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By M. Wittke

"In the course of the extension of the railway network in Israel, currently the two 4.6 km long tubes of the Gilon Tunnels on the line from Akko to Carmiel are being constructed. The tunnels run through the limestones of the Bina- and Yirka-formations, which locally are karstified. The maximum overburden amounts to 160 m.The limestones are mostly horizontally bedded and vertically jointed. Occasionally also inclined joints exist. The tunnels cross various fault zones, which mostly strike at an acute angle to the tunnel axis and are steeply inclined. The karstic cavities which were encountered during tunneling have partially been filled by clay. In the vicinity of the fault zones, the rock has often been strongly jointed and weathered respectively. The two single-track tubes have a cross section with vertical walls and an open invert. The tubes are connected by cross cuts with a spacing of approx. 250 m.During the tender phase, WBI has elaborated the tender design for a joint venture of a Chinese and an Israeli construction company. After the joint venture had been awarded the contract, the preliminary and the detailed design have been elaborated by WBI and the construction works have been guided. On the basis of the geological description, rock mechanical models have been elaborated, followed by stability analyses on the basis of the Finite Element method. The tunnels have been excavated according to the shotcrete method. The support in most areas only consisted of a very thin shotcrete lining and radial bolts in the area of the roof. Depending on the degree of jointing and weathering, locally advancing support by means of spiles has been applied.The internal lining of reinforced concrete has been constructed in parallel to the heading of the tubes. Mucking and delivery of materials was carried out through the cross cuts.The breakthrough was achieved in April 2014 and thus within schedule. The predicted distribution of the excavation and support classes along the tunnel has been in good agreement with reality."

Jan 1, 2015

Introduction ?MT involves the measurement of naturally occurring magnetic and electric field oscillations. ?The ratio of E/H (wave impedance) is measured as a function of frequency to give resistivitydepth information. ?The ratio of vertical and horizontal magnetic fields (tipper) gives information about the location of (channeled) current systems.

May 1, 2008

By Tsuyoshi Adachi

Photovoltaic (PV) system is especially taken notice as one of important renewable energy resources, because PV has potential to provide a certain amount of energy supply as well as without greenhouse gases emission. Considering recent rapid increasing demand for PV system, more expansion of PV system is expected in the future. However, some precious metals and minor metals such as silver, indium and others are used as component materials of solar cell in PV system. Even if energy supply would become renewable, strict limitation of these metals still remain because amount of natural resources and recycling of metals has restrictions intrinsically. The aim of this study is to reveal the possibility of materials supply restrictions for Photovoltaic system quantitatively and to propose several measurements to assess supply risks for materials. Especially, silver supply potential which is used as wire line in PV system as well as PV demand forecast to estimate material use in the future are focused on. We divide underlying supply risk into 5 measurements and analyze them by time series, i.e. price volatility, resource potential, recycling ratio, production type and supply concentration are investigated. Comparing these factors of silver with other metals, the potential of silver supply for PV is presented. In addition to it, we propose another method to quantify country risk applied an insurance pricing model in finance pricing theory and combine it with the supply concentration measurement. As a result, supply risk of silver will increase gradually in the near future because of its resource constraints and supply-demand balances although silver market is sufficiency competitive one. From the country risk analysis, Peru is not only a significant supply country but also has the highest country risk. Some higher risk countries will increase the level of supply risk even if the concentration ratio of supply indicates moderate level.

Aug 1, 2013

By Michel Ruel, Ali Soltanzadeh, Benjamin Légaré

High fidelity commercial process simulation packages can be used at different stages of a greenfield project, from initial plant design to operator training in the later stages. However, there are several factors that make the software less attractive for small and medium size brownfield projects, such as the licensing cost and the fact-finding manpower required for model design and simulator maintenance. In this paper a different approach is described. The knowledge gathered from operating personnel was used to implement higher level models based on plant data, operating heuristics, and experience rather than detailed component-level models. The computing platform used was a low-cost, well-established, control system vendor-independent software. Throughout this paper we demonstrate the success of implementing this model-based approach using two industrial examples. The first example is a simulation of the carbon monoxide (CO) distribution system at a metallurgical complex. The purpose of this simulator was to test new control strategies and PLC programs prior to implementation. CO being a toxic combustible gas, validation of the suggested control system changes was necessary for plant safety. Simulation of specific operating conditions helped alleviate concerns and improved plant-wide acceptability of the new operating philosophy. The second example is a boiler simulator at a petrochemical plant. The operator training simulator (OTS) was designed as a platform for experienced operators to practice handling rare or abnormal conditions. A customized medium-fidelity model was developed for this targeted application where the cost of a full scale high-fidelity model could not be justified.

Jan 1, 2016

By P. M. Shibley

"IntroductionMine drainage, surface. drainage and process liquors are the principal mine and mill effluents. The quantity and quality of these flows varies according to mineralogy, type and scale of mining, the process, tailing disposal, local ground conditions and climate.Typical contaminants remaining after solids sedimentation are colloidal or semi-colloidal particles, acids, alkalis, metals in solution, cyanides and thiosalts. Environmental regulations and guidelines have been issued in detail by the appropriate government agencies and will not be reviewed here. Revisions and additions are being made as our comprehension and abilities increase. Some contaminants of consequence have not been specifically regulated as practical treatment technology has not been identified. Thiosalts fall into that category as do the derivatives of the first stage of cyanide oxidation - cyanates.Most mining activities have present or foreseeable water treatment requirements. Because process economics can be adversely skewed by the environmental factor, the acknowledged objective of every operation must be to identify and anticipate those requirements.The evaluation and selection of water treatment techniques for mine-mill applications is complicated by the fact that most mine-mill effluents are high volume, dilute and chemically complex systems. Treatment processes applicable to most contaminants are: chemical or biological oxidation; neutralization and/or precipitation; liquid/solids separation. Other processes such as ion exchange, electro-deposition, foam fractionation, freeze crystallization and reverse osmosis offer the possibility of selective removal or concentration of contaminents. The latter tediniques, representing a slightly higher level of technology, are less suited to the large, low value flows usually encountered in the mine environment."

Jan 1, 1989

By J. F. Vynne

ABSTRACT This paper examines several of the systems and processes that have been developed over the past few years and are now being utilized by major mining companies on draglines in North America, Australia and South Africa. These technologies include production monitors and reporting systems, GPS navigation systems, structural integrity monitoring systems, structural analysis studies to increase the dragline rated suspended loads (RSLs) and inspection and response strategies. The use of these technologies provides significant increases in dragline production and reduces maintenance costs, downtime and the chance of a catastrophic failure.

Jan 1, 2010

By Pierre C. Vieillescazes

MIGA: Unique Multilateral Risk Mitigator ?A World Bank Group agency established in 1988 to promote and facilitate sustainable foreign direct investment in emerging coufacilitate countries ntries (north(north--south and southsouth south--south) ?Guarantees equity and debt and many other types of investments against non-commercial risk. ?Can cover the following type of risks: ?Expropriation ?Breach of Contract ?Currency Transfer and Inconvertibility ?War and Civil Disturbance ?Non-Honoring of Sovereign Financial Obligations

May 1, 2010

By E. Bratygin, G. Gazaleeva

"The article describes the analysis of methods and criteria of selectivity of optimal ore preparation schemes. Traditional criteria based on study of physical-mechanical properties of ores give the comparison of obtained figures with a reference standard or statistic data and the selection of the ore preparation scheme is made on a basis of a similar scheme from the existing production.Further on estimation is given to different criteria of the crushing selectivity, the new criterion is offered, the definition of which is done by results of an optical microscopy– the estimation of a valuable mineral release degree. The final estimation of the crushing process selectivity L? is performed by a calculation of a ratio of the valuable mineral free grains quantity in a desired size grade of a crushed material to the valuable mineral free grains quantity in a desired size grade of a raw product.Besides, optimality assessment of using the specific crushing unit is preliminary performed according to a maximum crushing degree of a material, however, the priority is given to the maximum selectivity criterion. The check of the proposed criterion was done when comparing the crushing of niobium bearing ores of the Vishnevogorskoye deposit in cone inertial and centrifugal impact crushers. Different operation modes of crushers were also checked. The comparison of the crushing selectivity criterion L? showed that the centrifugal impact crusher (CC) has the value of the selectivity criterion lower than the cone inertial crusher (CIC). For the crusher CC the criterion L? is 0.82 – 0.87 units, whereas for the crusher CIC – 1.43-1.755 units. The best crushing mode for the crusher CIC-300? is as follows: turning angle of debalance is 120°, peripheral speed of a cone rotation – 1,420 rpm, specific energy consumption – 6.99 kW?t/t.INTRODUCTIONIt has been shown that the most efficient techniques of mineral raw materials disintegration are selective crushing enabling to produce liberation of particles at maximum use of destruction techniques by borders of minerals cleavage. These days, such techniques are usually called special disintegration techniques (Jankovic & Valery, 2015), and they are used in 3–4 crushing stages. The selection of optimal crushing techniques is performed based on the following main parameters:- degrees of crushing, calculated based on granulometric features of raw and crushed products;- selectivity criterion defined according to useful mineral release and slime ability degree; and- traditional criteria (Gazaleeva et al., 2015) of choice based on study of physical-mechanicalproperties of ores gives the comparison of obtained figures with a reference standard or statistic data and the selection of the ore preparation scheme is made on a basis of a similar scheme from the existing production."

Jan 1, 2016

By S. Kelebek, Gerhard W. Heinrich, Peter F. Wells

"The review and optimization of process stages is an integral part of the program to improve the metallurgical performance of the Strathcona Mill. Improved primary grind size distributions, streamlining of rougher-scavenger circuits and increased platinum recoveries were the target of plant and laboratory scale tests. The results can be summarized as follows:• Decreasing the primary grinding cyclone vortex finder diameter for nickel/copper ore gave significant increases in overall copper recovery and improved rougher flotation selectivity.• The scavenger flotation stage in the circuit treating copper ore was found to contribute little to this circuit's copper recoveries -yet to be essential for acceptable recoveries of nickel, platinum and gold. The elimination of this stage by re-routing the tailings from the copper ore rougher into the nickel/copper ore rougher feed has lead to lower gangue recoveries to the nickel concentrate and to improved copper-nickel separation, while reducing equipment operating costs.• Surface aging effects such as oxidation are known to decrease flotation recoveries of platinum minerals such as sperrylite. The conditioning of an intermediate non-magnetic process stream with copper sulphate prior to thickening increased the platinum recoveries in the subsequent flotation stage by approximately 10%."

Jan 1, 1996

By M. A. Hardie

"CASES and mixtures of them are so common and so much a part of everyday existence that they become so taken for granted that their individual characteristics and idiosyncrasies rarely become of curiosity to others than those involved in tl1eir production, processing, treatment, transportation, and for utilization. The use of the most common and universal mixture of gases -air -is begun at birth by ail living creatures and their discontinuation of its use terminates existence. Modern man rides on air in his tires, rides through it for high-speed transportation, and uses it for his comfort in the heating and air conditioning of his domicile. It is neither the aim nor the in-tent, in the next few moments, to provide a panacea for even a portion of the problems inherent in the gas industry nor to delve deeply into any particular facet of its diversities. The purpose is primarily to touch upon some of the peculiarities and generally to consider approaches to employ in the pursuit of solutions."

Jan 1, 1959

By J. Borlee, F. Sorrentino, A. Fleischanderl, M. Gimenez, W. Gebert, U. Gennari

Large quantities of solid by-products are generated by the steel industry and other important activity sectors in Europe (power plants, car dismantling companies, urban incinerators) with no or very limited potential for direct recovery. In the frame of a multi¬national project supported by the European Union, a consortium has been created to develop a treatment process able to turn these by-products into valuable metallic and mineral products. VAI has been responsible for the design, erection and start-up of the pilot plant for the new metallurgical process and for the execution of the test campaigns, with the targets defined together with the partners. Up to now, 9 campaigns comprising 60 heats have been performed successfully. By-products from C-Steel and stainless steel plants, as well as fly ash and auto shredder residues, have been used and defined products such as hydraulic binders for cement, metallurgical powders for De-S practice and recycled metal phase have been produced. The mineral products were positively assessed under industrial conditions. Results from cement tests and secondary metallurgy are reported, as well as a detailed characterization. The economic value of the products, credits from avoiding dumping and significant savings on CO2 emissions make the new process economically very attractive.

Jan 1, 2004

By Ken Woloschuk

??Owners?Perspective ??Owners?Challenges ??EcoNomics?Delivery Model ??Projects ??Project Outcomes ??Questions ??Balancing the triple bottom line initiative: ?shareholders expectations of economic costs and benefit; ?stakeholders expectations of social and environmental costs and benefits; ?deciding what is sustainable and which design alternatives are the most sustainable. ?? Delivering required project outcomes

May 1, 2008

By Douglas A. Sloan

"Recently, a number of major mining companies seemed unable to find a president from within the industry, and were searching outside the industry. From this, one could conclude that managers within the industry are either not being prepared or are not preparing themselves for presidential responsibility. Opinions were sought from a number of senior executives, to attempt to define the skills a prospective president should acquire and what actions a company could take or that a prospective president could take to acquire these skills.This paper contains summaries of the opinions obtained, along with the author's comments. The paper also describes the actions some companies are taking and the actions that an aspiring president can take to prepare himself for corporate management.IntroductionA manager is promoted up the management ladder when the manager's superiors believe that he is capable of handling a more senior position. Normally, the manager acquires this credibility by outstanding performance in his current management post, whether it be in a junior management (supervisory) or in a vice-presidential capacity.In most instances, the skills required for promotion can be acquired in the current position or, at worst, the abilities exhibited in a candidate's current role will convince his superiors that the necessary expertise for the more senior position can be acquired on-the-job. This is particularly the case when the new skills are felt to be an extrapolation of the old skills.However, in the case of appointment to presidential rank, there appears to be a need for new expertise which often is not acquired in normal management progression or, at least, boards of directors of some mining companies seem to believe this to be the case. The objective of this paper is to attempt to define the new skills that should be acquired by a manager who aspires to be the president, and to describe what actions might be taken by him to acquire them."

Jan 1, 1982

By Y. Héroux, A. Chagnon, M. M. Savard

"Résumé - Le gite de Pb-Zn de Gays River s'accompagne d'anomalies des propriétés de la matière organique (MO) et des assemblages de minéraux d'argile (AMA). L'association entre la minéralisation, la distribution de la réflectance de la MO et des AMA suggère que ces traceurs peuvent servir à I ‘exploration des sulfures de métaux de base dans cette région.A I ‘emplacement du gîte, la réflectance varie considérablement (0,8% à 1,88%), pouvant même afficher une baisse avec I ‘enfouissement, ce qui est interprète comme une altération chimique de la MO. Les valeurs les plus élevées s'accompagnent localement de quelques textures en mosaïque et délimitent une anomalie thermique au centre sud de la région. Parmi les minéraux des argiles identifies, I ‘illite et la chlorite sont terrigènes alors que la smectite, la kaolinite et la corrensite sont authigènes et, à l' instar de I ‘altération de la MO, résultent des nouveaux équilibres chimiques créés suite à la précipitation des sulfures.Abstract - The Gays River Pb-Zn ore deposit is associated with anomalies defmed from the characters of the organic matter (OM) and from the clay minerals assemblages. The relationships between these anomalies and the mineralization at the mine suggest that these parameters can be used as new guides for the exploration for base-metal sulfides in this area.The vitrinite reflectance (RJ shows a wide range of values (0.8% to 1.88%) and exhibits an anomalous suppressive effect with depth of burial at the mine site, suggesting a chemical alteration of the OM. The highest R"" values are associated with mosaic textures and outline a therrnal anomaly at the south-center of the studied area. Among the identified clay minerals, illite and chlorite are terrigenous, whereas smectite, kaolinite and corrensite are authigenous and, like the alteration of the OM, are due to the new chemical equilibria resulting from the precipitation of the sulfides."

Jan 1, 1994

By D. V. Krefting, D. R. Bennett

"The Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation established a lead-zinc mine and concentrating plant at Faro in Yukon Territory in 1969. Following some 12 years of continuous operation from a single pit adjacent to the concentrator, the company decided to expand operations into two additional areas on the Vangorda Plateau. The two new deposits, known as Grum and Vangorda, are located some 15 kilometres from the existing concentrator.Confirmation of mining feasibility was followed by determination of the most practical and economical method of transporting the raw ore from the new mine sites to the existing concentrator. This analysis was carried out in two phases. The first phase reviewed the feasibility of alternative transportation systems on an 'order-of-magnitude' cost basis. This work identified systems worthy of more detailed examination. The second phase examined the preferred alternatives in greater detail.Initially, operating principles and parameters were established and catalogued. Then, based on these criteria, complete systems were developed utilizing alternative modes of transportation . In the overview analysis, some transportation modes were judged impractical and discarded, 'order-o f-magnitude' costs were developed for other systems and the most costly were eliminated . In the detailed study, the favourable systems were examined in depth which required development of accurate capital and operating costs, consideration of environ- mental impacts and an assessment of intangibles associated with the operation of a new development."

Jan 1, 1984

By A. Haque

"This paper describes an improved formulation of an analytical shear strength model developed by Haque & Kodikara (2012) by incorporating the failure of regular concrete/rock joints subjected to CNS condition. Sokolovskii’s analytical solutions developed for failure stress of slopes have been found to be effective in this regard. The analytical models have been validated for predicting the shear behaviour of concrete/rock joints subjected to various CNS loading conditions. The model has been found to accurately predict the dilation, normal stress and shear stress behaviour for a regular triangular saw-tooth joint up to the peak shear stress. Moreover, the peak shear stresses of concrete-rock joints with asperity angles ranging from 5 to 27.5o compared reasonably well with the available laboratory test results.INTRODUCTIONA new shear strength model for elastic regular triangular concrete/rock joints loaded under Constant Normal Stiffness (CNS) boundary condition has been developed by Haque & Kodikara (2012). The salient feature of this model is its capability of accurately estimating the normal and shear stresses of joints with shear displacements under CNS condition by incorporating the elastic deformation of asperities. However, the shear strength model of Haque & Kodikara (2012) for the elastic asperities cannot be directly employed to predict the peak shear stress of a joint experiencing plasticity under applied loads. Therefore, the model inevitability requires articulation of an appropriate shear failure criterion simulating the boundary conditions of the loaded asperity to predict the peak shear stress and corresponding normal stress and dilation behaviour of concrete/rock joints. Sokolovskii (1960) developed a set of analytical solutions for failure stress of slopes comprising c-??soils, which can be exploited effectively to simulate the failure condition as encountered for loaded regular triangular concrete/rock joints (Seidel & Haberfield, 2002)."

Jan 1, 2015

By Cheng-Ting Chiang

Information integration and exchange for the entire building life cycle is one of the most important issues in the AEC industry. Although the Building Information Model (BIM) technology is widely utilized to address them, BIM is mainly concerned within the design and construction (D&C) phases. In the operation and maintenance (O&M) phases, however, the information integration and exchange issue becomes more complicated because software applications here require not only BIM but other information outside of the AEC domain, e.g., disaster mitigation. Nowadays, most BIM-related research focuses on the D&C phases and pays less concern on the O&M phases, hence there is a research need that can help seamlessly transfer the information between the D&C and O&M phases. In this research, a software framework using ontology was designed to deal with aforementioned problems. The BIM data from the D&C phases were used as a foundation to generate new models for different software applications for the O&M phases. The ontology technique was employed to assist the model transformation process between the original BIM and the models for applications. Finally, a disaster mitigation example was chosen to validate the framework, in order to make sure that the transformation process is comprehensive and useful from domain experts? perspective.

Aug 1, 2013

By Andrew L. Mular, Robert P. Edwards

"The operation of flotation circuits is often regarded as a combination of art and science. Expert systems offer a method by which the art may be captured and supervisory control of flotation circuits fully realized. Operating knowledge, the art, can be consistently employed to enhance regulatory control through the judicious application of an expert system. Using an expert system, a supervisory control routine was developed, and success- fully implemented, in the copper flotation circuit at Brenda Mines Ltd.The expert system ran in conjunction with regulatory PI controllers on a personal computer. The expert system received assays via an on-stream analyzer and adjusted regulatory loop set points as required in real-time. From its commissioning in November, 1989, to the end of the mine 's operation in June, 1990, it was enthusiastically embraced by the operators and attained operating levels superior to those achievable manually.IntroductionExpert system (ES) software springs from research into artificial intelligence and is currently making significant inroads into business and industry. ES proponents make many attractive claims; they are a means of capturing the knowledge of experts and they can be programmed by non-programmers. To date, most uses of this software in the process industry are in off-line applications, meaning that the applications are not tied directly to operating (on-line) environments. Moreover, in on-line environments, they are typically employed as advisors and only suggest changes. Human operators are required to close-the-loop to the process. Yet, an ES should be applicable to operating environments and, if the claims of the proponents are valid, should also be better than existing tools. As an intelligent controller an ES must use the knowledge of experienced operators, apply it directly to a process and do this without the intervention of human operators. On-line applications have been successfully employed in the closed loop control of SAG circuits (Herbst et al., 1989) and flotation circuits (Hales, 1989). Harris and Kosick (1988)detail an implementation for flotation control at the Polaris Mine."

Jan 1, 1992

By J. Baumbach, H. Bombach, M. Stelter

"Today technical electro-refining processes for copper exclusively use sulfuric acid, for silver refining nitric acid electrolytes are used. Sulfuric acid is characterized by very good chemical and electrochemical stability, good conductivity and low cost. The disadvantages of sulfuric acid are the precipitation of fine-grained cathodes with smooth surfaces only by using additives like glue, thiourea and chloride. In case of silver the electrolyte is electrochemical unstable and bears the risk of the formation of toxic NOx when pH is too low. A second disadvantage is the form of electrodeposition of silver as dendrites with their removal from the bottom of the Möbius cells.This paper reports the results concerning the application of an alternative electrolyte in copper and silver electro-refining. At first the electrolyte was characterized by the determination of current density potential curves. Electrolysis experiments were performed in laboratory scale using technical anodes for copper and synthetic anodes for silver. During the copper tests the solubility of contaminations from the anodes and the amount and chemical composition of the anode slimes were determined. Moreover the influence of current density, electrolyte temperature and the effect of several additives on the precipitation and chemical purity of the cathodes were investigated. In all experiments cell voltage as well as anodic and cathodic polarization was measured and current efficiency and specific energy consumption were calculated. A comparison with the results with those of tests using conventional sulfuric acid electrolyte shows the advantages and disadvantages of both systems, additionally the technical application chances and limitations for the new electrolyte. This electrolyte enables the precipitation of smooth copper cathodes with low silver and sulfur concentrations even at lower temperatures without any additive. For silver refining the electrodeposition of compact silver sheets is possible, that can be stripped comparable to those in copper electro-refining."

Jan 1, 2016

By G. Avramovic-Cingara, H. J. McQueen

The microstructure of commercially pure aluminum was investigated by using polarized optical microscopy (POM), orientation imaging microscopy (OIM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. Specimens were deformed in torsion at 400°C and equivalent strain rate of 0.1 s-1, to various strains of 0.2, 0.5, 1, 4, and 6. The results indicate that POM can usefully reveal grain and subgrain structures over a large field in aluminum. TEM is most suitable to study dislocation substructure and evolution of subgrains. While TEM microscopy and OIM are capable of resolving individual subgrains, OIM can not reliably distinguish subgrains with small misorientations, particularly in samples with low strain. On the other hand, the OIM technique is very useful in the analysis of many regions surrounded by high, medium, and low angle boundaries (HAB, MAB, LAB). Various misorientation maps were studied using different data processing methods. The analysis revealed that the subgrain size is relatively insensitive to strain. The fraction of low LAB ( < 5°) decreased and HAB (>15°) increased conversely with increasing strain, whereas MAB (5-15°) remained stable. The development of an increasingly bimodal grain boundary misorientation distribution is consistent with the predominance of dynamic recovery (DRV) in the evolution of microstructure, combined with geometrical dynamic recrystallization (gDRX), now called grain-refining DRV.

Jan 1, 2006