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Scientific elite of the Minerals Beneficiation Div. assembled in Denver, Colo., September 17 to 20 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Froth Flotation in the United States of America. In his warm address of welcome at the opening luncheon, John W. Vanderwilt, President, Colorado School of Mines, recalled his experience in Bonanza which coincided with the early days of flotation. In those years the scientific and engineering aspects of the process which we know today were little understood and operating the flotation circuit was considered an "art." Luncheon Chairman H. L. McNeill caught the flavor of the old days in an anecdote which recalled the mill nightmares to many present with the agonized words, "Oh God, what's happened to the concentrate now!" It was an appropriate gesture when he called the names of some of the flotation greats for presentation to the assembly; and many an "artist" there was among them!

Jan 10, 1961

By R. A. Kinzie

In a conventional cement plant, the drying and heating of the raw material takes place in the upper section of a cylindrical kiln where the heat exchange is poor. In a Lepol kiln this part of the process is carried out on a traveling grate where the heat exchange is efficient. The increase in fuel economy justifies the greater complexity of the installation.

Jan 2, 1950

By K. J. Richards, W. J. Schlitt

A combination of industrial and laboratory data is used to explain the interrelationships between operating parameters and cementation plant performance as measured by copper recovery and iron consumption. The chemical factors considered are the relative concentrations of copper and ferric ions in solution, acid concentration, the possible buffering action of other dissolved salts and solution temperature. The effects of flow conditions, solution oxidation, the presence of metallic copper and retention time are also considered. Based on the various relationships developed, possibilities for plant optimization are discussed.

Jan 1, 1974

By Ernest A. Hersam

Accurate ore-sizing with screens is drawing attention to certain details that now, more than ever before, require attention. There are many tests that must be preceded by careful sizing. The assayer often could profit by a more careful selection of screens. In milling, more attention is given the slimes produced. Cement-manufacturers are pulverizing and screening finer than they formerly did, and others are reducing materials to fine sizes at high cost, with screens used to govern the fineness of the pulverized product. Fine screens are expensive, easily injured by misuse, are carried in stock sparingly by most dealers, and are handled often by those who know little about them except their designated number. More attention, on the whole, needs be given the actual size of the mesh-openings, and less emphasis placed upon any custom or conventionality in numbering. An effort to classify wire screens, in this respect, leads at once into computations, where one is confronted with details of sizes and standards, of different wires, different gauges, and different customs. There is always uncertainty about the exact working-size of a screen until one gives the matter special attention, and devotes more time to it than its simplicity seems to demand. To know only the number is not sufficient for all uses. Often, in sets, superfluous sizes are used; and sizes are omitted that are of critical importance. In wire screens, the use of different standard sizes of wire makes important differences in dimensions that must be taken into account. The dealer usually grades screens by the number of openings per linear dimensions, regardless of the size of the openings or of the wire. Certain 100-mesh screens in use are found, by measurement, to be actually coarser than others of 90-mesh, a result which is due, of course, to the use of larger

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 7, 1950

OUTSTANDING symbol of the machine age, the steam shovel needs no introduction. Few individuals there are, in the United States at least, that have not watched with fascination the almost human motion, the more than human strength, the rhythm of the whole steam-shovel cycle of crowding, digging, swinging, dumping, swinging, and crowding again. A mass of steel with some copper and other metals, fed with water and coal, guided by a single alert and dexterous operator, or perhaps two, does the work that would require 50 to 500 men or even more. The largest shovels working in the copper mines have loaded into waiting railway cars as much as 10,000 tons of ore in a single 8-hour shift. With no equipment but hand shovels, it would, in fact, be impossible to duplicate the work with any number of men; first, because they would be in each other's way, and second, because the steam shovel can lift single pieces of rock weighing 5 or 10 tons with effortless ease. Of recent years, internal-combustion engines and electric motors have displaced steam as a motive power in many instances; and of course the detailed design of the shovels has been improved immensely. Whereas the largest dippers used 30 years ago had a capacity of 3 ½ to 4 cu. yd., today the 350-ton shovel used at Chino has an 8-yd. dipper, as has the 320-ton shovel at Chuquicamata. Incidentally, for stripping at coal mines a shovel having an 18-yd. dipper is in use. However, the principle of operation of the modern shovel, regardless of the size and type of motive power, is essentially the same as that of the earlier shovels. It is fair to say that the indispensable of open-cut mining is the steam shovel, or, to be more precise, if perhaps less picturesque, the power shovel. Somehow the electric shovel seems to lack the glamour that

Jan 1, 1933

By V. V. Strishkov, Zane E. Murphy, George Markon

Soviet industrial expansion depends on coal as a source of power and raw materials for the USSR's metallurgical and chemical industries. Knowledge of the Soviet Union's coal resources and production outlook is essential for a critical evaluation of the Soviet industrial potential. Although there is considerable literature on the Soviet coal industry, no single source provides an authoritative study of how the coal industry functions and how well it per- formed its job. Soviet reports are singularly lacking in the precise data in terms that are comprehensible to a westerner. It is essential, therefore, to clarify the terms in Soviet parlance. These terms are not comparable to those in common use in the West and are the cause of most inaccurate results. Official Soviet data on labor productivity refer to a limited group of "production workers" while in the West all wage earners are counted. Statistics are based on unprepared or run-of-mine coal, whereas it is customary elsewhere to measure productivity in terms of marketable coal. Thus, many western publications, while diligently and accurately reporting published Soviet data, overstate the case, presenting an exaggerated picture of Soviet progress in coal production and technology. (In terms of Western criteria, there is a three-fold exaggeration of labor productivity.)

Jan 5, 1973

Andes Copper has an old camp and a new camp, both isolated until recent road improvements. The old camp is at Potrerillos and the new one at El Salvador, 25 road ,miles away. The company was incorporated in 1916 and the first mine, concentrator, leaching plant, smelter and town were built in the succeeding twelve years. The first blister copper was poured on January 24, 1927. Economic conditions determined the long development period but the end result was the design and construction of a mining complex that was all of a piece, unlike the piecemeal additions to El Teniente and Chuqui. The mining episode at Potrerillos came to an end in 1960 when the ore at La Mina became exhausted and the new mine, El Salvador was brought in. Both of these ore deposits come within four hpundred feet of the surface and had they been developed within the last five years might reasonably have been brought in as open pit mines. However, that is conjecture, and as it stands the operation at La Mina was so ideal for the mining method selected, blockcaving, it became a classic for the textbooks. On the other hand, El Salvador has turned out to be a blockcaving mine to test an engineer's skill. In mining the copper deposit at Indio Muerto mountain, there are ground conditions of every conceivable type. Tunneling in one section, the back can cave like sized pea gravel and only spiling can hold it; in another heading only the lifters are shot but often the rest of the round will sit down in one piece; elsewhere the bottom squeezes up and closes the drifts; and contrary to all other locations, there are sections where the block can be undercut without support. Today the scope of operations at Andes extends from mining to electrolytic copper. Ore is mined at El Salvador and the concentrator is also situated there. Concentrates pipelined 14 miles to Llanth, the water decanted, and then it is hauled by rail 40 miles and 5500 ft higher to the Potrerillos smelter and refinery. Potrerillos and El Salvador are respectively 90 and 70 miles from the port of

Jan 11, 1969

By F. A. Forward, J. Halpern

A new process for extracting uranium from ores with carbonate solutions is described. Leaching is carried out under oxygen pressure to ensure that all the uranium is converted to the soluble hexavalent state. By this method), alkaline leaching can be used successfully to treat a greater variety of ores, including pitchblende ores, than has been possible in the past. The advantages of carbonate leaching over conventional acid leaching processes are enhanced further by a new method which has been developed for recovering uranium from basic leach solutions. This is achieved by reducing the uranium to the tetravalent state with hydrogen in the presence of a suitable catalyst. A high grade uranium oxide product is precipitated directly from the leach solutions. Vanadium oxide also can be precipitated by this method. The chemistry of the leaching and precipitation reactions are discussed, and laboratory results are presented which illustrate the applicability of the process and describe the variables affecting leaching and precipitation rates, recoveries, and reagent consumption. THE extractive metallurgy of uranium is influenced by a number of special considerations which generally do not arise in connection with the treatment of the more common base metal ores. Perhaps foremost among these is the very low uranium content of most of the ores which are encountered today, usually only a few tenths of one percent. A further difficulty is presented by the fact that the uranium often occurs in such a form that it cannot be concentrated efficiently by gravity or flotation methods. In these and other important respects, there is evident some degree of parallelism between the extractive metallurgy of uranium and that of gold and, as in the latter case, it has generally been found that uranium ores can best be treated directly by selective leaching methods. It is readily evident that this parallel does not extend to the chemical properties of the two metals. Unlike gold, which is easily reduced to metallic form, uranium is highly reactive. It tends to occur as oxides, silicates, or salts. Two ores are of predominant importance as commercial sources of this metal: pitchblende which contains uranium as the oxide, U3O51 and carnotite in which the uranium is present as a complex salt with vanadium, K2O-2UCV3V2O5-3H2O. These ores may vary widely in respect to the nature of their gangue constituents. Some are largely siliceous in composition, while others consist mainly of calcite. Sometimes substantial amounts of pyrite or of organic materials are present and these may lead to specific problems in treating the ore. Further complications may be introduced by the presence of other metal values such as gold, copper, cobalt, or vanadium whose re- covery has to be considered along with that of the uranium, or whose separation from uranium presents particular difficulty. In general, there are two main processes for recovering uranium in common use today.'.2 One of these employs an acid solution such as dilute sulphuric acid to extract the uranium from the ore. A suitable oxidizing agent such as MnO, or NaNO, is sometimes added if the uranium in the ore is in a partially reduced state. The uranium dissolves as a uranyl sulphate salt and can be precipitated subsequently by neutralization or other suitable treatment of the solution. The second process employs an alkaline leaching solution, usually containing sodium carbonate. The uranium, which must be in the hexavalent state, is dissolved as a complex uranyl tricarbonate salt, and then is precipitated either by neutralizing the solution with acid or by adding an excess of sodium hydroxide. The latter method has the advantage of permitting the solutions to be recycled, since the carbonate is not destroyed. This is essential if the process is to be economical, particularly with low grade ores. With each of these processes, there are associated a number of advantages and disadvantages and the choice between using acid or carbonate leaching is generally determined by the nature of the ore to be treated. In the past, more ores appear to have been amenable to acid leaching than to carbonate leaching and the former process correspondingly has found wider application. With most ores, acid leaching has been found to operate fairly efficiently and to yield high recoveries. One of the main disadvantages has been that large amounts of impurities, such as iron and aluminum, sometimes are taken into solution along with the uranium. This may give rise to a high reagent consumption and to difficulties in separating a pure uranium product. Excessive reagent consumption in the acid leach process also may result

Jan 1, 1955

By W. F. Hosford

A quantitative explanation is offered for the peculiar curled grain shapes found in the microstructures of drawn wires of bcc metals and compressed aluminum specimens. It is shown that once an [011] fiber texture is developed, the slip system are so oriented that further slip tends to produce plane strain rather than axially symmetric flow of individual grains. With plane -strain flow, however, compatibility of neighboring grains can be maintained only by a bending of grains about one another. PROBABLY the most obvious microstructural feature of heavily worked metals is the distorted shapes of grains. In the course of deformation, the shape change of each grain must be compatible with that of neighboring grains; otherwise holes would be formed at grain boundaries. In analyses of poly-crystalline deformation by Taylor and subsequent workers it was assumed that grain boundary compatability was maintained by each grain undergoing the same shape change as the polycrystalline aggregate in which it is imbedded. According to this assumption, when simple tension or compression is applied to a random polycrystal or to one with a fiber texture, each grain ought to deform with axially symmetric flow. Initially equiaxed grains should become cigar-shaped during wire drawing and pancake-shaped during compression. While microstructural observations of deformed metals are generally in accord with such a picture, certain striking exceptions may be noted. Peck and Thomas5'8 found that grains in heavily drawn tungsten, iron, and niobium (columbium) wires become shaped like ribbons curled about the wire axis, Fig. 1. At a suggestion from the author, they rationalized the development of these micro-structures by considering the orientation of the slip systems in the [011] texture formed by the wire drawing. It is shown in this paper that marked departure from axially symmetric flow of grains is also observed when polycrystalline aluminum is severely compressed. Again the explanation must lie in the orientation of the slip system in the [011] texture, which is formed in fcc metals by compression.' THEORY A simple quantitative argument will be presented to show that the development of these microstructures is a result of flow on the combination of slip systems for which the minimum amount of mechanical work is expended in producing a unit tensile (or compressive) strain. First it must be realized that the macroscopic strains of a crystal resulting from slip are given by: where d dy, and dc, are normal strain increments parallel to the x, y, and z reference axes; are crystallographic shear-strain increments on slip systems

Jan 1, 1964

By B. R. Coil

One executive writing on capital equipment re- placement stated: "We keep extremely close watch over repair costs and when we reach the point of uneconomical operation, we replace the machine." This, of course, is most elementary, but a very basic premise. However, it seems advisable to set forth several equally obvious principles, so that all discussion will start from the same point. The subject is intended to deal with the point of uneconomical operation due to high operating costs in general and high repair costs in particular. This is not concerned with a similar problem of high costs because of an insufficient number of machines, be they trucks, shovels, or dozers.

Oct 1, 1955

By Zay Jeffries

AMONG the various metals with low specific gravity, two, aluminum and magnesium, are used in the nearly pure state or as bases for light-weight alloys. Although the production of magnesium is only about one-twenty-fifth that of aluminum, a higher percentage of its output is used in the transportation industry than that of any other metal. The per-centage varies from year to year but, on the average, more than three-fourths of the magnesium production has been used for this purpose. In the United States, about 40 per cent of the aluminum production is used for transportation purposes. It seems obvious that equipment demanding repeated movement with need for rapid acceleration and deceleration should be as light in weight as the economics of engineering materials will permit. There are, however, differences of opinion with reference to both the economics and the engineering aspects of this subject. Tables 1 to 7 inclusive relate to the principal light-metal materials currently used in the transportation industry. These, with the accom-panying titles and footnotes, are in the main self-explanatory. Although the variations in mechanical properties can be easily seen from the tables, it should be kept in mind that the values given are for ordinary tempera-tures and that the changes in properties with temperature are not the same for the different alloys. Also, the corrosion properties cannot be deduced accurately either from the compositions or from the physical properties. Again, certain of these alloys are used because they possess desirable combinations of properties not listed in tine tables, including heat conductivity, coefficient of expansion, machinability, ease of casting or working, light reflectivity, anodic coating characteristics, etc. These, together with variations in prices, must be given careful analysis to effec-tively utilize the light alloys. Some of the alloys listed in the tables are new and some are old, but all are standard. Even the older alloys are available in new shapes and larger sizes than heretofore, and all are used in the transportation industry in structures of new design. Certain of the applications of specific alloys will be touched upon in the following brief history of the use of the light metals in transportation.

Jan 1, 1936

By Warren L. Howes

THIS paper deals primarily with an investigation of ball-mill liners that was conducted by the writer over a period of six years at the Mammoth mill in Arizona. The investigation covered a wide variety of designs of liners in both primary and secondary mills. The comparative results are presented herein as evidence of the extent to which design influenced liner life and mill performance. FLOWSHEET The feed to the Mammoth mill was a complex, oxidized, gold-silver-lead-molybdenum-vanadium ore with rhyolite, andesite and granite as gangue. Although the ore varied between stopes, the long-term average in character remained substantially the same. Capacity was 560 tons per day. [t] Fig. I shows an abbreviated flowsheet of the grinding section of the mill. PRIMARY BALL MILL A 3-ft. Symons shorthead crusher in open circuit crushed to ¼ -in. maximum one-way dimension the feed to the 5 by 10-ft. Marcy open-end ball mill. The mill rotated at 80 per cent of critical speed and was charged with 4-in. forged steel balls. Cast balls were used for a few months at a slight reduction in ball cost, but breakage of the large balls reduced the ball size and grinding capacity to a point where the over-all costs suffered out of proportion to the saving in cost of balls. For metallurgical reasons, the finished product of the mill was maintained at minus 8-mesh. This coarse product, plus the very abrasive ore and the absence of fines in the feed, caused abnormally rapid wear of the mill liners. The resultant high operating cost led to the most extensive phase of the investigation. [ ] In order to clarify the difference in design of the various types of liners used, Fig. 2 shows the profiles with the arrangement in which grinding balls of maximum size would lie on the face of the liners. The results with each type of shell liner in the primary mill are shown in Table I.

Jan 1, 1943

By J. Leland Myer

IN a precise study of Pennsylvania anthracites, the research on European. anthracites is of little value to us because of their different physical and chemical nature. Likewise, there can be little correlation with the physical properties of bituminous and lower rank coals. Although all high-rank coals are thought to have had a common origin, microscopic examination revealing essentially the same kinds of organisms in similar .states of preservation, the different physical properties apparently arise from the degree or kinds of metamorphism of these coals. Representative samples from the Pennsylvania deposits have been selected for analysis, together with graphitic anthracite, bituminous coal, and some of the common forms of carbon. A complete list, with descriptions, is shown in Table 1.

Jan 1, 1932

By AIME AIME

EVER since Henry Bessemer, nearly 100 years ago, developed the steelmaking process that bears his name, occasional variation has been noted in the quality of steel made in the acid converter, owing largely to the difficulty of stopping the ? refining-which takes only ten to twelve minutes -at precisely the right moment. Principally as the result of this, the amount of Bessemer steel made in the United States gradually declined over the years until it is now about 7 per cent of the total.

Jan 1, 1943

By P. E. Landolt

BEFORE World War I, and even prior to World War II, lithium was considered among the rare elements. Mining was limited to exploitation of a few well selected sources of rich minerals recoverable by hand cobbing methods. Within the past five years the situation has changed radically. Many new sources have been explored and developed, principally in Canada, North Carolina, and Southern Rhodesia. The prime raw material for lithium recovery is spodumene. In Southern Rhodesia, however, both petalite, a modified spodumene, and lepidolite, a lithium mica, are being mined in quantity.

Jan 4, 1957

By Edward P. Barrett

DURING the past few years numerous references have been made in the technical press and Bureau of Mines Bulletin 270 to sponge iron' and so-called "direct metal" processes. The idea has been prevalent that sponge iron and "direct metals" are cheap commodities. In many instances it has been proposed that these processes be used to treat low-grade ores, utilizing low-grade coals as reducing agents. It is questionable whether or not high-grade sponge iron can be made from low-grade materials. Particles contain¬ing iron oxide and gangue become, upon almost complete deoxidation, particles containing metallic' iron and gangue. The possibility of mechanically separating the metallic iron from the gangue in these particles depends . on the physical characteristics of the particular ore under treatment. Some ores, in which the minerals constituting the gangue break free from the iron oxide upon crushing, may be concentrated magnetically after the iron oxides have been reduced to metal. The finely disseminated ores are least amenable to concentration. In general, high-grade sponge iron can only be made from high-grade raw materials. Sponge iron containing small amounts of sulfur can only be made from raw materials containing small amounts of sulfur or by

Jan 1, 1930

By Arthur W. Rose

Statistical techniques are being widely used in geochemical exploration to answer questions involving sample spacing, analytical and sampling errors, thresholds, data smoothing, and optimum combination of several elements into one measure of favorability. The applications of sampling theory, mean and standard deviation, trend surfaces, moving averages, factor analysis, cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, and regression analysis to these questions are discussed with examples. Although the techniques are very useful as means of handling large amounts of data, they require as much geological and geochemical judgment as any other approach to data interpretation.

Jan 1, 1973

By G. L. Oldright, Henry de Rycker, S. F. Ravitz

The upper limit of richness of concentrates that can be smelted by means of the blast furnace without added diluents is fixed by the operation of sintering. A sinter feed with normal gangue constituents, containing more than about 50 per cent of lead, tends to fuse; as a result, air does not come sufficiently into contact with the sulphides at roasting temperatures, and sulphur elimination is poor. Since most lead concentrates now contain 55 to 80 per cent lead, it is necessary to add diluents to lower the grade of such sinter feed to about 50 per cent or less. This not only entails the expense of providing barren diluents when adequate diluents containing precious metals are not available but also appreciably lowers the capacity of the blast furnace to produce lead and increases slag losses. Attempts to desulphurize rich lead concentrates by methods other than sintering have not proved successful. Flash roasting, for example, converts much of the lead sulphide to lead sulphate rather than to oxide. However, this suggested the possibility that deliberate flash roasting of the concentrates to sulphate, followed by sinter roasting of the resulting product, might prove promising, particularly inasmuch as the elimination of sulphur from lead sulphate requires heat alone and not contact with atmospheric oxygen. The sintering of lead sulphate products has additional interest because important amounts of such products are now treated by lead smelters. Considerable quantities of lead sulphate are present in rich lead flue dusts and other by-products; lead-chamber sulphuric acid plants and other

Jan 1, 1944