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By K. Norrena

Grade control in open pit mining requires the specification of dig limits that account for mineral grades, economic costs, and selectivity of mining equipment. Visual identification of ore rock types is ideal, but this is not always possible in lower grade disseminated deposits where ore/waste contacts are not visually discernible. In this case, conventional grade control practice consists of a two-step procedure (1) create a map of mineral grades at some selective mining unit scale, and (2) determine practical ore-waste boundaries or dig limits on the basis of the gridded block grades or assay information. This procedure is laborious, depends on a subjective assessment of where the boundary should be, and may be economically sub-optimal. We pose the determination of dig limits as an optimization problem and solve that problem with the technique of simulated annealing. Simulated annealing has the unique advantage of being able to combine multiple non-linear constraints into a single objective function. We use maximum profitability and the ability of the equipment to mine the proposed dig limits as constraints in the determination of optimal dig limits. We require a map of expected profit for eah block. Geostatistical techniques are recommended, for mapping expected profit but not necessary. Geostatistics will provide a quantification of the uncertainty in the grades within rock types using all available blasthole samples and exploration drilling. Some variant of L-optimal estimation or kriging can be used to determine the block-by-block classification that is economically optimum. We also need the expected profit for each block. It is unrealistic to assume free selection, that is, each block cannot be extracted independently of its neighbors. The optimal balance of ''accepting dilution'' and ''wasting ore'' is achieved to maximize profit subject to equipment constraints.

Jan 1, 2001

By Peter Ay, Harry Pempel, Satya Narra, Mike Müller, Jens Markowski

"Within the next few years major changes in mobility are expected. Increasing numbers of electric powered cars, electrobikes and E-Scooters define the transport sector. Recently lithium based traction batteries as storage medium have led into matrurity of series production combining high electrical efficiencies with low weights and compact dimensions. Due to the relatively young development with lithium batteries utilization, only few investigation were conducted regarding their recycling. Conventional battery recycling processes can not be applied due to differences in design and chemistry. So an automated disassembly and processing procedure for lithium traction batteries has been developed in the R/D-project ""Li-WERT"". Instead of complete smelting of the batteries without pretreatment, an automated disassembly and specific treatment of the material streams was realised, adjusted to the needs of the subsequent recovery technologies. A higher quality, with reduced expenses for the separation of fine-grained or fused material mixes, can be obtained for the individual components. The automated disassembly using an industrial robot significantly reduces dangers for the operating crew. The selective disassembly and beneficiation allows full recovery of the fractions. The batteries will be disassembled to cell level by the industrial robot. Anodes, cathodes, and separation layers are isolated and processed. The technology is designed, that no waste is generated for disposal. The pelletised cathode coating and the other separated metals (stainless steel, copper, aluminum) can be used in respective metallurgical plants. Circuit boards and plug contacts are also coveted secondary raw materials for reuse. The process is modular and offers high flexibility, e. g. for new battery types/ sizes by quick adjustment of the robot and tool change. Adaptation to other cathode materials (e. g. Li[FePO]) is possible. After finishing the R/D-project, a pilot plant for demontage was realised in 2013."

Jan 1, 2014

By L. G. Morrell

Introduction A Self-Dumping cage which combines the features of a small skip and a cage has been used in a vertical winze between the 2,000 and 2,500 levels at the Coniaurum mine for the past three years, during which time its success has been demonstrated by uninterrupted service and low maintenance charges. lt was designed by John Reddington, mine manager, and was built under his supervision in the Coniaurum mine shops. Being new in many of its operating features, a small-scale model was made and tried before the final construction was undertaken. The mechanical performance of the model suggested a few minor changes that were incorporated in the final drawings. During its three years of use, the automatic dumping device has saved the expense of deck-handling of the cars. This actually represents a gross economy of something over four times the cost of construction and installation, which totalled $1,325. The cage, empty, weighs 2,200 pounds, of which 500 pounds represents the weight of the dumping accessory and necessarily heavier construction. Besides a considerable financial saving, the time saved in unloading increases the daily hoisting capacity of the winze. In raising ore from the 2,500 level, five minutes are required for a complete trip. Allowing one minute for the alternative of decking, we believe that the automatic dumping has increased the capacity of the winze hoist nearly 20 percent.

Jan 1, 1933

By Adabala Raja Venkata Sai Naresh, Radhakanta Koner

Particle size distribution (PSD) is an essential parameter in assessing the overall efficiency of blasting operations in mines and the subsequent mine-to-mill process in the mining industry. Despite some drawbacks of 2D image analysis techniques in accurately estimating particle sizes in PSD, the mining industry has relied on them for the last three decades. This study proposes the 3D rock fragmentation measurement (3DFM) technique for deducting the accurate dimensions of 3D rock particles for the PSD. 3DFM has utilized different processing algorithms. Images of different views of the non-touching rock particles of varying sizes have been acquired as a data acquisition step of structure from motion technology for generating sparse point cloud. Dense point cloud reconstruction is used to avail finer details of the point cloud using clustering views for the multi-view stereo algorithm. Random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm coupled with an unsupervised classification using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) classifier is employed to extract the rock clusters from the 3D point cloud. Finally, the accurate rock sizes are derived using the hybrid bounding box rotation identification (HYBBRID) algorithm with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.10 cm for length, 0.10 cm for breadth, and 0.32 cm for depth. The PSD of rock fragments obtained from the proposed 3DFM technique is found to be matching with the results of mechanical sieving and manual gauging with an R2 values of 0.98 and 0.99, respectively. The 3DFM method can be considered cheaper, more accurate, and computationally faster in determining the rock dimensions for the PSD determination method to enhance the productivity of the mining industry.

Dec 29, 2023

Reduce the danger to personnel and destruction of equipment caused by fires on surface coal augers. Approach: A reasonably priced reliable system which automatically senses a fire and activates dry chemical extinguishers, has been built and field tested. How It Works: Heat sensors mounted in the engine compartment and hydraulic hose areas detect the fire, usually before the operator does. This causes the system to automatically discharge A-B-C class dry chemical extinguisher through a fixed piping system.

Jan 1, 1976

To alleviate the hazard to personnel and danger to equipment caused by fires on large, mobile vehicles. The Approach: A system which automatically senses a fire at its early stage of development, warns the driver of the danger, and activates fire extinguishers in the zone of combustion, How It Works: The automatic fire protection system utilizes both thermal and optical sensors to detect the heat or light given off by a fire in the area of concern (Fig. 1). The system warns the driver of the hazard and then automatically extinguishes the fire with pressurized S-C class powder. The system can also be activated manually from the operator's cab or from ground level. Further, the automatic sequencing of the system can be manually overridden by the driver if he determines that the fire sensors have malfunctioned to cause a false alarm.

Jan 1, 1974

By G. Guzman

In the framework of the optimization of Teniente Converter operation the new system of automatic flux feeding through gar-gun was implemented in the Potrerillos Smelter, Codelco Chile, Salvador Division. The control algoritm based on simple iron and silica balance adjusted by empirical coefficients was incorporated in the logical programmer. The programmer works in real time gathering information from the plant instrumentation events and introduced chemical assays of concentrate, slag and flux. Through the auto-tuning of the automatic operation the criterions of optimal flux dosage were determined. Four month of operation of the automatic flux feeding system demonstrated the stabilization of magnetite content in the slag in the narrow range from 18 to 20% and the decrease of flux consumption, corresponding to annual savings US$ 340,000. Additionally, the automatic system helps operators in the control room in fast determination of optimal fluxing and avoid the errors in flux dosage affecting the slag quality and its impact on refractory wear.

Jan 1, 2007

By J. Lee

A monolithic caisson is one of the major structural components commonly used in the construction of docks, breakwaters, and container terminal quay walls. Since the structure of monolithic caissons is typical and somewhat simple, its design process is also typical and repetitive, but still time consuming. To reduce the total time and enhance productivity, we developed a parametric model in Revit to automatically generate a 3D model of a monolithic caisson. It is designed to generate the Revit model of a caisson with concrete body and reinforcing bars. The size of caisson, the number of reinforcing bars, and the space between reinforcing bars are automatically changed when users update parameters. This paper presents how we developed this parametric family in Revit for monolithic caisson design and how it would enhance its design process.

Aug 1, 2013

By J. Lee

As the usage of BIM increased in the construction industry, some construction owners started exploring the use of BIM for maintaining their facilities. Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBIE), a spreadsheet data format suggested in 2007 to manipulate building information, is considered as one of the solutions that would facilitate the process of transferring information from BIM to applications for facilities management. Several BIM and Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) applications offer functions to export or import the COBIE data. To facilitate the process of generating the COBIE data out of Building Information Model, some add-in applications, such as COBIE Toolkit for Revit, also were developed. However, most of these applications handle a limited amount of COBIE data. Professionals using these add-in applications therefore sometimes end up spending a significant amount of time to add additional data manually to the COBIE data file. To automatically get a data-rich COBIE file, we developed a prototype application that extracts information from Revit, which is one of the BIM authoring tools, stores them in an external database, and then produces the COBIE file using information stored in the database. We applied our application to a pilot project and produced 8 COBIE worksheets automatically, which demonstrated a significant amount of time saving. This paper presents how our prototype application produces 8 COBIE data sets automatically. It also addresses our attempt to handle more COBIE data sets.

Aug 1, 2013

There are presently in use many grinding mill control schemes and concepts. This paper presents one operating method of controlling the particle size of the cyclone overflows for proper metallurgical results and controlling the level of the cyclone feed sump and new feed rate to obtain lowest unit cost of finished (ground) material which is usually at the maximum grinding mill throughput. This system stresses simplicity of field instrumentation and control strategy. Both of these factors lead to better operator understanding and acceptance. The low capital investment of this system also makes it more attractive at the Buick Concentrator when compared to other more complicated systems utilizing mass flow measurement and a computer to calculate circulating load and infer particle size. Furthermore, it has the advantage of utilizing an actual measurement for control, rather than a difficult-to-maintain inferred value. There are several reasons for maximizing mill throughput at Buick. The milling rate before automatic control was too low when compared to mill throughput increases planned for the future. Through this new operating system, it appears Buick will not have to make major changes of mill motors and speeds to meet the increased? production rate. Also, since power costs continue to escalate, it is desirable to maximize the throughput to the grinding circuit and reduce overgrinding to achieve a reduction in power cost per ton of ore milled. Presently, 45% of the concentrators' total power is consumed in this grinding circuit.

Jan 1, 1977

By G. R. Baiden

"An Automatic Haulage Truck (AHT) has been developed for manless tramming of run-of-mine material in an operating mine. The AHT has a 70-ton capacity and uses an electric trolley system in combination with a computer control system to operate the vehicle. The purpose of the AHT was to provide a high capacity, high productivity material transfer system where conveyor belt applications are not immediately practical.The AHT project was started in 1983 at Inco Limited, Ontario Division as a result of the need for rapid material transport to match increased extraction rates resulting from bulk mining methods. The original concept was to use a continuous loader with the truck. However, in order to minimize development problems the truck project was considered a stand-alone project.The AHT project consisted of concept development, preliminaryand detailed design, manufacture, surf ace testing and mine implementation.The AHT was manufactured and ready for testing in 1988. At this point the truck was first moved onto the test track for debugging. This proved successful and in 1989the decision was made to install the AHT at Little Stobie mine on 2000 level. Commissioning of the system was started in 1990and at present a fully functional automated haulage system is in place at Little Stobie mine producing 3000 tons/day.This paper describes the project presenting results achieved to date."

Jan 1, 1992

By Donald D. Murphy

My first contact with underground, bolt conveyors came when I was hired as a draftsman by the La-Del Conveyor & Manufacturing Company in 1935. At that tine relatively few nines were using haulage belt conveyors. Wore they were in use, they were usually loaded by chain or shaker type room conveyors which in turn were hand loaded at the working face. Duo to the low room tonnage, a gathering belt might receive who output of from six to eight rooms. For several years belts 26 and 30" in width were the favorites for coal mine use. Belt speeds very seldom exceeded 200 ft. per mm. at that time. Conveyor lengths for the majority of units lay between 1.000 and 2000 ft. For a number of years 25 H.P. drives were adequate for those conveyors. From 1940 until about 1950 loads and speeds went up slightly and 40 H.P. drives became the standard. Since the majority of mines were then using direct current power systems, we were able to use controllers with 3 or more steps of starting resistance. The slow belt speeds coupled with relatively long starting cycles kept the rate of acceleration low and gave us smooth, easy starts.

Jan 1, 1963

By William Petruk

A fully automatic image analysis system that consists of a microprobe, an energy dispersive x-ray analyzer, and an image analyzer was developed at CANME:I' to determine mineral behaviour that affects beneficiation. The interlacing between the instruments permits automatic identification and characterization of minerals in samples of unbroken ore pieces and of mill products. Different types of information are obtained for minerals in samples of unbroken ore pieces than in samples of mill products, and are used differently. For unbroken ore pieces size distributions are determined for discrete mineral grains to predict a grind at which they might be liberated, and other measurements are Irade to predict the percentage of mineral that occurs as nonrecoverable grains. For mill products the minerals are analysed to determine percentages that (1) are free, (2) are likely to be recovered in concentrates, (3) are likely to be lost to tailings, and (4) could be liberated with regrinding. The image analysis data for mill products are processed by a mineral-metals balance program to determine the distributions of free and unliberated mineral grains at each point in a concentrator, pilot plant or bench test. For samples containing trace minerals, such as gold, an automatic search technique is used to scan the entire area of the polished section for the trace mineral grains. The identified trace mineral grains are characterized with regard to size, liberation, and other properties.

Jan 1, 1988

By M. Leslar

Slope monitoring has been an important issue in static terrestrial lidar for some time. Several solutions for monitoring the progress of a slide have been devised over the years. All of these solutions have required users to be in the field operating the lidar equipment. This paper presents a new system developed using the Optech ILRIS-HD or ILRIS-LR lidar and the scripting language of PolyWorks to produce an autonomous slope monitoring system. This system has proven invaluable in detecting and alerting mine workers to potential danger within their mine sites. It has already been deployed in two mine sites and is scheduled to be installed at a third.

Feb 27, 2013

By John J. Theiler

Early in 1963, the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co., at Inspiration, Ariz., began a program to make automatic the lubrication of several critical points on their KW Dart 37SL haulage trucks. Prior to installation of the automatic lubrication system, all the haulage trucks were serviced by hand every three shifts. Now, with automatic lubrication, the service period has been extended to four shifts. What are the principal benefits to be expected from such a system? 1) Uninterrupted production; 2) extended machinery life; 3) good housekeeping; 4) lower maintenance costs. Of these points, the most important to truck maintenance are extended component life and lower maintenance costs.

Jan 5, 1965

By K. Bommer

"In today’s fast paced, globally competitive world, reliability and machine uptime are of the utmost importance to a successful operation. Along with these targets more emphasis is being put on cost reduction and decreasing the environmental impact of the overall system. To achieve these goals, automatic lubricators and lubrication systems have been used in many industries for years and are now becoming a common tool in the mining industry as well. These systems are able to provide proper lubrication amounts at the proper times autonomously, helping to keep the machines running smoothly while minimizing the physical support required. Copper mines in the southwest have begun utilizing auto lubrication to avoid mistakes and unplanned shut downs on critical equipment. This paper will describe the engineering behind these products and review case histories where these tools have been successfully utilized in the mining industry. INTRODUCTION In a dirty, dusty, wet environment, where machine uptime is imperative, proper lubrication of bearings is the only way to survive. With the push for cost reduction and mines striving to lower their environmental impact and increase worker safety according to MSHA guidelines, the old lubrication practices have come under scrutiny. It is no longer encouraged or cost effective to have maintenance personal walk from point to point throughout the entire mine pumping a shot of grease into each bearing once per shift. Automatic lubricators and lubrication systems have been on the market for years but recently, as the market focus has changed and technology has developed, the use of these systems has begun to rise in the mining industry. Automatic lubrication systems can be as simple as a single point lubricator lubricating one (1) bearing or a more complex system lubricating numerous bearings. With system design, the automatic lubricator provides a preset amount of grease to a bearing at regular, predetermined intervals. The systems designed to lubricate more than one bearing contain grease pumps of some design and possibly PLC controllers which can be used to remotely adjust and monitor the system. As can be seen in Figure 1, the right amount of lubrication can be achieved much more reliably with automatic lubricators. Depending on application needs, the market now has products to fit almost every wish list. This paper is going to focus on the single point systems that are lower in cost but are still being effective."

Jan 1, 2015

By V Gau, L Overmeyer, M Kesting

Economically efficient mining processes can be significantly assisted by the implementation of sensor technologies for the detection of materials and boundary layers between materials inside the stratum. These sensors are meant to facilitate the machinery operator and illustrate furthermore the prerequisites in assisting tools towards fully automated mining equipment. Therefore, project æSensory Identification of Material Type and Detection of the InterfacesÆ (SIMT) aims at the integration of ground penetrating radar (GPR) and geoelectric sensor technology by endowing with them a bucket of a bucket wheel excavator. For this reason, a sensor bucket was developed and tested in the Inden Mine of RWE Power AG. The feasibility of integration and deployment of such sensor technology has been proven effective for the conditions of open cast mining. The main focus of current research lies on developing algorithms to analyse the acquired measurement data from the sensors to automatically detect layers and materials. A computer network receives the GPR and geoelectric measurement data as well as the positioning data of the sensor bucket. The positioning data mainly consists of GPS and encoder information, which is merged with the sensor data by using the UTC time stamp. With the aid of consecutive processes the relevant information will be extracted and provided to the user. The aim of SIMT is to replace material identification, traditionally carried out by the operator, by implementing a continuous operating interpretation system in mining equipment based on GPR and geoelectric sensor technology, resulting in more detailed information regarding the working face during an excavation. This detailed information provides an opportunity for efficient planning and controlling of selective mining of natural deposits, such as the process of lignite mining.

Sep 26, 2011

IN 1932, the No. 4 shaft at Wright-Hargreaves mine was completed to a depth of 4,000 feet, and the lowest operating level at that time was at 3,900 feet. It was realized that the existing pumping system, using triplex plunger pumps at somewhat irregular depths in the mine, would be in-adequate to take care of the increasing volume of water that would have to be handled as mining operations expanded. Accordingly, in February, 1932, after a thorough study of the whole matter, it was decided to instal an entirely new, automatically controlled, system of pumping, employing centrifugal pumps, with their characteristically trouble-free performance, operated by off-peak power.

Jan 1, 1939

By Mengmeng Gai

This paper introduces a model-based automatic object recognition and registration framework to assist heavy equipment operators in rapidly perceiving 3D working environment at dynamic construction sites. A video camera and a laser scanner were utilized in this study to rapidly recognize and register dynamic target objects in a 3D space by dynamically separating target object?s point cloud data from a background scene for a quick computing process. A smart scan data updating method has been developed which only updates the dynamic target object?s point cloud data while keeping the previously scanned static work environments. Extracted target areas containing 3D point clouds were orthographically projected into a series of 2D planes with a rotation center located in the target?s vertical-middle line. Prepared 2D templates were compared to these 2D planes by extracting SURF features. Point cloud bundles of the target were recognized, and followed by the prepared CAD model?s registration to the templates. The field experimental results show that the proposed rapid workspace modeling method can significantly improve heavy construction equipment operations and automated equipment control by rapidly modeling dynamic target objects in a 3D view.

Aug 1, 2013

By K D. Conroy

For the past year, Lowphos Ore Ltd. has been operating two desliming hydroseparators on a fully automatic basis. Automatic operation is achieved by sensing the position of the silica-magnetite interface and automatically controlling the jet water addition to maintain a desired interface position. The system further provides automatic control of the underflow pump speed in order to assist in maintaining interface position when an <Ore change occurs. Interface position is maintained at 12 inches below the surface and is -controlled within plus or minus one inch. Metallurgical unit recovery is held above 98.5 per cent, and a 10 to 12 per cent increase in concentrate grade is normally achieved.

Jan 1, 1963