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By F. Ansheng

Though it becomes increasingly important with the valuable minerals in their deposits tending to be fine and poor, the solid and liquid separation remains difficult especially when the particles are of micrometer size and of low density. Almost of all conventional thickeners result in that fine particles lose into overflows which often costitutes a loss of potentially valuable resources as well as an environmental hazard. The addition of flocculations may improve the settling of solids but may also not work well for the final removal of fine particles from the overflows (Ref.1).

Jan 1, 1990

By B. Li

"The spontaneous combustion of coal storage pile(Gangue Hill) is one of the seriously threat encountered in coal mining and storage. The dynamic accumulation of internal heat in coal storage pile(Gangue Hill) provides continuous heat-source for coal spontaneous combustion. Combined with the features and characteristics of coal pile storage, a technology of heat pipe(HP) is applied to enhance heat transfer. In order to prevent spontaneous combustion of coal storage piles (hillock) due to regeneration, a method using heat pipes to destroy the heat preservation conditions of coal storage pile(Gangue Hill) is proposed, which reduces the risk of coal spontaneous combustion and prevents coal fire. A theoretical model of Coal-Thermosyphon has set up to analysis the radius of cooling effect area quantitatively. An experimental equipment of the heat transferring in a set of heat pipe, which used to study the influence on coal pile temperature distribution, has been designed. Results show, the heat pipe has a significant effect on inhibiting the coal spontaneous combustion process by destroy the heat preservation conditions of the coal. Under the experimental conditions, the most obvious coal temperature decline appears at radius 20.0mm around the pipe, dropped from 45.8? to 32.5?, a decline of 29%; the coal pile temperature at radius 420mm from 12.9? to 12.4?, a decline of 3.87%. And the research offers an effective and new approach in its application and promotion for preventing and controlling in coal spontaneous combustion.INTRODUCTION China is one of a few countries which utilize coal as the major source of energy in the world, and is the one whose characteristic of energy structure is rich coal, deficient oil and lean gas. Relatively speaking, China is abundance in mineral resources. The coal, which is the fundamental resource in the process of industrialization, is the main energy in china. Thus China cannot alter the situation of coal consumption dominated a leading role in its energy structure in near term.A massive of coal gangue would be produced every year in China with the mining activities. And it’s estimated that almost 360 million tons gangue were dumped in 2003, accounting for 10 percent of the whole coal production. Huge numbers of coal waste piles have more than 2,600 seats, which cover an area of over 12,000 hectares. Worse more, the coal gangue still has an annual growth rate of 100 million tons. Toxic smokes and greenhouse gases are discharged directly and prolongly into the atmosphere due to coal gangue spontaneous combustion. Even worse, waste dump explosion cause massive losses and are able to endanger the safety of workers. For example, one waste dump of the NO.4 Mine of Pingdingshan Coal Group Co., Ltd. occurred twice of explosions in 2005, and about 3.13 million tons of waste rocks were thrown within the range from 100 to 300 meters, eight people were killed and 122 rescuers and miners were burned, and economic losses were estimated more than 3,000 million."

Jan 1, 2015

By L. Zhou, D. Bahrami

Mine ventilation is one of the most important aspects of mining operations in underground mines. It is critical to maintain and deliver required fresh air to the active areas to reduce the risk of overexposure to hazardous contaminants or explosive atmospheres. An unexpected or unknown event such as roof collapse, unexpected mine door closure/opening, a fire/explosion, or fan malfunction could adversely alter the airflow distribution within the mine ventilation network that could lead to a hazardous underground environment. Knowing the occurrence and location of such an incident is of critical importance. In this study, the authors developed a novel methodology to assist mine operators in quickly identifying the location of any abnormal airflow change within the network using the airflow changes at monitored airways. The concept is based on a direct derivative method developed by the authors. This paper provides the details of the developed method as well as numerical verification examples. The application of this method can benefit mine operators and safety personnel in making better decisions during a mine emergency response operation to mitigate hazardous conditions arising from an unexpected airflow disturbance

Mar 2, 2022

By R. C. Emmett

In extractive metallurgy, separation of insoluble solids from solutions is an important economic factor in almost all flow- sheets. This separation step can employ sedimentation, filtration (vacuum and pressure), or centrifugation. Since practically all systems require a relatively complete separation, multiple unit, countercurrent thickeners or vacuum filters are generally used.

Jan 1, 1974

By Wern-Ping Nick Chen

Durability risks for underground facilities can be underestimated during design phase as compared to well-known geological risks. However, unclear durability requirements can result in construction schedule delay and change orders. Unlike bridges or buildings, a unified underground durability code or standard does not exist. This paper will provide a durability approach for underground facilities, including degradation modes, mitigations, and compliance measures during construction. In addition, this paper will address how to clearly specify durability requirements in a contract document to reduce disputes during construction and discuss key durability tests that are time consuming and will impact construction schedule if not timely planned.

Jun 23, 2024

By Shahab Alizadeh, Ahmad Khodadadi Darban, Mehdi Mohseni, Mahmoud Abdollahy

This study probed the selective separation of lanthanum and yttrium in a nitrate medium in the presence of aluminum and calcium impurities using di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (D2EHPA). The factors studied in a central composite design (CCD) included extractant concentration, pH, concentration ratio of total impurities to rare earth elements, and interaction of these three factors. The extraction mechanism and types of extracted metal-containing species were delineated by the slope analysis method. The obtained thermodynamic data showed that lanthanum and yttrium extraction by the D2EHPA extractant was exothermic. The extraction of both rare earth elements was accompanied by an entropy reduction. The negative magnitude of ΔS in yttrium extraction reaction suggests stronger D2EHPA-Y(III) complexation relative to La(III). As entropy decreased and enthalpy increased, the extraction process became unspontaneous. Using the proposed flowsheet, lanthanum and yttrium products with > 90% purity were obtained.

Aug 10, 2021

By Yao Yevenyo Ziggah, Victor Amoako Temeng, Solomon Evans Kweku Koomson

Tyre hours/life deficit is a major operational challenge facing the mining industry which adversely affects materials production and costs. An accurate forecast of the tyre life is key in addressing this menace. This study for the first time employed the hybrid intelligent technique by utilising three metaheuristic optimisation algorithms, including particle swarm optimisation (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), and whale optimisation algorithm (WOA), as trainers for the parametric weights and biases to optimise multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) for enhancing prediction of on-site dump truck tyre life in the mine. Four hybrid models known as PSO-MLPNN, WOA-MLPNN, GA-MLPNN, and BP-MLPNN were developed using a total of 157 tyre dataset records obtained from a surface mine in Ghana. In assessing the prediction performances for the models developed, five statistical performance metrics of variance accounted for (VAF), Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency index (NASH), coefficient of determination (r2), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and correlation coefficient (r) were utilised. Moreover, ranking, uncertainty analysis and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) techniques were utilised to establish the most effective hybrid model, whereas sensitivity analysis was conducted on the input parameters. Results achieved showed that PSO-MLPNN was the best for prediction because it had the least MAPE value of 1.196% and relatively high values of VAF (99.642%), NASH (0.996), r2 (0.996), and r (0.998). Besides, PSO-MLPNN had the best selection criteria values of 6, 7.1725, and 444.834 for the ranking, uncertainty analysis and BIC respectively. Hence, PSO-MLPNN is recommended for the prediction of on-site dump truck tyre life for the studied mine.

Mar 11, 2024

By Qingwen Shi, Yun Zhao, Brijes Mishra

The effect of discontinuities on the fracturing and mechanical behavior of shale has been extensively investigated on a laboratory scale in previous works. It is well agreed that the lamination properties, including discontinuity and lamina properties, affect the behavior of shale. However, it is still unclear how the lamination properties are affecting the stability of the shale roof in an underground coal mine entry. This paper investigated the effect of lamination properties using the discrete element method on a mine-scale entry model as an extension to the previous work conducted on laboratory scale models.

Jan 11, 2022

By Muhammad Zia-ur Rehman, Sajjad Ahmad Baig, Gao Lei Fu, Muhammad Mohsin, Sobia Naseem

The environmental sustainability is linked back to human sustainability; the sustainability development comprises the environment, society, and economics. This study mainly focused on mining sustainability and its impact on the environment of Pakistan. For measuring the level and environmental mining sustainability nature to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the world’s second largest salt mine “Khewra,” Folchi and Phillips environmental sustainability mathematics (PESM) models are applied. The results indicated that Khewra was deemed to be potentially sustainable for the environment and quality of salt. The results suggest the delicate balance of maintaining sustainability successfully, regarding the mining process in Pakistan which has been affecting the local environment and community so badly. The paper lays emphasis on the potential significance of the model’s application for the attainment of sustainable mining goal. This study is essential for researchers,

May 11, 2020

WELCOME to the world-class Cripple Creek district where gold exploration and production continue 95 years after the initial discovery. More than 21 million troy ounces of gold have been recovered, valued at greater than $7.8 billion using today's gold price ($371/oz). The Cripple Creek district is localized within and around the margins of a silica-undersaturated alkalic diatreme-intrusive complex. The diatreme appears to be comprised of three sub-basins: 1) a sub-basin east of the Cresson (Fig. 1); 2) a southwestern sub-basin between Victor and Cripple Creek; and 3) a northwestern sub¬basin within which the Globe Hill and Ironclad pits (Fig. 1) are located. The recognition of three separate basins was made by G. F. Loughlin and A. H. Koschmann (1935, Fig. 8) who prepared a contour map on the floor and walls of the composite Cripple Creek basin. The northwestern and southwestern sub-basins are apparent due to the discontinuous exposures of a partially exhumed ridge of Precambrian rocks (Fig. 1). The separation of the eastern and southwestern sub-basins was recognized in mine exposures where a fault-bounded ridge line extends from the vicinity of the Ajax mine toward the Precambrian "island" (Fig. 1).

Jan 1, 1986

By J. Sidhom, W. Fourie

"As the mining industry continues to face difficult challenges the need to persistently focus on productivity and utilization of labor and equipment costs will intensify. With these challenges in mind, Joy Global is helping to bring mining performance and analytics to the next level. By evaluating underground haulage, a significant component of the Room and Pillar mining value stream, variables have been identified and sensitivities have been performed to show opportunities to balance and streamline throughput. As a result of applying operational excellence tools to the mining environment, Joy Global is seeking to optimize mining performances by limiting waste, simplifying the process, increasing productivity and machine utilization, as well as removing workers from harm’s way. These days it’s not enough to work harder; mines have to work smarter. Improving efficiency, reducing costs, increasing safety: these are no longer ‘nice to haves’, they are ‘must haves’. Starting with the best products and the right people is a first step, but then what? How do mines take their operations from just OK to being a top performer? By using operational excellence principles aimed at eliminating waste, simplifying processes, automating where possible and removing people from harm’s way. The fundamentals of operational excellence (OpEx) are based upon the DMAIC process, which stands for define, measure, analyze, improve and control. DMAIC is an improvement cycle that helps with, for example, haulage optimization by: defining the issues and problems in the process as well as the areas of improvement; measuring and collecting mining operational data by time study and equipment monitoring system; analyzing through sensitivities and production modelling to determine root causes; then improving the performance and controlling the operation. Joy Global uses Joy OpEx or ‘lean’ principles inside its organization to drive efficiency, but it also helps its customers employ them to achieve new levels of productivity and safety. These same principles can be applied in most situations to streamline processes, improve operations and deliver value. As applied to mining, OpEx is seen as moving the needle on value creation by first identifying the value stream, then analyzing the areas that are not optimized. Once defined, these areas are ‘designed out’ of operational processes to create an automated operational flow. At a US coal mine, Joy Global was brought in to apply Joy OpEx principles to optimize mining and haulage to improve productivity and reduce costs. This multi-phase process started by defining the existing systems challenges to start finding areas for improvement."

Jan 1, 2017

By J. Potter, A. Anani, C. Antonio

This research aims to test the hypothesis that the low retention rate of women in the mining industry is caused by workplace culture and policies established due to gender segregation. A quasi-experiment is developed to determine the cause-and-effect relationship between gender segregation-inspired culture and the retention of women. The experiment considers the impact of the job type and the operational environment. The analysis provides information on factors that cause low retention of women in the industry, the extent to which gender segregation plays a role, and insights that allow actionable and measurable changes in the industry.

Feb 1, 2023

By Manoj Khandelwal, Jian Zhou, Yingui Qiu, Peixi Yang, Pingan Peng

Rockburst prediction is crucial in deep hard rock mines and tunnels to make safer working conditions. Due to the complex interaction of many factors involved in rockburst prediction, such as multi-variable and multi-interference factors, three hybrid support vector machine (SVM) models optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO), Harris hawk optimization (HHO), and moth flame optimization (MFO) are proposed to predict rockburst hazard level (RHL). The RHL is determined according to four kinds of microseismic characteristic parameters including angular frequency ratio, total energy, apparent stress, and convexity radius. Then, six types of microseismic characteristic parameters are taken as input variables in 343 sets of data, including angular frequency ratio and total energy, etc.. And the RHL is taken as the output target of rockburst prediction. The classification performance of PSO-SVM, HHO-SVM, and MFO-SVM hybrid models is evaluated by accuracy (ACC), precision (PRE), and kappa coefficient. Findings reveal that the MFO-SVM model performs best in terms of accuracy, with ACC, PRE, and kappa coefficients reaching 0.9559, 0.9063, and 0.9094 respectively, while PSO-SVM and HHO-SVM have similar performances. However, the PSO-SVM, HHO-SVM, and MFO-SVM all perform better than the unoptimized SVM model. This confirms that the three optimization algorithms significantly enhance the rockburst prediction capacity of the SVM model to help mine practitioners apply machine learning methods to rockburst prediction problems appropriately.

Feb 3, 2023

By R. J. Mirville

Flocculation is an important step in the treatment of coal preparation waste waters. The effects of polymer charge and molecular weight and solution pH and ionic strength on the adsorption and flocculation characteristics of a series of polymeric flocculants on some typical waste water constituents have been studied experimentally. The results indicate that the nature and extent of flocculation are strongly system-dependent. For the case of coal, both adsorption and flocculation behavior can be correlated with the polymer conformation in solution. For the mineral constituents, on the other hand, adsorption and flocculation depend also on the surface properties of the solid.

Jan 1, 1979

By Jay R. Schafler, Jacob L. Brinkman, Catherine E. Johnson

"The United States coal mining industry is currently experiencing a decline in both demand and commodity price while facing implementation of more stringent air and water pollution regulations. Company profits have decreased significantly, forcing several major companies to declare bankruptcy. The industry was required to adapt to survive. Many of these companies have adjusted by abandoning mines; the last two decades have seen a drastic decrease in the number of mines. To discover the primary causes of this downturn, three major aspects must be studied: properties of abandoned mines, commodity history and regulatory impact. Trends since 1994Each year, U.S. coal mines are required to submit data on a variety of categories to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). This data include administrative records, production values and information regarding the attributes of the mined material and the mine itself. Each year since 1996, EIA has released a report summarizing the data from two years prior. Additionally, MSHA maintains a database containing a collection of all the most current data. These resources are the primary sources for the figures included in this article. There are several items to note regarding this data:1. The EIA reports from 2016 and 2017 were not released at the time of writing this report.2. The MSHA data set is actively maintained as information is provided. This means the data for 2016 is from June 27, 2016 and data for 2017 is from Aug 24, 2017. All other points represent the end of-year values.3. Each of the figures only includes data pertaining to active mines. EIA defines active mines as both active and temporarily idled mines, and inactive mines as nonproducing and abandoned mines. MSHA separates all four into separate categories, though this paper combines the MSHA values according to the EIA definition for the purpose of comparison."

Jan 10, 2017

By M. A. Islam, H. Mischo, G. Barakos

Among the thirty-five declared critical raw materials (CRM) in the United States, there is no sustainable domestic production for the fourteen of them, while for some others domestic supply does not meet the national demand. Numerous potential critical raw material projects are in advanced exploration stages. However, the price uncertainties for many of these commodities put feasible future production into question and come into contrast with overly optimistic price forecasts published in all feasibility studies related to such exploration projects. Thus, in this work, a newly developed smart computational tool is used to evaluate the real perspectives of several CRM exploration projects implementing actual commodity prices, and to conduct reverse calculations in order to find the prices at which each project can be viable.

Mar 2, 2022

By Corby G. Anderson, Sheikh Abdul Rezan Sheikh Abdul Hamid, Sanjith Udayakumar, Ahmad Fauzi Mohd Noor, Teuku Andika Rama Putra

Chemical and mineralogical characterization of Malaysian monazite, a phosphate mineral, bearing rare earth elements separated from the tin tailings originated from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, was performed in this paper. The study aims to collect detailed information on the chemical composition, crystal phases, and microstructure of the mineral monazite concentrate that would aid to optimize the subsequent hydrometallurgical processes for high-efficient separation of thorium and other associated rare earth elements. A systematic characterization study of the concentrate was conducted using techniques such as optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). These techniques analyzed the morphological details on the surface, elemental analysis, and mineral association assessment and identified the surface functionalization groups. The bulk composition and the mineral phases in which the elements are present were studied by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies respectively. The XRF analysis confirmed the presence of Ce, La, Nd, Pr, and Y (rare earth oxides: REO’s ~ 60 wt.%) while thorium dioxide (ThO2) accounted for 7 wt.% of the total composition. Traces of Ca, K, Al, Fe, Ti, and Mn were also confirmed by SEM elemental mapping. The XRD results confirmed that the concentrate was primarily composed of monazite (Ce, La, Nd, Th (PO4)) along with minor impurity phases of quartz. Automated mineralogical analysis was used as a confirmatory tool to corroborate the preliminary evidences. Based on the particle size distribution analysis supported by SEM, the majority of monazite grains were found to be present in the size range of 170–210 μm. Strong bands of PO4 and SiO4 were observed in the IR spectra corresponding to the phospho-silicate matrix of the REE mineral.

By Fouad Faraj

For every blast pattern, zones of unique material types need to be classified before mining. Most material types can be summarized into different kinds of ore and waste. Blocks generated from blasthole assays are too small to be selectively mined so areas with a single material classification meeting the mine’s selective mining unit must be defined. Current industry standard practices are to manually draw ore/waste dig limits but this process is subjective and results in quantities of dilution and ore loss which can be improved upon to enhance the profitability of mining operations. Two weeks production data from a homogeneous Cu porphyry and heterogeneous Manto-type Cu deposit are used to assess the variability in the hand-drawn dig limits for 20 geologists, mining engineers, or ore control specialists and are compared with the optimal ore/waste delineation. The profit for 20 distinct hand-drawn dig limits for the homogeneous mine ranged by 3.7% from $10.5 million to $10.9 million averaging at $10.8 million. The percent range nearly doubled for the more heterogeneous mine at 5.9% from $17.9 million to $19.0 million averaging at $18.6 million. Using the optimal ore waste delineation, the profit increased to $11.0 million (1.9% increase) and $19.3 million (7.0% increase) for the homogeneous and heterogeneous deposits respectively. The natural variability, diggability requirement, and selectivity are identified as the main drivers of ore loss and dilution. Recommendations are provided for reducing the subjectivity in manual hand-drawn dig limits by integrating dig limit optimization algorithms as a tool to assist practitioners.

Feb 23, 2024

By Jianbo Hu, Tao Zheng, Zhao Qihua, Rui Su

Rock mass discontinuities play a significant role in evaluating the stability of rock slopes. It is necessary to collect and analyze these discontinuities to fully understand the mechanical and deformational behaviors of rock masses. Based on the digital images of some slope faces, this paper proposes a framework based on machine learning for detecting and extracting discontinuities. First, digital images and photo poses are combined, the original scene is reconstructed, and 3D point cloud data are obtained. All captured point clouds can be mapped with each image by the direct linear transformation algorithm. Next, the detection machine learning algorithm is used to segment rock mass discontinuities on 2D digital images. Finally, based on the mapping relationship, the 2D digital images that were segmented are transformed into 3D point cloud data. The geometric parameters of the corresponding discontinuities can be extracted by the DBSCAN and the Skmeans algorithm and the characterization of specific rules. The proposed framework was evaluated utilizing a quantity of slope digital images in the Yebatan hydropower under construction, located in Sichuan Province, China, as a case study. The results illustrate that most deviations are less than 10° for the dip direction and dip angle, which verifies the reliability of the proposed framework and maintains acceptable measurement accuracy.

Nov 6, 2022

By H. Mischo, R. Ellmies

Uranium has been mined in Namibia since the 1970s. The worldwide increasing need for energy in the early 2000s has led to the development and opening of a second uranium mine in 2007 and has triggered an increased interest in uranium exploration, often referred to as “the Namibian Uranium Rush.” In all, four mining licenses have been granted by the Namibian Government, which currently has two mines in operation, a third undertaking trial mining and the fourth in project finance negotiations. In addition, highly intensive prospecting activities at additional deposits are at an advanced stage. The finalization of the strategic environmental impact assessment (SEA) on uranium mining in 2010, the first of its kind and scale in the world, has enabled the Namibian government to assess this uranium rush and its tremendous legal, socioeconomic and environmental impacts and to prepare for the different future scenarios conceivable when this article was written in 2011, including both a skyrocketing and a complete breakdown of demand scenario. The Fukushima disaster and plans of the Namibian government to significantly increase royalties and company taxes in 2011 have threatened the market situation, forcing investors to reevaluate Namibian uranium mining projects. However, with the tax and royalty increase initiative since withdrawn, most projects are back on track at this point in time.

Jan 1, 2012