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By B. W. Clyburn

"Coals from the Corporation's Lingan and No. 26 mines are classified as high-volatile A bituminous, with a very low inherent ash and containing a/l essential properties to provide metallurgical coal, with the exception of a high sulphur content. Only through proper cleaning at low specific gravity can the pyritic sulphur fraction of the coal be liberated to an extent where final sulphur meets coking standards. This first section of the paper deals with the operation of a Dutch State Mines heavy-media cyclone circuit to achieve an actual separation in the region of 1.30 specific gravity. A discussion of the parameter of control which must be applied along with an appraisal of the results obtained is included in the paper.IntroductionVery high fluidity and unusually low ash are the outstanding characteristics of coal from Devco's mines in the Harbour seam of the Sydney coal field.However, sulphur content, mainly pyritic, ranges from 1 to 2.5070. To obtain the low and consistent sulphur level required in metallurgical coking coals, preparation at low specific gravity is required .Metallurgical coke is used as the fuel in an iron blast furnace. Its sulphur content largely determines the quantity of slag required to remove it and therefore influences furnace productivity and unit costs.Typical data on the various coal properties of importance in the production of coke are included in Table I. Necessity of Low-Gravity SeparationThe design of any coal preparation plant requires the study of washability properties of the coal to be treated to determine the quantity and quality of coal produced at a given specific gravity along with the difficulty in accomplishing that separation.Their low ash content allows the important washability aspects of Harbour seam coals to be represented by sulphur! specific gravity curves (Fig. I). This particular example indicates that a yield of 54.5% is attained, at a sulphur content of 1.20%, for a perfect separating device operating with a 1.29 S.G. cut point.Material rejected from this separation still contains usable coal, which is recovered as middlings by separating at a higher gravity."

Jan 1, 1980

By Jason Berenyi

Presentation Overview ? What is Potash? ? Where are the potash deposits? ? Current potash mines ? production, capacity and planned upgrades ? Saskatchewan Saskatchewan?s Potash Production Potential s ? Current Status of Potash Exploration ? Increasing Demand for Potash ? Saskatchewan global role

May 1, 2009

By H. Salamanca

Recently, the mining industry has become one of the leading target markets for the technology industry as they need to innovate in their productive processes in order to boost productivity, reduce operation costs, increase operation safety, and improve the quality of life of their workers. This work presents the technological developments that HighService has done in different stages of the mining productive processes to include robotic manipulators in their automation solutions as well as the development of new equipment and sensors. The robotic technology integration is presented in different applications such as handling and selection of cathodes in E-W machines, automation of base plate maintenance, automation of cathode stripping machine, and multi-tools handler for liner bolt replacement in SAG mill liner maintenance activities. The proposed solutions show technical and economical viability with low initial investment and short implementation period of six (6) to ten (10) months. The results have been validated in plant, obtaining higher production rates and availability.

Jan 1, 2007

By T. W. Wloder

During recent studies concerning the effects that various surface treatments, surface imperfections, locked-in residual stresses and metallurgical and geometrical notches have upon the mechanical behaviour of metals and, in particular, upon their tension-bending characteristics under impact loads, it became apparent that specially developed methods and samples would be of great assistance in determining the desired data. This paper describes and discusses a number of different types of double-notched tension-bending impact samples which have been considered and examined for this purpose. The types most suitable for exploratory investigations are proposed for application in the study of the _behaviour of metals, their welds, and, in particular, their surfaces, when subjected to various notch-severities, surface imperfections, strain rates, temperatures, and constrained states of stress (i.e. the relations of the three principal stresses). It is expected that the proposed double-notched tension-bending samples and the proposed test methods will also contribute toward further understanding of the cold brittle behaviour and the notch-sensitivities of metals. The possibilities of introducing the so-called impact notch-sensitivity index and relative impact notch sensitivity of metals are discussed. Data obtained on double-

Jan 1, 1961

By C. D. Rowe, H. S. Mitri, J. Malki, I. Vennes

Ore extraction at great depths creates high stresses around mine openings, which can result in violent rock failure in one of various forms of strainburst. This is especially true with strong and brittle rocks, which can store a large amount of strain energy that is suddenly released at failure. The strength and brittleness of rocks have been extensively investigated in the past. The most widely accepted method for the determination of rock burstability is the strain energy storage index obtained from a non-destructive uniaxial load–unload test. However, the results of this method are not always conclusive, showing less repeatability when the target test load is changed. This study concerns itself with the introduction of microscopic analysis as a tool to help validate the strain energy index results when burstability cannot be warranted based on mechanical property tests alone. In this study, two types of rocks, namely, basaltic komatiite (BK) and felsic norite (FNOR) obtained from Canadian underground mines are examined. The selection is based on the premise that felsic norite is known to be burstable from the mine experience, whereas basaltic komatiite is not necessarily burstable. A total of 60 mechanical properties tests were conducted including uniaxial compressive strength, Brazilian tensile strength, and load-unload tests. Laboratory tests on FNOR consistently exhibit high burstability; however, the results for the BK tests are not conclusive. To seek explanations for the mechanical rock behavior, 18 thin sections were examined with optical microscopy and image analysis. The findings show the tested BK specimens are dominated by alteration products, and all primary igneous minerals are lost. There is minor quartz, garnet, carbonate minerals, talc, and serpentine, which give the rock its ductile properties. The FNOR specimens are found to be relatively fresh and supported by a strong network of plagioclase with minor pyroxene, biotite, and secondary micas, explaining the higher stiffness. This study demonstrates how optical microscopy can complement mechanical property tests to evaluate burstability of rocks.

May 4, 2025

By J. O'Leary, R. Cannell, D. Honsberger

"The Scully Mine deposit lies within the group of metasediments that together comprise the rocks of the Labrador Trough. The ore itself still retains the bedding characteristics of the parent rocks and on this basis has been divided into three main members, namely: Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper and Lower both show many of the bedding characteristics of the cherty taconites of the northern U.S.A.; the Middle member is a coarse-grained friable specularite rock. The ore minerals are hematite (normally present in the specular variety) and magnetite, although the latter rarely occurs in concentrations greater than 20 per cent. Gangue minerals are quartz and the hydrated iron oxides. Manganese oxides also occur as accessory minerals. The outcrop area of the orebody is in excess of 2 square miles, displaying a complex pattern of faulting and folding, which has been formed as a result of at least two orogenic periods."

Jan 1, 1972

"A growing public awareness of work-related diseases such as pneumoconiosis and the impact of this awareness on legislative bodies and on the skilled labour market are reasons why the Canadian mining industry must consider dust control of top-drawer importance. Measurements and standards related to the hazard are necessary to control a dust situation and to avoid excessive risk. The author discusses some of the methods of measurement, standards proposed and terminology used in this developing technology. The purpose primarily is to give a better understanding of the basic advances achieved by those who have applied current knowledge with a measure of success."

Jan 1, 1972

By J. T. Kalala

The High Pressure Grinding Roll (HPGR) is gaining acceptance in the mineral processing industry and has become a competitive technology in reducing the specific energy consumption in Mineral processing plants. The amount of samples required for HPGR amenability testwork and HPGR wear tests is usually high and often cannot be available at early stage of projects were only a few drill cores are available. Although HPGR was initiated from small scale piston die compression tests, the development of small scale piston die test to predict the performance of HPGR has been slow. The objectives of this paper was to present the designs, operating procedure of piston-die press and operating conditions which have resulted in similar particle size distribution obtained from a piston die test and HPGR Labwal unit starting from the same feed size distribution. Testwork were conducted using a 2 MN piston-die press and a Labwal HPGR unit on major South African ore types, viz, gold, platinum and iron ores. The results obtained show that piston-die test can generate data to predict energy consumption, product size distribution, and even to evaluate the edge effect.

Jan 1, 2012

By A. Bowles

The process of accumulative roll bonding (ARB) has been applied to wrought magnesium alloy AZ31. Accumulative roll bonding results in severe plastic deformation of sheet material. In AZ31, this process leads to the refinement of the microstructure by dynamic recrystallization. The refinement of the microstructure results in an improvement in mechanical properties with potential for producing materials for superplastic forming. In this work AZ31 was bonded with up to 64 layers and the potential of roll cladding with aluminium was also investigated. The development of microstructure and the mechanical properties are reported here.

Jan 1, 2006

By Shuji Owada

Scrap electrical and electronic appliances, so called "E-waste", are not a present target to be collected and recycled under Japanese regulations. This material, however, contains considerable amounts of base, precious, and rare metals and it is necessary to recover these elements for maintaining stable supply and establishing "the society of environmentally-sound material-cycle". This paper describes recent trends of rare metals recycling in Japan and technological approaches to achieve the above objective. Also a research work to concentrate rare metals from the printed wiring boards by combining brand new comminution and physical separation methods is discussed.

Jan 1, 2011

By J. R. Shouldice

"IntroductionREEFS of Silurian age are recognized in southwestern Ontario, both in outcrop and from subsurface information. This paper deals with the so-called 'pinnacle' reefs which are known only in the subsurface. For the purpose of this paper, the pinnacle reefs are arbitrarily defined as those structures having a height of over 250 feet and a length of less than two miles. This definition eliminates numerous mounds and other broader, more subdued, structures of less certain origin, found in subsurface beds.The term 'pinnacle reef' is perhaps unfortunate, but it is in common usage in Ontario and is used elsewhere for different types of reefs. A new name is justified by the unusual environment and structure of the Ontario reefs, but it is unlikely that any other term would gain acceptance. Rather than propose a new term which would be ignored or result in further confusion and misuse, the name 'pinnacle', as defined above, is used in this paper.Pinnacle reefs have been found over a fairly large part of southwestern Ontario. The known reefs of this type parallel the southeast edge of lake Huron and •follow the strike of the structure contours which circle the Michigan basin (see Figure 1). In total, twenty-five such reefs have been discovered in southwestern Ontario."

Jan 1, 1955

By Jason J. Ballentine

This paper presents a case study of how an asset strategy and zero based budget was developed for an existing crushing plant that had been purchased from the contract service provider by an Australian Iron Ore miner. The goal was to directly align the strategies and budget to the business goals. This however was not a simple task due to poor historical records and a general lack of information. These challenges were overcome and the benefits of a documented maintenance strategy, a justifiable zero based budget and employee engagement were realized.

May 1, 2007

By G. S. Barry

INVESTIGATIONS to date have shown that, should there be the need or the appropriate economic stimulus, Canada's mineral resources are sufficiently extensive to allow considerable expansion of its non-fuel mineral industry, during the remaining part of this century and possibly beyond (1, 2). The availability of sufficient capital will be one of the critical factors which will determine whether this potential will be fulfilled. The following analysis centers on the capital requirements of the Canadian non-fuel mineral industry under one set of basic assumptions of capacity growth, cost of new and replacement capacity, rates of depletion and depreciation of mines and plant, and the cost of exploration and infrastructure. Mindful of the fact that exploration and development will not thrive in Canada unless a very positive approach is taken, the writers make no apologies for being "optimistic" about long-term production prospects. Furthermore, in the event that world demand does escalate as anticipated and the forecast realistically attainable levels of Canadian production are not reached, then Canada will not have reaped the full range of economic benefits available, and opportunities will have been lost. Projections for Canadian production between 1976 and 2000 are essentially based on the forecast published in the 1974 paper, "Towards a Mineral Policy for Canada - Opportunities for Choice (3), with some updating on the basis of recent developments.

Jan 1, 1977

By J. Stiksma, K. Buban, J. Oftsie, R. Kalanchey, S. Sadykov, E. McConaghy

The Kazakhmys zinc refinery in Balkhash, Kazakhstan, which employs the Dynatec Zinc Pressure Leach Process, officially launched autoclave operations on December 27, 2003. The Kazakhmys plant is the world's first greenfields zinc refinery based on Dynatec's two-stage pressure leach technology. Production of zinc was realized on February 9, 2004, when the first cathode was stripped. Currently the plant start-up is ongoing, with progression to two-stage zinc pressure leach operation and ramp-up to full design capacity continuing through 2004.

Jan 1, 2004

During the past 10 years, research work to improve the survey of stope limits after mining supplied useful information, particularly for large open and sub-level stopes, regarding waste dilution caused by differences between final production limits and planned stope limits. However, the efficiency of this information to improve the overall efficiency of the mining process is limited, given that the impacts of inaccurate ore limits leading to dilution (sensu stricto) and ore losses haw not been considered adequately. Geological/sampling information should be optimized in terms of quantity and/or quality for the deposit characteristics and the constraints of the mining method used. As industry practice regarding the definition and recording of dilution is flexible and as ore losses frequently am poorly doc-umented, the use of these terms is reviewed. Simulations were carried out on two typical narrow gold deposits, based on an earlier study at Inco's Thompson mine regarding the impacts of wide to narrow delineation grids using recorded variations of vein geometry. Vertical to sub-vertical deposits of 3 m and 6 m widths mined by long-hole open stopes were considered. Deposits delineated by 7.5 m (25 ft) grids were taken as a base case and the impacts of less accurate limits in conjunction with long hole mining based only on a 15 m (50 ft) delin¬eation grid. The impacts of overestimation (dilution) and underestimation (metal losses) were considered separately, using the average error of +/-0.62 m recorded in the Inco study. The impact of less accurate information was much stronger on the narrower deposit: both dilution and ore losses diminished the net present value of the 3 m wide deposit by 39.27% and 45.41%, respectively, and that of the 6 m wide deposit by 12.84% and 11.55%. As the impacts of ore loss and those of dilution on the net present value am almost identical in these simulations, we could, in practice, assume a 50/50 split between dilution and ore losses in such a case. These results do no take into account the effects of local optimization measures taken at the mine production level (blasthole sampling near stope limits, etc.) The potential impacts of geological and sampling uncertainties in terms of lower NPV justify and require more systematic efforts to ensure that deposit appraisal work and feasibility studies are adequate to optimize company revenue and competitive returns to investors from mine production activities.

Jan 1, 2005

By Thomas Kilpatrick

The liability created by building this railway is the great financial problem before the people of British Columbia at the present time. In dealing with the subject, I propose to divide it into three periods: The Past - The Present - and The Future. The Past The primary objects in building the railway were to provide an independent and direct route for the Grand Trunk Pacific railway into the city of Vancouver, and to open the central and north-eastern portion of the province.. This vast territory, almost one-half the entire area of British Columbia, has great wealth in fruit, agricultural, and grazing lands; timber, coal, water-power and minerals of all kinds, including some of the richest placer deposits in the world. Rivers and lakes teem with fish. Big game, including moose, elk, caribou, deer, grizzly and black bear, mountain goat and sheep, is plentiful and there is an abundance of small game and fur-bearing animals. In addition, its scenic attractions are unsurpassed in Canada. To develop these resources it was considered necessary to build a railway from south to north as a main artery of transportation and, if necessary, branch lines to carry heavy .shipments of coal or other commodities. Lighter freight may be handled by motor trucks from distant points to the railway.

Jan 1, 1925

By A. E. M. Warner, P. J. Mackey

"In 1988, two of the present authors Warner and Vahed [1] were amongst several co-authors on a seminal paper reviewing nickel pyrometallurgical operations of the era. Given that significant changes in the nickel industry have occurred since that time, including the overall political landscape, technology, the overall world energy picture, the countries sourcing nickel and finally the nickel market itself, the present authors considered it timely to provide a 2015 update. In 1988, total world nickel production from sulphide and laterite sources, including production in the former "Centrally Planned Economies"- was about 0.86 million tonnes/a, while in 2014 total world nickel production reached an all-time high of almost 2 million tonnes/a - some 230% higher. On the other hand, while in 1988, about 94% of world nickel was produced pyrometallurgically and of the order of 33% via laterites, today, about 88% of nickel is by pyrometallurgy, with some 41% from laterites, thus showing that more nickel is now sourced from laterites, a trend which is expected to continue.During the period under review, new processing technologies were developed and introduced, along with substantial improvements in both the technologies employed and the scale of operations. Significant productivity gains have been achieved in sulphide pyrometallurgy in part through more efficient mineral processing, particularly in pyrrhotite rejection, and the use of ever larger-scale process equipment. This made it possible to treat lower grade and more complex ores. The significant game-changer from a production perspective was the introduction in the early 2000s of nickel pig iron (NPI) in China via modified iron blast furnace smelting, an old technology long ago cast aside by other nickel producing countries. With the exception of the emergence of this new NPI capacity in China, in the laterite industry modernization and expansion of existing operations has been employed to gain productivity, to cut costs and/or offset the effect of declining ore grades. The NPI technology development has become a game changer in the traditional global supply and demand relationship, opening up a new frontier to supply nickel to low grade utility steel producers. One other key nickel development was the Indonesian ban on nickel ore exports effective in January 2014, thus effectively curtailing NPI production at existing Chinese plants, but on the other hand, potentially prompting new smelting facilities in Indonesia. This paper reviews and updates major pyrometallurgical sulphide and laterite operations worldwide, including changes in nickel extractive metallurgy. It also provides a brief review of new developments in pyrometallurgical operations, with special focus on the NPI process and presents an outlook of the potential future direction of the industry."

Jan 1, 2015

By W. A. Haley

This paper discusses how a large wheel loader should be equipped, with particular attention paid to tires and tread life, and describes the several steps that can be taken to provide favorable working conditions and reduce over-all costs. A comparison is then made of wheel loader production and costs vs those of power shovels, and the present and possible future applications of the wheel loader are outlined.

Jan 1, 1969

By D. R. Derry

"IT WOULD TAKE a braver man than I to try to forecast the future of mining exploration far into Canada's second century. Even to look ahead ten or twenty-five years we must review the figures of the fairly recent past -and I have found this quite a time-consuming but interesting job -in order to find trends and project them into future years. The trends to which I will refer are: firstly, the annual expenditure on exploration and its relation to value of output; secondly, the discovery rate and its relation to production initiations; and thirdly, the methods by which discoveries have been, and will be, made. Exploration Expenditures Figures on the annual expenditure on mining exploration in Canada have been collected and published for some years by the Do-minion Bureau of Statistics. These have some unavoidable limitations; e.g., in the varying definition between one company and another of what comprises ""Exploration"" and in the difficulty of getting complete returns. However, although the actual figure for a given year may be subject to question, I believe that the relative figures from one year to another are reasonably reliable. There is also a lapse of time between the collection of data and publication -the last published figures are for the year 1963. In bringing the figures up to date to 1966 I have canvassed eight of the larger mining and exploration companies and obtained their figures for 1963 to 1966 inclusive, and then averaged these for each year and applied the progression to the 1963 figures."

Jan 1, 1968

By L. Shasko

Deliberative mapping is a method of public engagement designed to bring citizens and specialists together to inform policy decisions in conflict-laden areas of science and technology (Stirling and Davies 2004a). Citizens and specialists participate in the process both separately and together. A deliberative mapping study was held in Regina, Saskatchewan in October and November of 2019. Participants in the study assessed options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in small, remote or off-grid communities, including assessing the role of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in climate change mitigation. Deliberative mapping is designed to facilitate direct, two-way conversations between citizens and specialists through both formal and informal discussions. The relationship building component of this process may increase trust. Public consultation processes that lack two-way dialogue or are seen as obligatory rather than meaningful can worsen public opposition or lead to negative public perceptions. Public education alone is not enough to change public opinion. Providing people with more information on topics they already hold opinions on can work to reaffirm previously held biases, but building relationships can provide new pathways to overcome divisions and turn close-mindedness into open-mindedness.

Jan 1, 2020