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By C. L. Kosmoski

The mining industry faces many workplace hazards that are a threat to human health and safety. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that employees in coal mining are more likely to be killed or sustain an injury or illness than workers in private industry. These injuries are also likely to be more severe (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007). In recent years, coal mining injuries have attained national attention due to highly publicized disasters. Despite these threats to worker safety and health, the U.S. relies on the mining of coal to meet its need for electrical power, with42% of electricity in the U.S. generated through the burning of coal (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012b; United Mine Workers of America, n.d.). Furthermore, the production of coal continues to increase and reach record levels every year(National Mining Association, 2012; U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012a). For this reason, the coal mining industry must continue to find ways to protect its workers while maintaining productivity. One potential approach to protecting workers while maintaining productivity is through improving the safety culture at coal mines. In order to achieve this culture, operators, employees, the inspectorate, etc. must share a fundamental commitment to safety as a value. This type of culture is known in other industries as a ?safety culture? and can be defined as the characteristics of the work environment, such as the norms, rules, and common understandings that influence facility personnel?s perceptions of the importance that the organization places on safety. Fundamental to improving safety culture within an organization is understanding the existing safety culture; improvements cannot be made without first elucidating areas that require improvement. This manuscript details the process undertaken by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Office of Mine Safety and Health Research (OMSHR) to assess the safety culture at five underground coal mines across the United States. The purpose of this manuscript is to introduce the mining industry to a multi-methodological approach to safety culture assessments. Further, it is the goal of this manuscript to highlight the value of including both quantitative and qualitative methods into safety culture assessments in order to obtain the most comprehensive view of an organization?s safety culture. Because this manuscript focuses solely on the methodology implemented, data and results obtained during the five safety culture assessments will not be presented in this manuscript, but will appear in a future publication.

Feb 27, 2013

By Lewis V. Wade

This paper summarizes the results of the rock mechanics monitoring program performed as part of Old Ben Coal Company's longwall coal mining demonstration project conducted in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Mines. The work described herein included installation of instruments, collection of data and data analysis performed during mining of the first longwall panel in Mine No. 24. The rock mechanics monitoring program included both surface and underground instrumentation and was designed to achieve the following purposes: 1 -To provide the capability to observe unusual situations during mining so that remedial measures could be instituted quickly 2 -To formulate design guidelines for future longwall mining efforts; 3 -To evaluate surface subsidence, and its character, rate and potential effects on cultural features, and to develop criteria to assist in predicting subsidence for other mines having similar roof conditions. Six previous attempts with longwall methods in Old Ben Coal Company's Hine 21 had been unsuccessful due to roof control problems. A description of these attempts is given by Moroni (1973). In preparation for the present longwall operation a study was performed to review existing data on the previous unsuccessful attempts, to establish coa1-and floor-strata bearing capacities in Mines Nos. 21 and

Jan 1, 1977

By M. Deutsch, E. González, M. Williams

"Uncertainty exists in ultimate-pit limits due to geologic variation and unpredictable economic landscapes. In this work, we show how this uncertainty affects the ultimate pit and how it can be analyzed to improve the mine planning process. A stochastic framework using geostatistical simulation and parametric analysis was used to model the effects of geologic and economic variations on ultimate-pit limits and overall project economics. This analysis was made possible by a new pit optimization implementation that can be automated and set up to calculate ultimate pits for hundreds of different scenarios in a matter of hours. Quantifying ultimate-pit uncertainty early in the mine planning process allows mining engineers to make informed decisions regarding infrastructure placement and to mitigate the possibility of incurring substantial costs to relocate critical mine facilities. Resumen ¦ Existen dudas sobre los límites del pit final por causa de la variación geológica y lo impredecible de los paisajes económicos. En este trabajo les mostramos como esta incertidumbre afecta el pit final y como puede ser analizada para mejorar el proceso de planificación de la mina. Se usó un marco estocástico con simulación geoestadística de análisis paramétrico con el fin de poder hace la modelación de los efectos de las variaciones geológicas y económicas en los límites de pit finales y proyectos económicos en general. Este análisis fue posible gracias a una nueva implementación de optimización de pits que puede ser automatizada y configurada para calcular pits finales para cientos de escenarios diferentes en cuestión de horas. La cuantificación temprana de la falta de certeza en pits finales durante el proceso de planificación permite a los ingenieros de minas tomar decisiones informadas en lo que respecta a la ubicación de infraestructura y en la mitigación de posibles costos sustanciales por causa de la reubicación de instalaciones clave de la mina."

Jan 1, 2015

By T. B. Acton

There are two types of ore transportation systems in use at Newmont's Magma Copper Co. San Manuel mine in Arizona-rail-mounted, box-type rotary cars and the newer rail-mounted, bottom-dumping ASEA cars. Though the cost per car for the ASEA units greatly exceeds the cost per rotary car, the advantages of the ASEA units, including much faster dump times, have made the ASEA system a successful alternative at the San Manuel mine. The rotary system of ore transportation has been in use at San Manuel since production began in 1956. The system employs 7.9-m3 box-type cars to transport ore by rail to shaft pocket areas. A rotating dumping mechanism turns three cars at a time upside down to empty them, and returns them to an upright position. Trains of 15 cars each are dumped in about six minutes. Each 15-car train is pulled by an 18-t rated trolley locomotive. There are about 400 rotary cars in service at San Manuel and the system is used for the majority of ore haulage. This well-proven rotary method was instrumental in achieving the December 1977 world record of 272 Mt hoisted from an underground copper mine. Magma Copper Co. began using ASEA cars in late 1977. Designed by ASEA of Sweden, the cars are built for San Manuel by Kasper-Hall Manufacturing Co. in Tucson. The cars basic design feature is a hinged floor that opens at the side as the car is pulled through the dump. As it passes over the dump, a fifth wheel attached to the hinged floor (opposite the hinges) travels along a rail in the dump. This rail dips down into the pocket and then returns to track level. As the fifth wheel travels along the rail, the car floor opens, the car dumps, and the floor is then returned to track level. As the car is dumping, the body remains suspended over the pocket by wheel rollers attached to each side of the dump. Trains of 10 cars each are emptied in about 45-50 seconds. Each ASEA train is pulled by an 18-t rated trolley locomotive, adapted at San Manuel to allow it to pass through the ASEA dump. At minimal cost, "wings" are welded to each side of the locomotive. These wings suspend the locomotive over the pocket as the train passes through the dump. Advantages of the ASEA System Major design characteristics of the ASEA and rotary systems are shown in the accompanying table. The comparison points out some of the following advantages demonstrated by the ASEA system. • Faster dumping-An ASEA train dumps in 50 seconds, while a rotary train takes at least six minutes. There is no stopping or starting when dumping an ASEA train. The train enters the dump area, dumps, and leaves in one continuous motion-in contrast to rotary trains which must stop and start five times to dump. With the rotary system, three cars are spotted in the dump mechanism by remote control. When the cars are in place, the train operator activates the dump, the cars are turned over, and then returned to an upright position. This process is repeated until all 15 cars in the train are emptied.

Jan 4, 1980

By R. A. Gee, G. B. Ashton, S. T. Warren, P. N. Groves

Northside Storage Tunnel provides 500 megalitres (Ml) (130 million gallons) of storage capacity to capture stormwater/sewage overflows into Sydney Harbour. The6.6 m diameter TBM driven tunnel traverses Middle Harbour 85 m (280 ft) below sea level and through a sandstone/shale rock mass, highly disturbed by stress relief, 20 m(65 ft) beneath the base of the sediment filled palaeochannel. Target limits for inflow, groundwater drawdown and settlement of the valley beaches were achieved by systematic forward grouting from the TBM. Support included rockbolts, sets and shotcrete to carry rock loads, control block instability and spalling and to provide durability and serviceability. This paper describes the tunnelling and grouting works and their effectiveness.

Jan 1, 2001

By William M. Gleason

The war in Vietnam stretched into another decade, an American President was at the brink of impeachment, the earth was given its own day, twin tower monuments of American ingenuity were completed in New York and would stand high above the Manhattan skyline for 31 years. Inflation, oil shortages, low commodity prices and America’s 200th birthday were part of the decade — it was the 1970s. For the mining industry, the demands of the decade would be high and the challenges would be significant. Because of the many challenges that lined up in front of it, the mining industry was forced to work smarter and more efficiently. The industry also expanded its borders in search of new resources and struggled along with the rest of the world through a fuel crisis, inflation and a recession.

Jan 1, 2007

By J. -F. Lagueux

Goldex Mine is an underground mine located near the town of Val-d?Or. Multiple innovations were required to work the mine. Due to its low grade, it was important to develop a bulk mining method to economically extract the ore. The method used is a combination between shrinkage stope and long hole stope methods. This modified method is more than adequate; however, all of the ore body must be liberated in a very short period of time. Therefore, to bring down 23 Mt of ore, large blasts up to 1.8 Mt are required. The situation is also complicated by the fact that the mine is located in a residential area. No less that 40 homes are built within a 1 km radius of the mine site. In addition to managing mass blasts, means must also be found to mitigate the vibrations produced by the blast to diminish the disturbance to the neighbourhood. Therefore, the mine used numerous tools to properly plan the blasts and reduce the impacts. A program to control vibrations was one of the first tools put in place. The program?s aim was to draw up an action plan to ensure a follow-up of the homes by inspecting them. The second tool was to develop a methodology to plot a reliable attenuation curve and to adequately determine the maximum charge weight for each blast. Finally, effective communication tools were developed to inform the neighbourhood. There was a huge amount of work to be done in relation to the bench. Reliable and fast loading techniques had to be found to load large blasts in a very short period of time. Adequate logistics had to be developed to send underground more than 20,000 kg of emulsion per day while performing the daily underground operations. Technology had to be developed to adapt the i-kon electronic blasting system to large blasts. Since the control of the charges was the major factor to reduce surface vibrations, it was important to employ loading techniques that would permit decking of the long holes to reduce the charge weight per delays without adversely affecting the loading. All of this work requires an enormous amount of energy but also close collaboration between the different stakeholders (various departments, suppliers and consultants).

Jan 1, 2011

By J. Bleeck, G. Mahrt

INTRODUCTION Many excellent papers have been written and presented regarding agricultural lime and the subject has been covered extensively in books concerning soil science, fertilizing, limestone, etc. We felt challenged to construct a paper that wouldn’t merely be a repetition of past presentations. Therefore, we chose to begin with factors having the most impact on plant growth realizing that the audience is likely to be relatively unfamiliar with this subject. So, we decided to dig deep into the roots of soil and plant growth science in order to better understand the significant role of limestone in this important area. The soil with the higher plants growing upon it forms an open and dynamic ecosystem in which there is flux of energy and material (heat, light, water, nutrients, mineral and organic matter, organisms). Plants root in the soil and then take up oxygen for root respiration, yielding energy for nutrient uptake, water for turgescence and transpiration and use in photosynthesis and the mineral nutrients needed for the synthesis of organic matter. Above the ground the plant takes in light energy and heat using them in photosynthesis to assimilate atmospheric CO2. Photosynthesis is the basic life process of creation. However, we will look at the root room where soil, water, air, and heat economy and the supply of nutrients determine soil fertility and the important role lime plays here. Location is the primary point to be considered when discussing agriculture (climate and soil); secondly, the dynamic and mobility of the minerals (plant nutrients) in the soil; and thirdly the conversion of organic substances into humus. And then there is a great deal of water involved in the growing process. In order to produce 1 kg of dry plant substance, 300 to 800 kg of water must be pumped through the plant and is then lost by transpiration. Cereals, vegetables, and sugar beets consume between 400 to 500 kg of water during the growing process and long-growing crops, such as alfalfa and clover, can consume 600 to 800 kg of water per kg of finished product. Without water, a plant cannot grow. (Reference 1)

Jan 1, 2006

By N. Arbiter, C. C. Harris

The economic advantages of large diameter ball mills can be compromised by unexpected capacity limiting conditions. These arise because media rotational flow to ore axial flow ratios, and the number of mill revolutions that ore is subjected to during residence, are both inversely proportional to mill diameter. Because of this, mixing efficiency and grinding kinetics may decrease and become capacity limiting when mill diameters reach a critical range. There are two possible scale-up problems involved in the design and use of mineral processing machinery: • Selecting the size and operating conditions for available larger equipment, to insure that operating results will match those obtained with smaller units; or •Extending the size ranges of equipment beyond existing limits. Previous research at Columbia University into flotation machine hydrodynamics has demonstrated the importance in scale-up of internal flow relationships; these perform a similar role in grinding (Arbiter and Harris, 1980).

Jan 1, 1982

By Shigeru Nishitake

The Earth Pressure Balanced (EPB) shields designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., are recently more enthusiastically accepted by tunnel boring specialists. This company having built 1,000 tunnel shields utilizes its vast experience to resolve the problem to excavate through big boulders scattered in rather soft alluvial soil. Several types of EPB shields which can cope with large size boulders are described. Such shields are equipped with both drag bits and rolling disc cutters on the cutterheads. Previously removal of boulders has presented safety problems for workers while in the muck chamber, or venturing in front of the shield. This report describes the problem and how the equipment was modified to deal with the problem.

Jan 1, 1987

Narrow vein mining, with enough challenge and also where the cutting edge technology can be applied, is still a very important and exciting portion of the mining industry. Based on the deposit characteristics, the most flexible mining method, cut and fill, has been being tested mining this high grade Northern Nevada property, Hollister, since the year of 2008. In the last three years, 254,000 tons of ore were hauled out of the portal and 23,000 feet of development were excavated underground with the winning of several safety and environmental awards. Together with mine geology, the essential segments include mining cycle, ground control, ventilation, grade control and backfill method in cut and fill stopes were covered in this paper.

Jan 1, 2012

By D. R. Nagaraj, Napoleon Tercero, Raymond Farinato

Historically, as for most reagents used in flotation, the wide-spread use of dialkyl dithiophosphinates as collectors in practical applications has preceded a detailed scientific understanding of how they work. Dialkyl dithiophosphinates are a technologically and commercially important class of collectors used in the flotation processing of Cu-Au, complex polymetallic, and precious metal ores. Plant usage has demonstrated that dithiophosphinates exhibit higher selectivity and flotation rates for Cu sulfides, galena, and precious metal values in the presence of other gangue sulfides, than the traditionally used collectors such as dialkyl dithiophosphates and xanthates. They also have an attractive health, safety, and environmental (HSE) profile. Although dithiophosphinates received little attention in the past in the flotation research community, recently, there has been significant interest in this chemistry, and numerous studies have been conducted to understand the fundamental interactions of dithiophosphinates with several base metal sulfides and precious metals. A critical overview of fundamental studies, laboratory ore flotation, and plant practice of dithiophosphinates is given in this paper. The findings from these studies are rationalized and explained by drawing on concepts and insights from coordination chemistry. A comparison between the interactions with various minerals and metals of dithiophosphinate and dithiophosphate analogues brings out some of the subtleties that seemingly minor changes in collector chemistry can make. The critical overview and analysis given here is useful in identifying gaps in knowledge regarding this important class of compounds. This in turn can provide a basis for the design of studies to advance our understanding of dithiophosphinate flotation performance.

By S. J. Schatzel

In order to better understand the effects of longwall mining on the methane reservoir overlying the panel, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (NIOSH/PRL) designed and implemented a vertical borehole monitoring experiment (BME) on an active longwall panel. The mine operates in the Pittsburgh Coalbed in Greene County, Pennsylvania. The BME site was located away from either end of the panel to avoid mechanical influences caused by the draping of overburden in this region and was positioned at the same distance from the tailgate gateroad as the mine?s gob gas venthole sites. The borehole drilling depths and monitoring intervals were chosen to address a different stratigraphic zone in each of the three planned holes. The monitoring boreholes were positioned perpendicular to face advance using a close spacing pattern of about 15 m (50 ft) between collars. Boreholes were instrumented downhole and on the surface for various measurements. It was observed from the field data that the gob gas venthole fracture network formed 24-46 m (80-150 ft) ahead of the mining face. Overburden permeability?s within the same test zones increased 100 to 500 times following undermining. The borehole test interval within the fractured rock responded to overburden gas pressure while the test interval in the caved zone responded to mine ventilation conditions. Eight months after the boreholes were undermined, slug testing indicated permeabilities had increased further in the fractured rock zone. Measurements of surface movement indicate that the permeability development observed in the boreholes is a product of vertical subsidence without lateral movement within the tensional rock mechanics zone on a supercritical longwall panel. Results from this study suggest that maximum permeability in the longwall panel overburden is achieved 58 to 190 m (190 to 620 ft) behind the longwall following maximum compaction of the overburden.

Jan 1, 2009

By G. E. Vaninetti

During its modem era, the southern Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming has grown from meager origins in the early 1970s to become one of the most important coal-producing regions in the United States. In 1993, production and sales of southern Powder River Basin coal exceeded 190 Mt (209 million st), or about 20% of the US coal industry. Despite the remote location of the PRB relative to its potential markets, most coal industry observers anticipate continued strong growth to meet utility compliance plans for Phases I and II of the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA). This article is an overview of supply and demand issues concerning the marketing of southern PRB coal. It reviews the events leading up to the recent run on spot coal and offers a forecast of demand and prices.

Jan 1, 1994

By R. R. Kallu

The current 120 psi seal design and evaluation practices are mostly based on simple analytical solutions. Considering the simplistic assumptions and limitations involved in simple analytical solutions and practical difficulties involved in conducting conventional full-scale explosion tests for evaluating 120 psi seal designs, there is a need for developing new scientific methods and engineering practices for design, analysis and evaluation of mine seals.

Jan 1, 2010

By C. Sun

The Leeville underground mine has been in operation since 2006 and currently produces 3,200 tons of ore per day with an average gold grade of 0.4 opt. The mine has a large horizontal extent of 2,500 feet by 500 feet and a vertical extent of 20 to 200 feet. High density of joints occurs within the host rock. Based on Rock Mass Rating and field observation, the Leeville ground conditions are characterized as poor to very poor. As such, heavy ground support is required for the mining operation in Leeville. Ore zones with a height in excess of 10 m (35 feet) are considered for longhole stoping. A typical stope measures 6.0 m (20 feet) wide, 30 to 55 m (100 to 180 feet, depending on the ground conditions) long and 10 to 30 m (35 to 100 feet, depending the thickness of ore body) high, yielding 10,000 to 20,000 tons when completed. Narrow ore zones, less than 10 m (35 feet), are mined using cut and fill. These drifts are 4.6 m (15 feet) wide by 4.6 m (15 feet) high. Based on the afore-mentioned poor ground condition, the establishment of a ground control monitoring system is key to operating both safely and successfully. The ground control monitoring system is composed of comprehensive instrument design and installation. Instruments include Multi-Point Borehole eXtensometers (MPBX) and Stretch Measurement to Assess Reinforcement Tension (SMART) cables. The monitoring system covers the mining zones and infrastructure openings. After about two year?s applications and measurements, useful data has been and continues to be collected to use in future stope and infrastructure structure design. The system provides the information making engineer and operation teams to do their job more confident and efficiency. Keywords: Ground control, Monitoring system, Long hole stope, Instrumentation.

Jan 1, 2009

By B. Anameric, S. K. Kawatra, K. B. Rundman

The iron nugget process is an economical, environmentally friendly, cokeless, single-step pig iron making process. Residence time dependent process requirements for production of pig iron nuggets at a fixed furnace temperature (1425 C) were investigated. Three chemically and physically different products were produced after complete reduction to iron, depending on the residence time in the furnace. These products were direct reduced iron (DRI), transition direct reduced iron (TDRI), and pig iron nuggets (PIN). The increase in the carbon content of the system as a function of residence time was detected by optical microscopy and Microhardness measurements. Sufficient carbon dissolution for the production of pig iron nuggets was obtained after 40 minutes residence time. The pig iron nuggets produced had chemical and physical properties similar to blast furnace pig iron. They were liquid state products and slag was completely separated from the metal.

Jan 1, 2005

By John H. Wright

The United States Antarctic Program (USAP), through its principal support contractor Raytheon Polar Services Co. (RPSC), has recently completed a three-year project comprising nearly 936 m (3,071 ft) of undersnow utility tunnels at Amundsen-Scott Station, South Pole, Antarctica. The tunnel serves the new station facilities that are currently under construction. It houses the piping that conveys fresh water from current and future water well sites, as well as waste water to repositories in abandoned wells. The undersnow tunnels permit year-round access for system operations and maintenance. The network of tunnels is entirely unlined and unsupported. And, for the most part, it maintains a rectangular cross section of 1.8-m-wide x 3-m-high (6 x 10 ft).The tunnel runs from 6 to 14 m (18 to 45 ft) below the surface. Eight 1-m- (3.3-ft-) diam raises bored from the surface serve the network as emergency escapeways.

Jan 1, 2002

By R. J. Baumgartner

Sustainability issues are from rising interest and importance for the mineral industry worldwide. In order to bring them into management processes and to improve decision processes, economic, ecological and social aspects of products, services or technologies have to be assessed. In this paper, the concept of integrated sustainability assessment is presented. Each aspect is assessed with quantitative or qualitative methods. The results of these ecological, social and economic sub-assessments are integrated by the means of Fuzzy Logic in order to regard preferences of decision maker and circumstances of decision situation. An example demonstrates the application of this new instrument.

Jan 1, 2005

By Joseph J. Feiler

Historical mining operations in Colorado and other western states have resulted in thousands of remnant mine openings. Many are sources of metals loading and acid water generation in surface and ground waters. It is estimated that more than 965 km (600 miles) of streams in Colorado have been impacted by past mining activities. The Animas River watershed in southwestern Colorado is one of the most heavily affected areas in the state. Abandoned mine features pose significant safety hazards to those who enter them. These hazards can include bad air, unstable rock or falls into open shafts, stopes and winzes. Backcountry skiers and snowmobile enthusiasts are particularly vulnerable to falls into snow covered mine openings.

Jan 1, 2006