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To provide a flexible, low-maintenance, low-cost continuous mine air monitoring system as an alternative to conventional fixed-point, electronic monitoring systems. Background Continuous monitoring of mine air is highly desirable (and often required) not only to improve miner safety, but also to increase mine productivity. Continuous air monitoring systems can provide earl" warning of developing fires, excessive methane accumulation, reduced oxygen levels, and other developing problems in remote, inaccessible or sealed areas, and in active workings. Fixed-point, electronic systems require one Sensor for every gas to be measured at every defined monitoring location. As the number of monitoring locations increases, so does the cost, along with increases in the time required for routine maintenance and calibration of the sensor System cost also increases when monitoring locations are identified for mine areas requiring permissible electrical equipment.

Jan 1, 1988

By J. R. Thoenen

"The curtailment of imports of foreign potash during the World War directed attention to the necessity of establishing a domestic source of potash for fertilizer, and considerable study has been given to the subject by Government bureaus, research organizations, and private individuals. These studies have covered all known sources of potash, and among them the extensive greensand deposits of New Jersey in which the potash content is found in the mineral glauconite have been investigated.Several hundred patents have been obtained covering processes for the extraction of potash from siliceous minerals, but up to the present time none have proved successful on a large commercial scale.When the investigation of the potash deposits of Texas was started by the Federal Government, the laboratory study of the drill cores was assigned to the Nonmetallic Minerals Experiment Station at New Brunswick, New Jersey, with the object of ascertaining a possible commercial method of utilization.The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate existing literature and previous investigations to ascertain the extent and availability of the deposits, the extent of commercial success so far attained in potash extraction, the most promising known methods and by-products obtained from them, probable markets, and possibility of competition with foreign potash, and by a study of these data to determine whether further chemical engineering analysis and laboratory investigation were warranted.As the study advanced it became evident that adequate reserves of green-sand were available for many years supply. and that whereas many processes had been patented few had been tried commercially. In collaboration with former private and Government investigators these patents were first divided into two"

Feb 1, 1929

By R. A. Cummings

Certain roof shales in coal mines deteriorate upon exposure to the atmosphere, causing difficulties in the mining operations and adding to the cost. This report presents the results of both field investigations, in a West Virginia mine, and laboratory studies on the effects of atmospheric moisture on roof shales. Based on these observations a conceptual procedure is presented on how shale deterioration might be predicted during exploration, and guidelines are given as to how air tempering or conditioning chambers may be designed to reduce moisture effects. Recommendations for further studies are included. An annotated bibliography of the literature constitutes the second volume.

Jan 1, 1981

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

During the period 1979 thru 1982, Multi Mineral Corporation conducted a mining research program at the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines Oil Shale Mining Environmental Research Facility in the Central Piceance Creek Basin, Rio Blanco County, Colorado. The program consisted of mining, environmental and geotechnical research data and. the results are described in this report.

Jan 1, 1983

By M. A. Trevits, M. R. Thibou, A. Ozment, A. C. Smith, J. B. Walsh

The Excel No. 3 Mine is a room-and-pillar mining operation owned by MC Mining, LLC, a subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners, LP, which produces coal from the Pond Creek Coalbed in Pike County, Kentucky. Late on December 25, 2004, a fire was discovered near the bottom of the slope and, after an unsuccessful attempt to fight the fire underground, it was decided to address the fire remotely from the surface. The mine operator developed a plan to fight the fire that called for the installation of temporary seals at the slope and mine shafts to eliminate the inflow of oxygen. In addition, the plan called for drilling and completion of vertical boreholes into select areas of the mine workings to monitor the mine atmosphere and inject nitrogen gas and gas-enhanced foam. Over the next 9 days, nitrogen gas was injected almost continuously and gas-enhanced foam was injected periodically as deemed necessary. On January 7, 2005 it was determined that the fire was successfully suppressed. This paper presents a discussion of the fire-fighting approach and an analysis of the results of the application of gas-enhanced foam technology.

By J. D. Davis

THIS REPORT gives results of an investi¬gation of the carbonizing properties of coals from Pittsburgh bed, Jamison No. 9 mine, Marion County, W. Va., and from Upper Freeport bed, Bull Run No. 1 mine, Preston County, W. Va. The study included Bureau of Mines-American Gas Association tests at 800° and 900° C. and various chemical and physical tests designed to evaluate the plastic, expanding, and agglutinating properties of coal. A blend of each coal was carbonized in the 500-pound slot oven. The carbonization sample of Pittsburgh coal contained 2.7 percent moisture, 35.8 percent volatile matter, 54.4 percent fixed carbon, 7.1 percent ash, and 0.9 percent sulfur. It contained 60.9 percent fixed carbon on the dry, mineral-matter-free basis and had a heating value of 14,780 B. t. u. per pound on the moist, mineral-matter-free basis. It therefore ranks as high-volatile A bituminous and was blended with low-volatile Pocahontas No. 3 coal. Upper Freeport coal contained 2.8 percent moisture, 27.7 percent volatile matter, 60.9 percent fixed carbon, 8.6 percent ash, and 1.0 percent sulfur, as carbonized. It contained 69.5 percent fixed carbon on the dry, mineral-matter-free basis and therefore ranks as medium-volatile bituminous. It was blended with high-volatile A Pittsburgh coal from Allegheny County Pa.

Jan 1, 1952

By W. W. Adams

With greater production of coal per man-hour of work than ever before achieved, the coal-mining industry of the United States established a better safety record in 1941 than in any year since 1930, the earliest for which complete reports of nonfatal as well as fatal injuries were collected by the Bureau of Mines, United States Department of the Interior. In only one year (1933) of the 12-year period 1930-41 was the fatal-accident rate better than in 1941, whereas the rate for nonfatal accidents was better in 1941 than in any previous year. Accident and employment reports received from mine operators, together with fatal-accident reports received monthly from State mining departments and inspectors, showed that 546,692 men were employed in and about the coal mines of the United States during the calendar year 1941. This number does not include office employees or coke-oven workers. The increase of 1.3,426 over the number of employees in 1940 was accompanied by a gain in man-hours of work performed at the mines and an increase in average number of hours worked per man during the year.

Jan 1, 1944

By Walter D. Holland

This instructors guide is intended for use in a course which teaches metal and non-metal mine inspectors to perform surveys for inhalation contaminants in above ground metal and nonmetal mine work areas. The handbook entitled "Handbook for Surveys of Inhalation Contaminants in Above Ground Metal and Nonmetal Mining and Processing Work Areas? is used as a manual during the course. The manual contains a survey check list, rules for determining if sampling is required, a list of most frequently encountered contaminants, a list of candidate contaminants and their sampling conditions, and a description of control procedures and devices. There are several experiments in this guidebook which the trainees perform to acquaint them with the sampling systems.

Jan 1, 2011

By C. J. Wilhelm, John M. Devine, Ludwig Schmidt

"Steel tanks often corrode rapidly in oil fields where the Gas produced with crude contains an appreciable quantity of hydrogen sulphide. In many instances working tanks have been discarded after only six months of service because of failure induced by corrosion.Aluminum has been used for some time in the fabrication of certain equipment incidental to the handling of oils containing hydrogen sulphide gas in solution, and has exhibited no carious corrosive action. These uses indicated that aluminum tanks,be equally effective in counter- acting hydrogen sulphide corrosion. Consequently, in the spring of 1920, an all-aluminum stock tank of 500 barrels capacity and a ""composite"" tank of equal capacity, having a steel bottom and bottom ring and an aluminum top and top ring, were placed in service on the State-Lassiter lease of the Gulf Production Co, in Crane County, Tex. These tanks were under observation for one year, the toot being sponsored by the Gulf Production Co., the Aluminum Co. of America, and the Parkersburg Rig and Reel Co. The results of this preliminary test sustained the belief that aluminum is highly resistance to hydrogen sulphide gas and likewise indicated the type or grade of aluminum which could be most economically used for lease tankage. However, in this preliminary test the tanks were not subjected to contact with the quantities o highly concentrated brines such as often are associated and produced with crude oil. Therefore, it was suggested by representatives of the aluminum Co. that additional tests be made to include production conditions in large quantities of brine would be handled, for pact experience had shown that aluminum often is susceptible to the corrosive action of brines."

Apr 1, 1931

By A. N. Fried

With the growing importance of fluid injection in recent years, the petroleum industry has been investigating and field- testing a variety of new methods designed to modify the physical properties of reservoir oil to improve the efficiency of gas and water injection. These procedures include condensing-gas drive, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) injection, alcohol-slug process, high-pressure-gas displacement, detergent-solution flooding, and in situ combustion (30, 37).3 A new and different method to increase the effectiveness of gas and water injection has been tested by the Bureau of Mines, Consideration of both fundamental and practical factors that operate to limit the oil recovery attain- able by conventional oil-displacement mechanisms led to the concept of a displacement mechanism called the foam-drive method. This report describes the experimental study that tested this concept in the laboratory.

Jan 1, 1961

By Ross. C. Barkley

A computer program has been written to simulate ground vibrations induced by multiple-hole surface blasts. The program is an inexpensive and relatively easy to use tool for predicting the principal blast vibration characteristics that determine damage and annoyance potential: peak particle velocity, frequency content and pulse duration. The program generates a complete ground motion history by superposing, at any surface position, the vibrations induced by each individual explosives charge. It requires specification of (hence allows accounting for) the blast geometry, initiation sequence (including random delays), position with respect to blast, pulse characteristics induced by each charge, and propagation laws. A methodology is outlined to determine the necessary variables either on the basis of site investigations (e.g. velocity, attenuation, pulse), or by backcalculation from measured blast vibration records. The latter procedure has been applied to blasts from two coal strip mines. Main difficulties are backcalculating individual pulses, propagation (especially dispersion) parameters and delays. A normal distribution of delays, based on published results, has been shown to influence the results and the response of a single degree of freedom structure significantly. Broadening of the wave types included and additional verifications with field results are required.

Jan 1, 1983

Electrical trailing cable used to power coal mining machinery is frequently damaged by tensile strain or crushing by mining machines running over the cable. A major problem is finding the exact location of a short or open in this cable so it may be repaired. A major problem is finding the exact location of a short or open in this cable so it may be repaired. FMC Corporation was awarded modification III to USBM Contract H0122011 to continue development and testing of cable fault locators, resulting in delivery of: 1. A prototype electrostatic/electromagnetic/ TDR transmitter and an electrostatic/electro-magnetic receiver sot that: o Locates cable faults by time domain reflectometry o Locates opens by detecting electrostatic signals o Locates shorts by electromagnetic coupling. 2. A prototype infrared detector and an infrared detector power supply that heats a shorted area by applying high current (at low voltage) and locating a short by infrared output. 3. Twelve production infrared detectors. 4. Detail drawings for all of the developed instruments.

Jan 1, 1973

By John A. Johnson

The purpose of this report is to clarify the interpretation of some phases of previous progress reports5/ on the use or omission of stemming that have been brought to the attention of the authors by readers. As the stemming problem was approached from an entirely disinterested viewpoint and the data were presented impartially, results of investigations published in previous reports5/ were obtained under a definite set of conditions and procedure, and they may of may not be duplicated under different conditions and procedure in actual mining practice. Final conclusions regarding the use or omission of stemming in blasting have not been reached pending completion of all aspects of this investigation.

Jan 1, 1942

By Virgil Miller, R. G. Knickerbacken

"INTRODUCTION The Bureau of Mines work reported by the Metallurgical Division 4/ in 1934 shows the possibility of producing artificial manganese ore by pre- ferential oxidation of manganese from spiegeleisen produced from manganiferous iron ores of the Cuyuna range, Minnesota. A three-step process is described as being capable of producing a ferrograde ore from this type of low-grade, domestic, strategic material. However, the melting temperature in the last step of the process that forms the manganese product is high, and the phosphorus content is not easily controlled. Also, the tenor of the manganese in the product is not comparable with other methods that use less process energy.Lofquist 5/ patented an improvement of the above three-step smelting method, in which sulfide was added to lower the melting point of the product.More recently, reputedly successful attempts have been made to reduce iron preferentially from manganiferous iron ores, simultaneously removing the phosphorus with the iron, by means of an unusually high temperature blast and excess coke.Anson G. Betts 6/ patented a process for the matte-smelting of manganese ores, in which the ore was mixed with pyrite and enough carbon or coke to serve as thermal energy and reducing, agent in a manner similar to the standard blast-furnace process. This process was intended to give pig iron, a manganese-iron matte, and a waste slag. Wood, Barrett, and Porath 7/ presented data on the treatment of low-grade, domestic, manganiferous iron ores and low-grade, domestic manganese ores by this Betts mattes pelting process."

Aug 1, 1942

By John A. Johnson

The purpose of this report is to clarify the interpretation of some phases of previous progress reports5/ on the use or omission of stemming that have been brought to the attention of the authors by readers. As the stemming problem was approached from an entirely disinterested viewpoint and the data were presented impartially, results of investigations published in previous reports5/ were obtained under a definite set of conditions and procedure, and they may of may not be duplicated under different conditions and procedure in actual mining practice. Final conclusions regarding the use or omission of stemming in blasting have not been reached pending completion of all aspects of this investigation.

Jan 1, 1942

By F. A. Patty

[Health and safety hazards from contamination of the atmosphere in places frequented by persons depend to a considerable extent on whether the contaminating agent possesses sense-perceptive properties which will give warning of its presence before it '.an create harmful conditions. If a distinct and easily recognized warning is given in advance of harmful conditions, hazards ace mitigated, but if warning properties are inadequate or absent, the hazards are augmented. When evaluating the hazard presented by a potentially harmful substance used under conditions of possible escape into the air of places frequented by persons, it is therefore necessary to consider the warning properties of the substance along with ether pertinent information such as toxicity, inflammability, physical properties, and mode of use. If the contaminating agent inherently lacks warning; properties it may be possible to impart them by adding to the hazardous substance a small quantity of a relatively harmless substance which has a high warning intensity.]

Jan 1, 1929

By Irvin Pritts

This report describes the design, fabrication, and testing of a prototype instrument which demonstrates the feasibility of determining respirable coal dust concentrations by light reflectance photometry. Coal dust is collected on a filter and the quantity collected is continuously monitored by reflectance-photometry. Light emission and detection is accomplished by reflective object sensors, which have both light source and detector in one chip. The use of a pulsed light source insures low drift characteristics of the measuring circuitry. The collection of the respirable coal dust on filters facilitates accurate calibration and also allows measurement verification, if desired, by well-accepted, gravimetric methods.

Jan 1, 1981

By James C. Fowler

This report contains a description of the contract activities performed by ENSCO, Inc. under contract H0292025. The purpose of this project was to prove the feasibility of detecting hazards in a coal seam using a synthetic pulse radar. This work was conducted in three phases. The first was an analysis of the types of errors which might cause problems. The second was to build a breadboard radar and the third phase was to conduct a field test with the system. The work from each phase is discussed and the results of the field tests are presented. These results show propagation of the radar signal through 200 feet of coal along with reflections from 50 feet away. The final section contains recommendations for future development.

Jan 1, 1981

By David D. Rabb

A report on location, sampling, assays, mineral examination, amenability leach tests, and evaluation of certain mine dumps in Mohave County, Arizona. Extractions of greater than 30 percent of the gold and silver were achieved during simulated heap leaching of selected mine dump material. Consumption of reagents was relatively low and results suggest leaching of prepared heaps is technically viable and could be economically attractive.

Jan 1, 1980