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By P. Desclaux, A. Gosselin

"In 1999, PFC measurements were carried out at Alcan smelters as part of a large measurement campaign led by the Canadian Aluminium Association. Side worked prebake (SWPB) and horizontal stud Söderberg (HSS) plants in Arvida were the selected sites. CF4 and C2F6 emissions were measured continuously in the exhaust duct and at the roof vents for a week. In parallel, voltages from four designated cells were recorded at a high scan rate. Results were analyzed and correlations between voltage, anode effect duration and PFC emissions were tested. Some fundamental anode effect mechanisms were proposed and validated with the observations. IntroductionFollowing the international agreement reached within the scope of the Kyoto protocol, voluntary partnerships have been established in many countries especially for the aluminum industry. It is well known that the PFCs that are periodically emitted during aluminum production are the major source of fluorocarbon emissions. The latter are part of the greenhouse gases. In the fall of 1999, Alcan announced that it will adopt, promote and regularly renew a long-term greenhouse gas management commitment at all of its facilities within the framework of the so-called TARGET program that was implemented during 2001. The program is intended to produce on-going reductions, which will be reported publicly on an annual basis.Improvements in the understanding of the mechanisms leading to PFC emissions will contribute to targeting the most appropriate reduction actions. PFC measurement campaigns have been driven toward this end. The first measurement campaign was conducted in 1993 in order to get a picture of the emissions and a base line. The last measurement campaign was conducted in 1999 and its main objective was to compare current emissions with those measured in 1993 and to confirm the accuracy of the predictive equations for the calculation of PFC emissions. This campaign has been conducted by the Canadian Aluminium Association and measurements were made in plants using different technologies. Results of this campaign have already been reported by Bouchard et al. (2001)."

Jan 1, 2002

By A. P. Schissler

Mining has several characteristics, uncommon in other business sectors, which pose additional challenges to the implementation or design of IT and management systems that use the information. Understanding these characteristics would improve the chances of successfully importing new information technology and management techniques to mineral producers. The most important characteristics that should be understood are workplace issues, the industry’s dual nature of being a continuous construction project using cyclical factory processes, labour challenges, workplace culture, information availability, integrative data elements, and the current technical education of mining engineers. These characteristics were taken into account in two applications of information technology and systems design at operating companies. The research and consulting projects focused on the development of an IT-enabled performance management system at several underground metal mines in Canada and an integrated data warehouse for surface mines spread throughout the United States and Latin America.

Jan 1, 2006

By Y. V. Swamy, B. Bhoi, H. S. Ray

Low-grade manganese ores with low Mn/Fe ratios can he enriched through selective carbon reduction of iron oxide to magnetite followed by magnetic separation o f the magnetite. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to assess the preferential isothermal reduction of pure M1702 and Fe2O3 using solid carbon. This was followed by reduction of a synthetic analogue of composition comparable to an actual low-grade ore (i.e., Sandur manganese ore, Sandur, India). The carbothermic reduction of the manganese ore converts the hematite and goethite minerals to magnetite (Fe3O4), with the magnetite then going into the magnetic, fraction. The resultant nonmagnetic ,fraction becomes depleted of iron with an enhanced manganese content. These results show that it is possible to reduce the iron from 22% to 5.85%, thus increasing the Mn/Fe ratio from 1.52 to 6.2 with a manganese recovery of about 50%. The recovery was, further improved by grinding the magnetic fraction to -75 µm.

Jan 1, 1999

By C. E. Julihn

In the fall of 1933 a new discovery of gold was made in the old Mojave mining district of California about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. It led to mining operations that have surpassed in their results all reasonable expectations and are of exceptional promise for the future. In less than 3 years, exploration has opened up a number of veins, from some of which a substantial amount of high-grade ore has been shipped, while a large tonnage of milling ore has been disclosed. Two mills, operating on ore averaging better than $12 a ton, will probably produce more than a million dollars worth of gold in 1936, and a considerable increase of their output in the following year is anticipated. While continuance of these operations for a number of years is already assured by ample reserves of ore, future discoveries of still other veins are reasonably possible, as occurrence of gold throughout the volcanic rocks of the district is widespread and the veins now being mined showed little to attract attention at the surface.

Jan 1, 1937

"The theoretical basis of ideal smelting reduction using coal as reductant in a process employing closed loop forced-circulation of hot metal is outlined. In the proposed process, an extensive area of relatively slag-free hot metal is available as a heat sink for absorbing the large amount of heat produced by complete combustion of CO within the furnace. Any slag that is formed within the oxidizing arm of the furnace loop is quickly swept away as a thin floating layer by the bulk movement of hot metal which is induced positively by forced melt circulation and sustained by causing the hot metal and the thin slag layer to overflow into a lower level hearth in which coal is carbonised and dissolved directly into the circulating melt.The proposed process is shown to offer very substantial cost savings over all other direct smelting technology. This is mainly because of its inherently low capital cost and its high energy efficiency. Furthermore, the favourable economics are not reliant on fuel gas credits as all the process gas is combusted within the reactor itself.IntroductionMetallurgical processes in the year 2000 will be compromise solutions to the metallurgical problems that already exist today. It is common knowledge that the mineralogical complexity of certain polymetallic sulphides, for example, precludes high degrees of separation and recovery by conventional mineral beneficiation. steps are therefore being taken towards the development of a truly polymetallic smelting process which will produce simultaneously zinc lead and copper as, metals from complex ores without prior beneficiation(l). In the ferrous extraction industry, the shortcomings of the highly efficient modern blast' furnace are well known and world-wide there is considerable effort being directed towards coal-based ironmaking without the requirement of metallurgical coke as a process intermediate. The current status 0f2Joal-based ironmaking has recently been reviewed by Smith and Corbett. (2)"

Jan 1, 1988

By Sharif Jahanshahi

Calcium ferrite slags are often associated with Professor Yazawa due to his pioneering work on the thermodynamics of this type of melts. Over the past years CSIRO has invested some effort in studying physico-chemical properties of such melts to fill in some gaps in our knowledge and explore opportunities for application of the understanding developed. These investigations cover thermodynamics, transport properties of calcium ferrite based slags, as well as the kinetics of reactions of such slags with refractories. The present paper provides an overview of some of these studies and highlights some of the interesting behavior of such melts. The oxidation state of copper and arsenic in calcium ferrite based slags are predominantly Cu+ and As3+, respectively, at oxygen potentials below 10.1 atm. The concentration ofCu2+ in such slags becomes significant at oxygen potentials of greater than 10'1 atm at 1300 ?C. The activities of CuOo.s and AsOl.S in calcium ferrite slags show strong deviations from the Raoultian Law, while that of CoO is very close to ideal behaviour with respect to pure solid CoO. Addition of Si02 to calcium ferrite slags can have significant effects on the activities of FeO and Fe2O3 and hence the stability of magnetite phase. Transfer of oxygen in calcium ferrite slags is fast with diffusivity of 2xlO?3 cm2/s at 1350 °C and activation energy of 16 kcal/mol Presence of solid phases, such as magnetite, has pronounced effect on the viscosity of calcium ferrite slags. The observed dependence on solid loading and shear rate indicates deviation from Newtonian behaviour. The interfacial tension between copper mattes and calcium ferrite slags is strongly dependent on the matte grade, with the determined values being much lower than the corresponding ones for interfacial tension between similar mattes and iron silicate slags. MgO, Cr2O3 and MgCr2O4 have low solubility in calcium ferrite slags and their solubility increases with increasing copper oxide content of the slag at 1300 °c. The oxidation state of the slag has strong effects on phase transformation, dissolution rate and disintegration of refractories in calcium ferrite slags. Other key factors with major impact on slag-refractory interactions include viscosity and surface tension of slags as well as the contact angle between slag and refractory material.

Jan 1, 2003

By C. I. Pierce

The Bureau of Mines used an electrolytic tank model to investigate the response of guard electrodes of different dimensions under different simulated reservoir conditions. Sandstone disks from the Berea and Connellsville Formations were used as resistive beds in the model, and agar gel or water was used as conductive beds. In the experiments, bed thickness, hole diameter, mud resistivity, and bed resistivity were varied. The guard electrode is an excellent tool for determining true bed resistivity in the thin-bedded oil reservoirs of the Appalachian area. Vertical resolution and resistivity values are good when there is little or no invasion. Resistivity values are near true bed resistivity in beds thicker than about six hole diameters when the electrode-to-hole-diameter ratio is close to 1. However, low-resistivity muds cause false peaks to appear on the logs near bed boundaries in thick beds, and for resistive beds having a thickness approximately three to five times the hole diameter, apparent resistivities tend to be excessively high when mud resistivity is low.

Jan 1, 1966

By R. S. Olsen

Intensely altered rock has had a large effect on slope stability as slopes increase in height at Island Copper mine. Traditionally used, fracture-controlled rock slope stability design techniques have been supplemented with analyses of failure modes which include failure along curved surfaces typical of soil materials. A rock mass rating (Pa) system has been developed that addresses the lower end of rock mass strengths. Rock masses are rated in terms of fabric integrity, alteration, fracturing intensity and gouge strength. Rock mass classes have been defined using statistical frequency distributions of rock mass rating values. Strength values have been assigned to the various classes from shear testing, back analyses of failures and engineering judgment.

Jan 1, 1987

A broker relies heavily on mineral valuations and independent experts' reports to provide the fundamental information, both technical and commercial, which provides the basis of estimating the sharemarket value of securities and underlying assets. It is important to appreciate the significant variance that can occur between the market value and other types of valuation at a particular point in time. In general, most experts' reports and valuations seek to provide estimates of technical/fundamental or ""fair"" value which correspond to the Corporations Law and accounting standards requirements. They do not usually attempt to estimate (stock) market values and it is usually and quite correctly the broker's task to estimate market values on the basis of a technical appraisal and consideration of all other commercial, market and financial influences. Therefore ideally, an independent experts' report or information memorandum will include material relating to commercial and management aspects of a company as well as detailed technical reviews and fundamental valuations. Wherever sensible cash flow projections can be made, cash flow-derived valuations, usually based on discounted cash flow (DCF) calculations, remain the preferred valuation methodology. Brokers in general would not argue with this preference. However, there is a paucity of examples of valuations where alternative methods are applied as a check on the reasonableness of a DCF-based estimate.

Jan 1, 1994

By Donald V. Currie

"The Alberta and Northwest Chamber of Mines was founded in Edmonton, Alberta in 1935. The organization represented private sector mining explorers and developers in the province and north west Canada. The Chamber aided and abetted the establishment of the two territorial mining associations. Because of corporate human resource department creation by north of sixty mine operators, the Chamber refocused on Alberta and broadened its perspective to include activities beyond mining. In 1977 the name changed to the Alberta Chamber of resources. The slogan (in more modern terms vision, mandate, goal, etc) remains as Orderly Development of Canada's Resources.The sixty-three year reputation of the Chamber, built on volunteer rather than staff contribution, is the principal reason for any success. The key has truly been the reputation, not an image, as all activities have been solution oriented.This presentation provides insight into the structure and methodology applied by the organization, and reviews some of the successes and failures during the period 1985 to present. Examples discussed include:• Canada-Alberta Partnership on Minerals 1992-1995• Regional Upgrader Business Plan• National Oil Sands Task Force• Lakeland and Waterways Railway"

Jan 1, 1998

Jan 1, 1970

By Staton L. Tainter

"The Johnny Bull and Silver Knight claims were selected for exploratory diamond drilling after having been examined by the Bureau of Mines 3./The property was considered attractive for two reasons: (1) A prominent outcrop, recognized as an extension of the Tennessee vein, persisted over a distance of 2,000 feet across the claims; (2) its proximity to the known ore shoots in the Tennessee-Schuylkill mine, one of the largest zinc-load producers in Arizona.Actual drilling was started September 18 and was terminated December 8, 1943. Eight holes, aggregating 2,979.5 feet, were drilled with two machines. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSIn its program of exploration of mineral deposits, the Bureau of Mines has as its primary objective the more effective utilization of our mineral resource to the end that they make the greatest possible contribution to national security and economy. I is the policy of the Bureau to publish the facts developed by each exploratory project as soon as practicable after its conclusion. The Mining Branch, Lowell B. Moon, chief, conducts preliminary examinations, performs the actual exploratory work, and prepares the final report. The Metallurgical Branch, R.G. Knickerbocker, chief, analyses samples and performs beneficiation tests."

Jan 1, 1947

By R. Hedin, M. Dunn

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (US EPA 319 program) provided funding to aid a public-private effort in the installation of an environmentally-friendly system to treat abandoned mine drainage at Jennings Environmental Education Center (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources). Through this cooperative effort among state and federal agencies, mining, excavation, and environmental companies, college and home school students, Girl Scouts, and volunteers, a successful multi-component passive system, readily accessible for upgrades and public education/research activities, was built. 90 people were directly involved in construction of this award-winning system and about 1000 people annually benefit from the educational opportunities.

Jan 1, 2002

By Johannes Jäger

"A composite shell lining typically consists of an outer permanent sprayed concrete shell, a water proofing layer and an inner sprayed or cast concrete shell. Composite shell linings become more and more popular and have been built recently on large scale infrastructure projects. Surprisingly there is very little published literature on the actual structural design of composite linings. As a consequence there is a lack of common understanding on how to design a composite lining structure. Composite action of the outer shell (primary lining) initially carrying short term ground loads and the “unloaded” inner shell (secondary lining) require nonlinear concrete modelling to be able to assess the bearing capacity of the composite lining structure adequately. The composite action of the waterproofing membrane and the inner and outer shells can be considered either by simplified closed form solutions or by numerical models. Strength and stiffness parameters of membrane and concrete govern interaction of inner and outer shell. This paper should contribute to understanding composite lining behaviour with focus on the bearing capacity at limit state by taking into account the actual loading history. Possible ways and concepts on how to deal with these topics are presented, however a broader discussion on limit states of the composite lining materials – also in the long term will be required to come to an agreement on composite lining design methodology. INTRODUCTION Composite Lining Technology Traditionally the construction of shotcrete lined tunnels incorporates primary and secondary linings, separated by a sheet or a sprayable waterproofing membrane. The primary lining shotcrete is considered to be structurally temporary and the secondary lining to be permanent, leading to designs which ignore the bearing capacity of the primary lining in permanent condition. There was general perception that the shotcrete lining installed immediately at the tunnel face, experiencing strains up to 1% and even cracking in the early age, combined with mesh reinforcement additional support measures like lattice girder, spiles and bolts cannot be considered as a permanent structure. But also former shotcrete mixes showed significant weakness with respect to durability suggesting a more temporary nature of primary lining shotcrete. On the other hand it was clear that primary lining shotcrete does not disappear, it may lose probably a certain percentage of its bearing capacity, but discounting any contribution from the primary lining at all was considered inherently conservative. There were different strategies to account for the risk of reduced durability and bearing capacity of the primary lining, either by selecting moderate ground loads for the secondary lining design, by assuming that some residual load will be carried by the primary lining. This approach is very much based on experience. Another more rational possibility is to assume that the primary lining degrades into a rocklike material, which is weaker than the primary lining shotcrete but still imparts some strength to the ground around the secondary lining, but does not need to comply with any concrete design codes any more."

Jan 1, 2016

By Tengfei Qi, Liqiang Fan, Huiqing Tang

A new method to process the oolitic high phosphorus iron ore for phosphorus removal has been proposed in this research. It is an integration of direct reduction and melting separation with carbon-containing pellets prepared using biomass char. Experiments of direct reduction were preceded using a tubular furnace and three parameters were investigated and they were reduction temperature, biomass char adding ratio(molar ratio of carbon to oxygen） and atmosphere. Results show that the optimum condition is of reduction temperature is 1373 K, biomass adding ratio 0.9, PCO2/PCO 1.0 and reduction time 15~25 min. Under this condition, the reduced briquettes with a metallization of 75.0~80.0 % and a residual carbon content of 0.69~0.11 wt% could be obtained. Subsequent melting separation experiments were conducted using a Si-Mo high temperature furnace. Results show metal with phosphorus content of about 0.4 mass% could be obtained from the reduced sample.

Jan 1, 2015

Lead-zinc production in Canada accounted for 19% of the total value of metals and minerals produced in 1976, says Keith C. Hendrick, president of Noranda Sides Corp. Mine production of recoverable zinc w as 1. 158 million toils of 27.4% of free world production in 1976. Slab zinc pro¬duction was placed at 472,000 tons that year. Canadian mine production of recoverable lead was 247,000 tons or 10.6% of the free world production. Refined lead that year was at 177,000 tons.

Jan 11, 1977

Jan 1, 1968

By Syd S. Peng

The design of retort interchamber pillars is important in determining surface stability over in situ retort mines and to the health and safety of miners, particularly with respect to possible escape of heat and toxic gases from retort chambers. Stress distribution in retort interchamber pillars, roof, and floor was examined with the aid of linear, finite-element analysis using data from experimentally determined mechanical properties. Properties determined included elastic moduli, strength, and creep constants in laboratory tests on core covering a 100-foot depth interval in the oil shale from the Piceance Basin in Colorado. The most critical stress concentration was found in the rib side of the interchamber pillar at a height above the floor line of 1.25 times the width. Guidelines for pillar design that consider pillar strength, creep, and retorting temperature effects are proposed.

Jan 1, 1981

By W. R. Hibbard

The increased strength of a polycrystal-line metallic aggregate compared with that of its individual crystals generally has been associated with complex stress distributions at the grain boundaries resulting from atomic irregularity between grains. This disregistry, together with the necessity for adjacent crystals to deform compatibly regardless of the single crystal crystallo-graphic strain mechanism, complicates this mechanism so as to increase the metal's resistance to deformation. Although Taylor1 has shown from purely mechanical considerations the requirement for at least five active slip systems to absorb the complexities during the homogeneous deformation of polycrystalline face-centered cubic metals, experimental studies by Barrett and Levenson2 indicate that this is feasible only in a qualitative sense because of deviations from homogeneous deformation. Seitz and Read in their review3 state: " Unfortunately . . . present knowledge of the grain boundary influence is not sufficient to complement the work in single crystals and provide us with a good foundation for treating polycrystals." The purpose of this investigation was to attempt to clarify the gap between single crystals and crystalline aggregates by an analysis of the effects of dcformational stresses. Some of the results were described by C. H. Mathewson in his 1943 Campbell Memorial Lecture.zl Previous Investigations Since the performance of single crystals deformed under pure stresses has been relatively thoroughly investigated, the most significant researches are concerned primarily with deviations from single crystal behavior of large grained specimens. Qualitative grain boundary effects involving the observed amount of slip werc reported by Carpenter and Elam5 in 1921. Individual crystals in a two or three grained aluminum specimen deformed by tension acted in the normal manner described by Taylor and Elarn4 except for marked modifications at the grain boundaries. There the power to withstand deformation was considerably increased, leaving a ridge on the specimen where decreased slip occurred, often noticeable yi in. from the boundary. Adcock,6 Yamaguchi,' Seumel, Hirstg and others have also reported this phenomenon as a qualitative trend. Yet attempts by O'Neill'o and Ljunggrenll to measure a difference in hardness at grain boundaries in undeformed specimens were unsuccessful. Miller12 measured quantitatively the reduction in slip near the boundary between the single crystal and polycrystalline areas of zinc specimens. These effects consisted of two parts: I. Next to the polycrystalline interface thc distribution of stresses was so altered

Jan 1, 1949

By N. Arbiter

The theoretical analysis of tumbling mill energetics and performance has largely neglected mill dimensionality, and, in particular, the importance of the length/diameter ratio. This is in spite of the fact that practice varies substantially in this area: geographically, for semi-autogenous and autogenous mills, as between North America and South Africa/Scandinavia; historically, for overflow ball mills, for which the L/D ratio has increased significantly from the earliest small mills to/the largest mills currently. The present study is concerned primarily with the influence of the L/D ratio on the design and operation of overflow ball mills; on the occurrence of the overload phenomenon; and on the limits, if any, it may impose on mill capacities because of critical pulp axial velocity limits. It will be shown that the shape face or is of major importance in this area; and that its adjustment to the extent that this is practical should remove the diameter limitations previously postulated for this mill type.

Jan 1, 1990