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By J. Durkin

The Bureau of Mines has conducted field studies in coal mines throughout the United States to determine the effectiveness of electromagnetic techniques in locating miners trapped underground following a mine accident. Data from these tests have been used to generate models of expected signal and noise distributions as found above these mines. These distributions have aided in placing the expected performance of a through-the-earth electromagnetic communications technique into a probabilistic framework. Results show that at a 10% false-alarm rate, the expected probability o detecting a miner's signal" from a depth of 1000 ft is 54% at 500 ft it is 95%. These depths exceed the actual depths of 90 and 50%, respectively, of United States coal mines. Sensitivity studies have shown that at depth of 1000 ft, the probability of detection will improve approximately 2% for each dB of increase in signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio.

By H. Tveit, E. H. Myrhaug, J. K. Tuset

Silicon metal as a commodity material is produced by carbothermic reduction of quartz in electric submerged arc furnaces, where CO2 forms as a by-product. Since 1997 the Norwegian Ferroalloy Producers Association have been engaged in research programmes aiming for reduced CO2-emissions associated with fossil carbon in their processes. One important issue has been to study how charcoal and wood chips perform compared to coal and coke in the silicon process. The ability of the carbon-rich reduction materials to react with SiO-gas is commonly assumed to be of large importance to the performance of the process. Based on laboratory experiments with different carbon materials, combined with estimation of parameters in a mathematical model of the reaction between carbon and SiO-gas, a foundation for a theoretical study of the performance of the carbon materials in a silicon furnace is established.

Jan 1, 2004

By Oliver C. Ralston, Dorsey A. Lyon

The data reported in this bulletin are largely the result of experiments conducted by the Salt Lake City station of the Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the department of metallurgical research of the University of Utah. The work on lead is only one of the phases of the investigations carried on at that station during the years 1914 to 1916. The results of similar work with zinc ores and with copper and other ores will be published in future reports of the bureau.

Jan 1, 1918

By Kobayashi M, Kametani H

Particles of nickel flash furnace malle (45 per cent i) were oxidized in a dropping-particle furnace. The particles melted and the molten drops simulated those produced by the atomization of molten matte. The partly oxidized droplets were quenched and then reacted with silica flux to form high-grade matte (70 per cent i) and a fayalite slag. This paper describes the experimental equipment and deals with chemical aspects of the investigation such as volatile impurity distribution and thermodynamic considerations. The overall behaviour of minor elements such as Cu, Co, As and Pb was similar to that observed in conventional converting.

Jan 1, 1986

By P. A. Cox

The purpose of the initial research performed under this contract was to determine the margins of safety in explosion-proof (XP) enclosures, which were designed and certified according to the current schedule (Schedule 2G). Results from this work provide baseline data on the current schedule, from which a new schedule can be formulated to give equal or greater levels of safety. Results and discoveries in the initial work led to an expansion of the contract to cover, additionally, weld quality in enclosure fabrication, reliability of enclosures with windows and lenses, and performance tests for enclosure qualification. Finite element calculations and hydrostatic tests revealed wide variations in the margins of safety in the enclosures studied; however, only one enclosure had a safety factor which was less than one. Results from a weld quality survey led to the recommendation of AWS Welding Standard D14.4 for the fabrication of XP enclosures. Based on other work, accelerated aging tests were recommended for qualifying plastics and adhesives that are used in some enclosures, and a Structural Performance Test was developed to test enclosure strength for a minimum static pressure of 150 psig.

Jan 1, 1982

By B. Genc

Safety in South African mines is a subject of significant interest, since many mining companies are experiencing production deficits due to safety-related stoppages. In this paper, safety data from the South African platinum mining sector is analysed for the period 2006 to 2010. The data was obtained from company annual reports as well as the Department of Mineral Resources, and analysis in the study is limited to injury and fatality data only. The overall safety performances of companies in the sector are compared, and opportunities for benchmarking and recognising potential sources of best practice amongst platinum miners are identified. Improving safety usually incurs a cost, and mining companies are particularly conscious of the importance of controlling costs. However, cost considerations often deal only with direct costs, and it has been shown that indirect costs are usually far more significant. Therefore, a greater safety spend will usually result in the creation of value for the mine since it will reduce the indirect costs associated with accidents. The results of some recent research in this area are presented. In this light, where available, the financial performances of mining companies in the sector, obtained from published annual results, are included in the benchmarking exercise to determine whether there is any correlation with safety performance.

Jan 1, 2012

Objective: To identify and evaluate a permanent stopping to direct ventilation airflows in large-opening metal/nonmetal mines.

May 1, 2006

By J Euston

In the 1990s round flotation tanks were introduced as a result of the lower fabrication costs for larger cells. It was soon observed that round tanks held a number of further advantages over the traditional rectangular cells, such as better hydrodynamics, lower costs and reduced footprint per unit volume.In the last twenty years flotation cell sizes have increased almost exponentially and designs of 250 to 300m3 are a well established standard with plans for full scale pilot installations of 500m3. The option to install these large cells gives flexibility in circuit arrangements and allows efficient and economic matching of flotation lines with modern mill designs. The benefits of scale up are well known with reduced numbers of cells required, lower power costs per unit volume, etc. These benefits will be briefly reviewed with specific reference to the installation of 300m3 to 350m3 flotation cells at the Copperton Concentrator of Kennecott Copper in Utah, USA.The sophisticated techniques required to model these ‘supercells’ have led to a critical review of the fundamentals of flotation science and engineering. In addition to outlining the advantages of large flotation cells, this paper will review the science which supports, and occasionally challenges, the ongoing trend to larger flotation cells.

Aug 8, 2011

By Stephen C. Tadolini, Peter (Yunqing) Zhang

A unique circumstance created by monitoring a pre-driven longwall recovery room permitted measuring the stresses of a coal pillar throughout its entire life cycle in less than a week. A fender pillar, created in approximately the middle of a longwall panel at a depth of 650 ft, transformed from a solid barrier pillar - to a yielding pillar - to a residual pillar as 3 ft slices were methodically removed with the longwall shearer. The complete transformation, or life cycle, took place in less than 12 hours. The stresses were quickly transferred from the pillar onto the standing pumpable concrete supports and into the outby pillars. Roof to floor closure measurements, combined with the timing of the pillar behavior, provides a detailed look at the uncontrollable convergence of underground mine openings. Pillars remain the most important form of “primary support” and understanding these life cycles is vital for safe and efficient mine design, in both room and pillar and longwall panel extractions.

By Brian R. Zuckerman

The Capitol Area East End Complex is currently being constructed under contract with the State of California Department of General Services on two sites adjacent to the grounds of the California State Capitol Building in downtown Sacramento. The complex will consolidate the headquarters of the Departments of Health Services and Education, which currently occupy several facilities located throughout Sacramento. When completed in 2003, the complex will be the largest civic office project in California history, with approximately 1.5 million square feet of office space and housing nearly 6,300 state workers. The total project is being constructed on five separate blocks in downtown Sacramento, Blocks 171 through 174 and 225. Separate design/build contracts were executed for the construction on Blocks 171 through 174 and the construction on Block 225. The scope of this paper is limited to construction on Blocks 171 through 174, which comprise a square, two blocks on a side, bounded by 15th, 17th, L, and N streets, located immediately to the east of Capitol Park and the State Capitol Building, as pictured in the image shown below.

Jan 1, 2002

By P. N. Anyalebechi

The effects of solidification rate on the cast microstructures of aluminum alloys 6009 and 6016 have been investigated with directionally cooled laboratory-size ingots, at 0.2-10.1 K/s and 0.4- 23.1 K/s, respectively. These ranges of solidification rate are within those observed in commercial-size ingots. In both alloys, the average dendrite cell size and second phase particle size decreased with increase in average solidification rate and with a decrease in average local solidification time. However, at comparable solidification rates, the dendrite cells and second phase particles are finer in the shorter freezing range alloy 6009 than in the longer freezing range alloy 6016. This is provisionally attributed to the earlier formation of second phase intermetallics at higher temperatures during solidification and to the formation of greater amount of the relatively coarse plate-like ß -phase (Al9Fe2Si4) phases in alloy 6016. In general, in both alloys, the types and relative amounts of the second phase particles in both alloys are independent of solidification rate.

Jan 1, 2006

By D. S. Pye, J. P. Gallus

Successful hydraulic pressure treatment of oil and gas wells that have long producing intervals, multiple pay zones, fluid thief zones, or natural or induced fractures has long been a serious problem plaguing the petroleum industry. High fluid-injection rates, straddle packers, ball sealers, and either liquid or solid additives to the treating fluids are being used to cope with this difficult and costly problem.l-6 The use of ball sealers and straddle packers is limited, in practice, to wells that have been completed with perforated cemented casings or liners. Well stimulation with ball sealers and straddle packers is usually successful as long as the cement remains competent. The other techniques of diverting are used with all types of completions. However, there are two significant disadvantages of the high rate method: excessive horsepower requirements, and the need of large treating-fluid volume. Consequently, most well stimulation techniques that involve diverting depend upon ball sealers or granular materials. Liquid diverting agents, and some of the solid ones in use today, frequently will cause formation damage. On the other hand, the most popular particulate diverting agents often are so soluble in the treating fluid that they become largely ineffective; their particle size is severely reduced as they dissolve while being transported through thousands of feet of pipe to the formation face down hole. In our attempts to deal with the shortcomings of these diverting agents, we experimented with a large variety of potentially suitable deformable materials the solubility of which could be controlled. Following are the criteria for the diverting agent sought: 1. The material must be effective in reducing fluid loss to thief zones, including existing fractures and very high permeability layers in the formation to be pressure treated. 2. The material must have enough strength to bridge under the treating pressure. 3. The material must be insoluble or slowly soluble in the treating fluids so that the particles retain sufficient size to be effective after they reach the formation face. 4. The material must be completely soluble in the produced oil or condensate liquid so that it can be removed readily; it must not cause formation damage. A number of products consisting of various polymers blended with waxes and other solid hydrocarbons were examined. All these materials satisfied the criteria for a diverting agent and also exhibited some degree of plastic deformability. On the basis of initial tests of strength and hardness, several blends of wax and polymer were selected for extensive testing in the laboratory and the field. These compounds have congealing temperatures ranging from 140 to 190F; they are insoluble in water and soluble in oil. They conformed, therefore, to the criteria specified for a theoretically superior diverting agent. Laboratory and field tests were conducted using these wax-polymer materials to demonstrate that the use of a deformable diverting agent can significantly improve fluid diverting performance. Data in this

Jan 1, 1970

By N. L. Richards

In manufacturing for the 21st century, the first company to market often leads the pack in product development and sales. In this respect, manufacturing processes play an important role in transforming “raw materials” into a product(s) for sale to a customer. Thus it can be seen that upfront modelling of a design concept, or modelling of manufacturing processes in a plant, can play an important role in effectively ensuring the overall design and manufacturing route is carried out in an expeditious manner. In the paper various scenarios are considered with respect to modelling the microstructure and/or process, in various manufacturing processes. Also considered are the effects of service condition on the manufactured product in terms of creep and fatigue.

Jan 1, 2010

By A. C. Munro

This paper, which describes the milling practice at the Britannia concentrator, Britannia Beach, B. C., is one of a series being prepared by the Bureau of Mines. The concentrator treats copper ore at the present rate of 6,000 to 7,000 tons of dry ore daily and produces copper concentrate and pyrite concentrate by selective flotation methods. The copper concentrate is smelted and the pyrite product is utilized for acid manufacture.

Jan 1, 1932

By K. Leutwyler

The key to realistic casing stress analysis in thermal recovery installations is accurate knowledge of the temperatures involved. Much information leading to prediction of heat losses from tubing string to wellbore has been published. This .same information permits calculation of casing temperature under certain conditions. This paper reviews the basis for most of the published work, the line source solution to the diflusivity equation and examines some of its application criteria in the light of unsteady-state conditions. An alternate finite differences method is presented for correlation, and experimental data pertaining to the heat transfer mechanism in the annulus is reported. In the light of the information presented in the paper, it appears that the assumption of a line source for the tubing-wellbore system is valid even for reasonably short periods of heat flow, .such as "steam soak" operations. The empirically modified equation presented earlier matches computer derived results of the finite differences approach lor periods as short as 50 hours. Previously predicted cas ing temperatures and the associated stress levels are thus verified based on these correlative computations and the reported experimental information. Fall out from the computer output resulting in some studies of the influence of insulating cement properties on casing temperature, and experimentally studied effects of nitrogen placed in the annulus at various pressures., are described. INTRODUCTION Generally speaking, predictions of average casing temperatures have been based on an idealized model involving a centralized tubing string at uniform constant temperature radiating energy towards the casing under steady-state conditions.'. ' Heat is transferred away from the casing to the formation by unsteady-state conduction across thermal barriers consisting of cement and the mud sheath. Heat balances written on the casing permit prediction of instantaneous casing temperatures. During early periods of injection, casing temperature varies appreciably as a function of time; however, for long injection times this variation decays as heat flow from the wellbore to the formation stabilizes, and it becomes virtually negligible as conditions surrounding the wellbore become quasi-steady-state (Fig. 1). Carslaw and Jaeger -escribe a solution to the diffusivity equation for a line source (Fig. 2). A constant supply of heat is introduced into the medium from the line placed into the origin of the x-y coordinate system and parallel to the z-axis. Heat spreads outward in the infinite cylindrical solid and the temperature increase on a line going through point (x, y) parallel to the z-axis at a distance r can be predicted by: The following criterion must be considered: the Carslaw and Jaeger equation is obtained on the basis of a large

Jan 1, 1967

By Chand F

The silver deposits of Rockvale near Armidale, N.S.W., occur in fissure veins in epi-Permian granite. The ore is fine grained, mineralogically complex, and contains twenty-seven different minerals including eleven silver minerals. The ore is characterized by a unique multiple unmixing from a sphalerite solvent. The following minerals have exsolved from solid solution in sphalerite: pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, cubanite I, cubanite II (chalcopyrrhotite), valleriite, "brown" stannite, "olive" stannite, argentian tetrahedrite, pyrargyrite, and an unknown grey-white mineral. Several of these minerals derive from a second-stage unmixing, the immediate solvents of which are the products of earlier exsolutions.INTRODUCTIONSmall silver-rich base metal deposits occur at several localities near Armidale in the New England district of New South Wales. Chief among these are the Tulloch Mine and the Rockvale Mine at Rockvale, 27 miles SE. of Armidale, and the Tait's Gulley deposits some 15 miles NE. of Armidale.At Rockvale (Kenny, 1928), irregular lenses of lode material, principally quartz and calcite, occur along a zone of shearing in biotite granite and altered sediments. The orebodies had a maximum width of 6 ft but averaged 2 ft 6 in. The largest lens was 150 ft long and 50 ft high. The Rockvale deposits were worked for both arsenic and silver; 2,897 tons of arsenic were produced but no figures are available forsilver.Little is known of the Tait's Gulley deposits which occur in folded arenites containing small but rich veins of pyrargyrite with base metal sulphides.The sediments in these localities are possibly Silurian.

Jan 1, 1962

By Frances H. Clark

IN a concern with the varied interests of the Western Union Telegraph Co., where practically all types of metals, both ferrous and nonferrous, are utilized, many types of failures of materials occur. These have to do not only with outside plant construction, such as corrosion and fatigue of line wire and cable, but also with inside plant equipment operating at such high speeds that rapid deterioration of metal. parts due to fatigue and wear results. Both corrosion and fatigue affect the life of copper wire so its normal life in any particular locality is largely dependent on the atmospheric conditions. Tensions vary widely owing to changes in temperature and ice and wind loadings and the wire is Subject to a great range of vibration caused by wind gusts aril vibration front trains or other heavy vehicles transmitted through the earth. High frequency low-amplitude vibrations are sometimes audible as singing in the wire. The other extreme is the vertical slashing or dancing of the wire observed during severe storms where amplitudes of 9, ft. or more at low frequencies have been observed.

Jan 1, 1942

This consolidated index covers all publications of the Institute for the years 1926 through 1935. The following list indicates subjects of volumes and gives numbers or abbreviations used to designate them. TRANSACTIONS VOLUME *G26. Petroleum Development and Technology in 1925 (Published in 1926). *G26. Petroleum Development and Technology in 1926. *E27. Institute of Metals Proceedings. 73. Nonferrous Metallurgy, Milling and Concentration, Nonmetallic Minerals, Institute of Metals and Iron and Steel. [ ]

Jan 1, 1936

By F. Mendaña

The characteristics of the igneous and metamorphic bedrock, extra-hard and abrasive, of the Guadarrama Tunnels, a bi-tube project of length 28.4 km without any intermediate attack, are first commented upon. Next, a detailed discussion is given of the most relevant aspects of the performance of the four double shield type TBMs. The experience of this leads to various recommendations to be borne in mind in future designs of TBM having to work in rock of similar characteristics.

Jan 1, 2007

By G. S. Baker, S. H. Carpenter

Langenecker has reported significant reduction in strength of high-strength metals during ultrasonic t'ibration. Decreases in static yield stress an order of magnitude greater than the calculated stress amplitude of vibrations were reported by him for a stainless steel and for tungsten. in the present work, attempts were nzadc to verify such large reductions in yield and flats stresses using resonant librations of measured amplitudes. The results show that both the soft metals (copper and aluminum) and the high-strength metals (sleels) hare reductions in yield and .flow stresses no larger than the stress amplitude of libration. BLAHA and Langenecker,' investigating the effect of vibratory stresses on the deformation of zinc and aluminum, found a decrease in the static yield and flow stresses approximately equal to the vibratory stress imposed. Langenecker later extending this work to high-strength metals such as stainless steels and tungsten2 found a much larger effect. In these metals the static yield and flow stresses decreased by an amount more than an order of magnitude greater than the calculated vibratory stresses. It was suggested that this phenomenon could be a serious hazard to high-strength structures in an acoustic environment, such as a large rocket at launch, or could be used advantageously in the working of hard-to-work materials such as the refractory metals. Langenecker and others3 have investigated the effect of high-amplitude vibrations on many metal-forming operations. The results have been quite favorable with usually a large decrease in the energy necessary for the forming operation. The processes, however, involve large frictional forces and it is not clear whether the decreases in forming forces are to be ascribed to decreased friction or to decreased flow stresses. The present paper reports an attempt to determine the effect of accurately known vibratory stresses on the static yield and flow stresses. I) EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUE The standard multicomponent resonator technique for measuring internal friction has been adapted to allow simultaneous high-amplitude vibration, internal-friction measurement, and tensile deformation. This has been described in detail elsewhere.4 Longitudinal oscillations of approximately 50 kc frequency are excited in a multicomponent resonator by a quartz transducer. A second transducer measures the amplitude of vibrations. Fig. 1 shows a schematic drawing of the resonator and grip arrangement and the displacement pattern produced. Since the centers of the dummy bars are at displacement nodes, they represent points where attachments will not materially affect the vibrations. The force is applied by a standard Instron tester. The sample may be deformed while simultaneously vibrating at up to 104 strain amplitude. 11) EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The effect of high-amplitude vibrations on the yield and flow stresses of copper. aluminum, tantalum. a soft iron, and a stainless steel has been measured. In addition samples of tungsten vibrating at stress levels up to 10' dynes per sq cm have been subjected to static stresses near the static yield stress with no indication of macroscopic deformation. Fig. 2 gives typical results for 99.999 pct polycrys-talline copper. A vibratory stress of 7 x 107 dynes per sq cm is applied at points "a" and removed at points "h". The behavior of aluminum is identical. In agree-

Jan 1, 1967