it might be well to remember Dr. Moses Gomberg. All of his life he had no use for the ionization theory and he contributed greatly to the field of chemistry on the assumption there was no such thing as ions. I do not think we have to worry about whether the oxygen is ionic or not. I think one thing specifically should be brought to your attention and this I think is one of the important contributions of Dr. Rosenqvist. He pointed out what we know as oxygen potentials or what is described as oxygen potentials. I have used this concept for a long period of time and I want to state that if this concept is properly applied, it vitiates much of what we have in the literature, or makes our usual ideas regarding oxidation seem primitive. That one thing is more valuable than almost all the rest of the discussion as a fundamental basis on which to build a reasonable in-

Jan 1, 1952

By Thomas L. Kesler

Lithium raw materials usable with present technology consist of pegmatite ore and shallow evaporite brine. Deposits of these materials occur in many parts of the world. Those advantageously located supply the present lithium industry. Less favorably located deposits will come into production as markets expand and present sources are depleted. In this discussion, materials listed as reserves include fully explored and partly explored deposits. For those closely drilled and assayed, the data provide measurements rather than estimates, and such reserve tonnages are "proved." For deposits partly explored, the data support reserve estimates of "probable" tonnages. Materials lacking exploratory data are classed as resources, and their "possible" tonnages are inferred mostly from indirect evidence and are essentially objectives for exploration. All figures for pegmatite ore apply to total materials in the ground.

Jan 3, 1978

Lewis, B. LINDEMUTH, ?New York, N. Y.-I would like to confirm Dr. Howe's supposition that a process could be worked out for steel along similar lines. About 1 ½ years ago, F. D. Carney and myself were working on the elimination of columnar crystals which are particularly evident in nickel steel. We discussed rotation and varying speeds of rotation, but figured that with just rotation the steel would eventually catch-up to the motion of the mold and that the desired effect could not be obtained in that way, so we decided to alternate the direction of rotation. We rigged up in ordinary commercial turntable and on the same mounting attached a blast, furnace and mud gun, which is a simple steam cylinder, and mounted an 18-in. ingot mold on the turntable. The turntable had a stroke of about 10° to 12°, with stops at the ends. The steam cylinder would bang the table against the stops so that the stopping was so violent that it would tend to keep the metal in motion when the mold stopped and thus wash away any crystals that would form. We made quite a few interesting experiments; the results of which were that the columnar crystallization was entirely eliminated. At the same time we cast ingots in a similar mold, allowing the molds to remain stationary; these showed columnar crystals of from 2 to 4 in. in depth. The grain structure of the balance of the ingots, which were rotated, was very much finer than the grain structure of the ingots that were cast and allowed to cool slowly. The experiments were made on a 0.35 per cent. carbon nickel steel, which is probably more susceptible to columnar crystallization than any other. I think that the rolling properties and the forging properties of some alloy steels could be very much improved by a similar method, or some commercial method of casting ingots to eliminate this columnar crystallization.

Jan 5, 1919

By John F. Abel

A good mining engineer is supposed to make a good mine. What then makes a good mining engineer? There certainly are a lot of answers to that question. The answers depend on whether you are one, work for one, or employ one. There are several cliches about mining engineers, and there is some truth in them-as there usually is in any stereotype. Hollywood chose Jeff Chandler to portray a mining engineer in Foxfire. The image here was of an almost one-man mining operation. When Chandler picked up a jackhammer, cradled it in his gut and started drilling out a tunnel round, it gave one the hives. I would have liked to see him finish just one round that way. There are limits to what even the most hairy-chested of us will try. We can assume that Hollywood feels it needs to over- draw any profession to add impact.

Jan 1, 1970