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By N. Golchinfar

Tunnels in deep mines are subjected to high stresses. Fracture and failure of the rock mass around an opening can occur when mining-induced stresses are high. In burst-prone grounds, mining-induced seismicity can cause additional dynamic loading which can further increase the stress around the tunnels. When the dynamic stress reaches the rock mass strength, fracturing can occur and rockburst may happen (depending on loading stiffness around the failed rock mass). Rock support installed in the tunnel must be capable of dissipating dynamic energy and holding the failed rocks. Hence, it is important to estimate the depth of failure for rock support design. This paper focuses on how to model depth of failure under dynamic loading. In the modeling, two scenarios of rock failure are considered. In the first scenario, rock failure occurs under static loading and subsequent dynamic loading further increases the depth of failure. In the second scenario, no failure occurs under static loading but in the subsequent dynamic loading, failure around the tunnel is created.

Aug 1, 2013

By K. H. Singh, J. N. Szuck, J. A. Riddell

"Hydraulic rock drilling equipment has been in use at Falconbridge over the past two years in both production and development situations. This paper deals with the experience gained in the application of hydraulic drilling in the company's mines and discusses the benefits and problems encountered during their use. The paper primarily focuses on technical, operating, maintenance and economic aspects of the machines, and does not attempt to compare the performances of different machines from the various manufacturers.IntroductionThe Sudbury Operations of Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited are comprised of five operating mines and two mines under development. All the production comes from underground mines, mostly at depths below 1000 metres. The company, faced with increases in operating costs and difficult mining conditions, has continued to seek solutions with the help of new mining technology.The development of electric-hydraulic drilling machines in Europe had been pursued with great interest and, in 1979, a decision was made to test these machines to prove their technical and economic viability under operating conditions. Since then, a number of electric-hydraulic machines have been evaluated in different situations and currently nine hydraulic machines are being used in the company's various mines. These machines are comprised of two-boom drilling jumbos for development, one-boom machines for longhole drilling and a large-hole-diameter drilling rig for blasthole drilling. One hydraulic jumbo has also been used in a cut-and-fill stope."

Jan 1, 1982

By E. De Souza

Energy associated with ventilating an underground operation comprises a significant portion of a mine operation's base energy demand and is consequently responsible for a large percentage of the total operating costs. Ventilation systems may account from 25?40% of the total energy costs and 40?50% of the energy consumption of a mine operation. Fans are the most important mechanical devices used to ventilate underground mines and the total fan power installed in a single mine operation can easily exceed 10,000 kW. Investigations of a number of mine main fan installations have determined their assemblage to be, in general, very energy inefficient. The author has found that 40?80% of the energy consumed by a main fan is used to overcome the resistance of fan assemblage components. This paper presents how engineering design principles can be applied to improve the performance and efficiency of fan installations, resulting in substantial reductions in power consumption, operating cost and greenhouse gas emissions. A detailed case study is presented to demonstrate that, by designing fan assemblages using proper engineering concepts of fluid physics and industrial ventilation design, main fan systems will operate at efficiencies well above 80?90% (compared to common operating efficiencies of between 20 and 65%), resulting in a drastic reduction in a mine's overall costs and base electrical and energy loads.

Aug 1, 2013

By Magdy Ibrahim

This paper presents experimental design and development of a low-cost remote sensing hardware designed to support automated site data acquisition for near real-time progress reporting of construction operations. The developed hardware utilizes open source microcontroller equipped with multiple sensors that include 3D accelerometer, GPS, Data logger and Bluetooth. The use of open source microcontroller makes the developed design cost effective; freeing it from the need for costly license fees. Its platform configuration is flexible; enabling the addition of temperature, weight and other sensors, Wi-Fi and Xbee capabilities to suit individual field applications. Pilot tests have been carried out in laboratory and outdoor environments. The results prove effectiveness and robustness of the developed configuration. The paper provides description of the individual components used in the development of this prototype hardware. It also describes the technical characteristics, capabilities and limitations of the developed hardware. The findings of comparison with alternative technologies used for outdoor tracking of construction operations are presented. The comparison is carried out with respect to range, cost and suitability for outdoor environment. The developed hardware is expected to support a wide range of applications including tracking of earthmoving operations, highway construction and onsite resources. As well, it is expected to enhance safety on construction jobsites.

Aug 1, 2013

By M. B. Kime

"A set of experimental batch leaching tests studied the effect of pH, time, temperature, and stirring speed on the relative Cu, Co, Ni, and Fe leaching yields of an oxidized copper-cobalt ore sample in an aqueous hydrochloric acid solution. The results were statistically analyzed and modelled using the structural equation modelling method. Models showed that Cu, Co, and Ni leaching yields were strong functions of the leaching time and leaching temperature, whereas the Fe leaching yield depended on the leaching temperature, stirring speed, and pH. Under optimum leaching conditions yields were 99.8% Cu, 82.4% Co, 91.3% Ni, and 30.6% Fe.RÉSUMÉ Une série d’essais expérimentaux de lixiviation en bâchée ont été menés pour étudier l’effet du pH, de la durée d’attaque, de la température et de la vitesse de brassage sur les rendements relatifs de lixiviation du cuivre (Cu), du cobalt (Co), du nickel (Ni) et du fer (Fe) d’un échantillon de minerai de cuivre-cobalt oxydé dans une solution aqueuse d’acide chlorhydrique. Les résultats ont été analysés et modélisés statistiquement à l’aide de la méthode de modélisation par équation structurelle (SEM, de l’anglais structural equation modelling). Les modèles ont montré que les rendements de lixiviation du Cu, du Co et du Ni dépendaient énormément de la durée d’attaque et de la température de la lixiviation ; le rendement de lixiviation du Fe, quant à lui, dépendait de la température de la lixiviation, de la vitesse de brassage et du pH. Dans des conditions optimales de lixiviation, les rendements étaient de 99,8 % pour le Cu, de 82,4 % pour le Co, de 91,3 % pour le Ni et de 30,6 % pour le Fe."

Jan 1, 2017

By M. Barati

A collaborative research between University of Toronto and Hatch was conducted to understand and optimize the process conditions pertaining to a novel steelmaking technology. In this technology, known as CRISP, direct reduced iron is continuously melted and refined in a stationary electric arc furnace. The major challenge against continuous operation of the electric furnace was identified to be minimizing the corrosion of the refractory in order to achieve uninterrupted operation for a minimum of one year. Theoretical analysis and bench scale experiments together with two pilot runs resulted in defining an operating window for slag chemistry that would minimize chemical attack to the refractory while satisfying the oxidizing conditions required for sufficient decarburization. An analysis of the process in terms of energy consumption and emission of greenhouse gases revealed that it is superior to the current batch DRI-based steelmaking technologies.

Jan 1, 2011

By Bruce Peberdy

Outline ?Building Systems ?Climatic Effects ?Thermal Effects ?Building Components ?Building Materials ?Structural Deterioration ?Maintenance Considerations

Nov 1, 2011

By M. Uszko

The paper presents the conditions for determining the selection of methods for methane drainage in Polish hard coal mines. Various factors for the evaluation of methane drainage performance are used, including the methane drainage effectiveness ratio. However, as will be discussed there are limitations to the methane drainage ratio approach resulting from the characteristics of the deposits extracted in Kompania Weglowa S.A. coal mines.

Aug 1, 2013

By Shengwu Song, Xuemin Feng

Jinping I hydropower station is located in Sichuan Province in Southwest China. It is built on the Yalong River as a controlling cascade hydropower station in the middle and lower reaches, with power generation as its major function. Jinping I arch dam concerns many engineering issues and has attracted worldwide attentions due to its huge scale and unique settings. It is one of the most challenging projects in China with its 305 meters high arch dam and complex geological conditions for construction, including large-scale tectonic faults, intensively unloaded rock masses and geological asymmetry in its foundation. At present, the concrete arch dam construction has been completed and preliminarily impounded, most of the foundation treatments have been implemented, and four of six generator units had been put into operation in July 2014. In this paper, the analytical methods, design concepts, treatment measures and technical features of strengthening the geological defects in the dam foundation will be presented. Upon geological investigation into the dam foundation, a few large-scale weak discontinuities are observed. The rock masses in the left dam foundation are intensively unloaded, approximately to the horizontal depth of 150–300 m. These serious geological defects lead to a geological asymmetry on the left and right banks, and thus some major difficulties of dam construction are encountered. The influences of geological defects on the dam construction and safety are analyzed comprehensively, followed by the concepts and methods of treatment design. Based on this, the treatment methods of the weak rock masses and discontinuities are carefully determined by numerical analysis and scheme optimization, including the concrete cushion, concrete replacement grids, drainage system, anti-seepage curtains and consolidation grouting, which work together to enhance the strength and integrity of the dam foundation. Evaluations and calibrations through geo-mechanical model tests in combination with field monitoring results in early impoundment period show that the arch dam and its foundation are generally stable and function normally, which suggests that the research methods and treatment design schemes are reasonable and effective. The proposed treatment methods and concepts in the context are helpful for similar complex rock projects.

Jan 1, 2015

What Bottleneck? ??Resurgence of BC Mining Industry; ??Climate of heightened activity ?Increases pressure placed upon regulatory agencies; ??Current EA and permitting system, when Federal agencies are involved, remains duplicative and inefficient ?not necessarily leading to better decision making; ??Inefficiencies will impederecovery

May 1, 2006

By R H. Hallam

The Mattagami mining district encompasses a favour-?able belt of folded Keewatin-type rocks, with intercalated sediments and intrusives of late Keewatin age. This environment has been subjected to periods of basic and acidic intrusion. The orebodies lie within the fold structure and are associated with faulting and shearing of considerable magnitude. The No. 1 orebody contains 60 to 70 per cent massive sulphides. The minerals, in their order of abundance, are generally: pyrite, sphalerite, pyrrhotite, magnetite and chalcopyrite. It is evident that the broad geological structure of the district is amenable to ore deposition. There are two ? prominent linear expressions which comprise this broad structure. Both strike directions lie at the edge of, or are related to, a complex gabbro-anorthosite-peridotite zone. The fact that eleven of the ore zones discovered to date coincide with the broad structure indicates its over-all importance. It is estimated that the production from Mattagami Lake Mines will be in the range of 600 to 700 tons of zinc concentrate and 70 tons of copper concentrate per day.

Jan 1, 1964

By G. Bourque

One of the design criteria for the Mount Wright facilities was to incorporate the latest proven automation techniques and devices for the new crushing, grinding and concentrating plant. The heart of the centralized control system is a Fox 1 process computer, located in the central control room in the administration building. The entire operation, i.e. crushing, conveying, storing, grinding and concentrating, is monitored and controlled, through the process computer , by one operator via a CRT console. In case of computer failure, the control is automatically, and without process interruption, transferred to manual back-up panels. One of the newest management tools, the process computer is programmed to collect and automatically print out shift. daily and monthly reports on tonnage, metallurgy and equipment operating time, for better planning of operations and preventative maintenance.

Jan 1, 1977

By W. W. Cummings

Canada's only current tungsten producer started up in 1962 with a small open-pit mine on the Flat River , 180 air miles north of Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. The orebody was in a contact-metamorphic skarn zone and contained about 1.5 million tons of ore grading an estimated 2.47% W03 and 0.5% copper. Near the end of the open pit , a new zone was discovered on the lower limb of the same structure, and the decision to go underground was made in 1972. The new "E Zone" contains over 4 million tons of ore grading an estimated 1.6% W03 and 0.28% Cu , and has been supplying the concentrator at about 175,0 00 tons/ year since late 1974. A continuing program of change and up-grading is necessary in the conversion from a seasonal open-pit mine with limited life to an underground operation with twenty years of reserves. Changes are necessary in plant and services as well as the mine. Also, environmental protection requirements have changed from rudimentary to rigorous over the life of the operation. This paper sums up the changes in the operation since 1971 and outlines the changes yet to come.

Jan 1, 1977

By S P. Giambra

The 50,000-ton-per-day Concentrator and Crushing Plant, complete with its related water supply, tailings disposal and concentrate handling systems, was started up in a five-month period, with the entire plant obtaining its design capacity six months after the first mill became operational. Individual mill lines, with their spiral circuits, achieved design capacities within a week after the first treatment of ore through each mill. Construction and start-up proceeded together in many areas of the plant, and considerable organization and cooperation between the Owner, the Engineer and the Contractors permitted a smooth transition from construction to operation. PLANT DESCRIPTION THE Carol Lake Plant of the Iron Ore Company of Canada l1as been well described in various technical magazines. The purpose of this paper is to present a brief outline of the start-up of the con-centration complex. This start-up was accomplished in a period of five months, with the plant producing one million tons of concentrate and achieving its design-rated tonnage less than six months after the first ore was treated.

Jan 1, 1963

By Colin E. Dunn

The high mobility of gold within the plant kingdom results in detectable accumulations of gold in many plants. Concentrations vary within individuals, among species, and with seasons. From an evaluation of the chemistry of easily acce sible organs of common pecies in the northern forests, it is concluded that alder twigs (or leaves) and conifer bark scales are the vegetation components of greatest use in the earch for concealed gold mineralization. Maximum anomaly enhancement is obtained from twigs collected in the spring. Examples are given of urvey conducted in the La Ronge Domain using 1) jack pine bark (A nglo-Rouyn and Upise Lake areas) ; 2) alder twig (McLennan Lake) ; 3) black spruce bark (Rod Zone near Mallard Lake, and at Waddy Lake) ; and 4) multi-media (Tower Lake). At the latter two sites gold-bearing till is blanketed with late glacial material. Gold enrichment in the plants suggest that the roots are ab orbing gold from the underlying till. Complex processe control the uptake and retention of gold in plants. An understanding of these processes pem1its biogeochemistry to assist in locating near- urface mineralization .

Jan 1, 1986

By Hong-wei Ma

With social development and technological advancement, mine rescue robots used in complex environments have developed as a research hotspot. This paper reviews the progress of research on coal mine rescue robots, and key technologies of rescue robot design are put forward, such as mechanical structure, self-navigation and self-orientation, multi-sensor information fusion, multi-robot cooperation, and wireless communication technology.

Aug 1, 2013

By F. R. Nogas

"Because of the elements of uncertainty and instabilitp associated with single-enterprise communities, there is increasing interest in the alternatives to developing additional new communities of this nature. Gulf Minerals Canada Limited has chosen a unique alternative means to accommodate employees at a new uranium mine/mill complex at Rabbit Lake in Northern Saskatchewan. Gulf has adopted a fly-in program which moves their staff from a 450-mile radius, in and out of the on-site facilities, on a 7-day rotation."

Jan 1, 1976

By R. D. Westervelt

IN JULY 1954, the first iron ore from the deposits in the Knob Lake vicinity was mined and shipped to Seven Islands. The beginning of the production may well be the greatest advance in Canadian economy in the past fifty years. In 1955, the Canadian iron ore output was more than twice that of 1954, an in-crease due principally to the iron ore shipments from the Knob Lake area. Previous to this, Canada's iron production was 1.85 per cent of the world's output. Now, this percentage has risen to approximately 5.5 per cent and shows every indication of increasing further as the production rate from the area is increased. In 1955 the Iron Ore Company of Canada shipped over 7 million tons of iron ore and expects to ship over 10 million tons in 1956. Present facilities may be enlarged to handle up to 20 million tons per year. If the expected I 0 million tons per year are exported, Canada's iron exports will be second only to her wheat and newsprint exports. Before production began from the Knob Lake deposits, years of development were necessary in the area. Geologists spent several summers mapping the general area in order to unravel the complicated stratigraphy and petrology. Particular attention was paid to the mapping of the iron formation and all stages of alteration from fresh iron formation to ore were observed.

Jan 1, 1957

By J. Y. Kim

This paper presents a novel action recognition method for observing human workers using interactions between actions and related objects on an internal construction site. This method can be used to measure work rates for labour productivity monitoring. This monitoring is critical because the performance of a construction project is significantly impacted by labour productivity. However, construction sites are generally crowded with a large number of workers and objects. Such congestion disrupts the accurate, automatic recognition of construction workers? actions. This congestion is one reason that existing automatic action recognition studies of construction areas mainly focus on workers? actions themselves. However, the crowded conditions mean that sites could offer a great deal of clues that could be used for automatic action recognition. According to psychological studies, interactions clearly take place between human actions and related objects, such as between hammering and a hammer. Humans use these interactions to recognize actions or objects more accurately. On the construction site, workers, materials, tools, and equipment are carefully planned out ahead of actual construction. The categories of workers and objects are pre-defined and, as noted, specific interactions define relations between worker actions and objects. In this paper, the interactions are limited to human workers and their hand-held objects. Action recognition results can be combined with hand-held object information to improve recognition accuracy. With the limited interactions, experiments in this paper show a significant improvement in action recognition. This paper describes the utilization of these interactions to improve construction action recognition accuracy based on human skeleton data and 2D color video from Microsoft KINECT sensor.

Aug 1, 2013

By J. van Deventer

Volatile gold prices in the face of rising costs for mining and refining is causing the mines to look for new ways to reduce costs and increase recoveries. This task is complicated by the fact that the gold in hereto unexploited reserves is associated with increasingly complex ores - either preg-robbing, refractory, associated with high concentrations of copper, or all of the above. Ion exchange resins can play a significant role in this quest for improvement. Although ion exchange resins have been used in Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries for the recovery of gold for many decades, it is still not widely used in the Western World. Synthetically manufactured ion exchange resins can be tailor-made to suit the chemical and mechanical characteristics of a specific application. As such, ion exchange resins can be used in a variety of solution matrices (e.g. cyanide, thiosulphate and acid), and process designs (recovery from clear liquor after solid-liquid separation or directly from the leached pulp). In this paper, a number of applications are discussed along with a review of recent developments in ion exchange technology.

Jan 1, 2014