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By D. C. Kaliampakos, A. G. Benardos

The existence of quarries near or even within the boundaries of urban centres is the cause of many environmental problems, despite their significant contribution to the cities’ development. Hence, the question arises as to how quarrying activities can be compromised within the spirit of sustainable development in big cities. In the case of Athens, two dominant, though opposite opinions have been formed. The first argues that all quarries must be forced to suspend their activities as soon as possible; the second presses for the continuation of quarrying. Consequently, the question is transposed on the dilemma between improved environmental conditions and economic development. This paper demonstrates that if a complete redesign is employed to specific, nonvisible quarrying sites, the continuation of quarrying activities is acceptable. It is a good compromise between the economical demand and environmental protection.

Jan 1, 2000

By Joseph Poplawski, Christian O’Keefe, Robert Maron

"Unique and difficult minerals processing measurement situations will be described and the application of passive array-based technology for performing these measurements will be illustrated. Examples of these situations include volume flow measurements in froth lines and flotation feed lines with entrained air, slurry lines with magnetite and other magnetic ore, slurry lines with abrasive or corrosive materials, high pressure lines, and slurry and non-slurry lines exhibiting scale buildup. Other situations include measurement of entrained air levels in pipes and in flotation columns. These measurements are achieved through CiDRA’s patented passive sonar array-based technology. This technology performs two independent measurements – flow rate and entrained air amounts. Two hardware implementations of this technology have resulted in a non-intrusive flow and entrained air meter which easily is installed on the outside of the pipe, and a submersible version for entrained air or gas holdup measurements which is used in flotation processes. Recent developments in extending this technology to solve other unique measurement problems such as valve movement confirmation will be covered.INTRODUCTIONThe minerals processing industry faces many unique and challenging process control conditions and environments. In terms of flow measurements, many of these situations are not being properly served by traditional flowmeters such as ultrasonic meters, magmeters, turbine meters, orifice plate meters, vortex flow meters, Coriolis flow meters, and venturi meters. A new class of flowmeters has been developed that solves these unique situations and flow measurement problems. This new class of flowmeter technology utilizes sonar-based processing algorithms and an array of passive sensors to measure not only flow, but also fluid composition. It does so accurately, reliably and without making contact with the fluid. These measurements are performed on practically any type of fluid within virtually any type of pipe.PRINCIPLE OF OPERATIONSonar array-based flowmeters are ideal for tracking and measuring the mean velocities of disturbances traveling in the axial direction of a pipe. These disturbances generally will convect with the flow, propagate in the pipe walls, or propagate in the fluid or slurry. First let us focus on the disturbances that convect with the flow. The disturbances that convect with the flow can be density variations, temperature variations or turbulent eddies. The overwhelming majority of industrial flows will have turbulent eddies convecting with the flow, thus providing an excellent means of measuring the flow rate as described below."

Jan 1, 2008

By D. Lindeman, R. M. Nendick

"From a technologist's point of view, there have been few fundamental 'breakthroughs' in the process of gold extraction since the turn of the century. However, the industry has made a great deal of progress in its response to the problems that have arisen: a changing demand for products, lower grade and more refractory ores, inflated labour and materials cost and the increasing control of governmental legislation. The trend in North America and South Africa to alleviate these problems has been to adopt a common policy to process larger tonnages of lowgrade ore through more efficient milling circuits. Here, however, is where the similarity ends.The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the different principles of practice employed by extraction plants in North America and South Africa to achieve the same common goal, namely gold bullion.2.0 INTRODUCTIONTwo very important aspects of extraction metallurgy for which the metallurgical engineer is responsible are plant design and plant commissioning.In North America and South Africa the importance of these aspects is due to the fact that both are related to the financial success of the project of which they form part. Good design is imperative if the capital invested in both the plant and the whole mining undertaking is to reap maximum profit. Furthermore, good design leads to a carefully planned and well executed start-up procedure resulting in bringing the plant into production on time, at designed efficiency and within budget.Due to the competent nature of the quartz pebble conglomerate and quartzite ore on the South African Witwatersrand, the characteristics of the ore type are not much different from one mine to the other. Thus a significant operating knowledge and experience has been built up over the years and there is considerably less risk in selecting a gold extraction process route."

Jan 1, 1992

By A. J. Hyett

Due to the ongoing revolution in electronics and communications more cost-effective geotechnical instruments can be manufactured using digital technology. This new generation of digital instruments have embedded microcontrollers that provide highly accurate and reliable measurement of geotechnical behaviour in real world units that can be immediately interpreted. Digital measurements can be transmitted across existing mine-wide wireless communication networks, interfaced directly with infra-red enabled PDA?s or PC?s, and parsed to memory by low-cost data-loggers.

Oct 1, 2004

By A. Vien, B. C. Flintoff, R. P. Edwards

"A major thrust in industrial automation over the past few years has been the exploration and incorporation of higher level (supervisory and optimizing) control strategies aimed at more fully exploiting the existing control system infrastructure. There is little doubt that this is worthwhile pursuit, however, one must not lose sight of the maintenance and development requirements of the basic control system. Statistics on loop performance indicate that this too is an area of considerable potential. In this paper the authors look at some of the less elegant, but arguably equally important issues in mineral processing plant control. The focus is on controller structures, loop tuning, sampling, filtering, and some of the other principal components of the regulatory control foundations. In many cases significant improvements in control performance can be achieved by getting back to the basics.IntroductionEvery modem concentrator has a state-of-the-art computer control system in place. Several of these are contemplating installing, or have installed, advanced control systems, such as expert systems, but the foundation of their control system remains the PI controller. Although the authors are not aware of any survey or published information for the mineral processing industry, it is reasonable to assume that it would be similar to the pulp and paper industry. ""The average [pulp] mill has some 2000 control loops of which 97% use PI control. This means that PID, dead time compensation, adaptive controllers, specialized algorithms, ... , constitute only 3% of the installed base."" (Bialkowski [1992]).Bialkowski [1992] also stated that ""If you have been keeping score, only 20% of the loops surveyed actually decrease variability in automatic over manual mode of operation, in the short term."" He attributed the problems to: poor tuning (30% of all loops), control valve problems (30% of all loops) and process problems (20% of all loops). There appear to be a serious need to go back to basics and review the existing control system."

Jan 1, 1998

By Jean-François Dorion

La corrosivité des environnements miniers souterrains est un phénomène peu étudié au Canada. En plus de détériorer les systèmes de soutènement, la corrosion s?attaque aussi à divers installations et équipements souterrains. Cette étude, débutée en janvier 2007, est l?établissement d?une banque de données afin de caractériser les environnements miniers souterrains selon leur potentiel de corrosivité pour les systèmes de support de terrains. Pour ce faire, cinq (5) mines ont été sélectionnées afin de comparer les environnements : Laronde, Géant-Dormant, Niobec, Mouska et Doyon. À chacune des mines, trois (3) endroits ont été étudiés. Les résultats préliminaires démontrent une grande variabilité des conditions d?une mine à l?autre ainsi qu?à l?intérieur même d?une mine. La minéralogie des roches et du gisement influence la composition des eaux souterraines et la présence des sulfures joue un rôle important sur l?agressivité de l?eau et de l?air des mines de l?étude. Afin de déterminer le potentiel de corrosivité, plusieurs paramètres doivent être considérés et la mine doit être zonée selon l?agressivité des endroits.

Feb 1, 2008

By R. C. Bryce

"Selbaie is located northwest of Joutel, in what is known as the fourth east-west volcanic sediment group in northwestern Quebec. The main metals produced are copper and zinc, with important contents of both silver and gold. Production comes from an open pit mine on the A-I zone and from two underground mines on the B zone and the A-2 zone. Each mine gave rise to important capital investment programs for construction and mine development, all of which were managed and staffed with company-hired, non-union personnel. Production from all sources now exceeds 7000 tonnes per day, with a workforce of540 regular employees. Of particular interest technically is the high recovery of B zone reserves underneath 40 m of overburden cover, the low-cost capital development of the A-2 zone, the computerized control of open pit mining, and the successful copper-zinc separation of the A-1 zone ore. Due to the low grades of the mineral deposits, efficiency in all aspects of the production process, is essential to the success of the operation.LocationThe Selbaie Mine is located 82 km northwest of the locality of Joutel in northwestern Quebec (Fig. 1). Access to the mine is by an all-weather road, 32 km of which is paved. A second road access to the site is via La Sarre, 134km to the southwest. Employee access, materials transport and haulage of copper and zinc concentrates take place over both of these roads."

Jan 1, 1990

By Neri Roux, Chris Budgell, Allan Cramm, Leo Cheung

"Anaconda Mining Inc. is investigating potential improvements and expansions to their operating plant located on the Baie Verte Peninsula in Newfoundland. An extensive batch and continuous bench scale testing program was launched to investigate the efficiency of cyanide destruction under different conditions in order to improve tailings handling. The primary objective of the cyanide destruction study was to apply new technologies to develop a novel cyanide destruction system.Effluent and slurry from Anaconda Mining Inc.’s Point Rousse Project was received at RPC where test work was conducted. Various sodium metabisulfite (MBS) dosages were evaluated and the use of utilizing ozone and ultra violet (UV) light to oxidize cyanide was investigated. All the data was evaluated and mass balances were compiled to develop several flowsheets. Overall encouraging results were found using a combination of ozone and MBS.IntroductionAnaconda Mining Inc.’s Point Rousse project includes an operating gold processing plant located on the Baie Verte Peninsula in Newfoundland which is in the process of improving and expanding. This plant comprises of milling and flotation followed by cyanide leaching in order to extract the gold. The residue from cyanide leaching is filtered by drum filters prior to being clarified for the Merrill-Crowe process. Once the gold has been recovered by the Merrill-Crowe process the effluent is filtered by filter presses and the resulting filtrate as well as the solids from the drum filters are detoxified prior to being pumped to the tailings pond along with the flotation tailings.The entire process is very dependent upon the efficient destruction of cyanide in the effluents and successful tailings handling. Substantial amounts of effluent are delivered to tailings ponds after gold extraction which could create environmental problems if the regulations are not met. Environmental regulations stipulate that final effluents contain no more than 1 mg/L Total CN.The detoxified tailings of the Point Rousse project are produced by the INCO SO2-Air circuit depicted in Figure 1. These detox tailings contain 10 mg/L Total CN at that point of the circuit and this was selected as the target to be matched while reducing overall MBS consumption rates from 3.2 g/L per minute. Prior to detoxification, the filter press tailings contain 520 mg/L Total CN while the drum tailings contain 29 mg/L Total CN."

Jan 1, 2017

By J. Molgaard, J. Masounave, J. Prinsen, P. Beaulieu, G. Huard

"A study carried out on behalf of the National Research Council (NRC) indicates that economic losses due to wear in the Canadian mining industry are in excess of $700 million annually. Severe wear, mainly by abrasion, was identified as the most important wear mechanism in terms of possible savings. One way to reduce losses would be the proper use of databases. A joint project of The Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) and NRC (Tribology laboratories at IMRI) has been initiated to create a factual database containing all relevant experience in the area of wear in the Canadian mining industry. As a first step, a prototype covering slurry pumps is being built. This should help to answer many questions, such as the number of people involved, interest from industry, cost vs benefits, etc.IntroductionTribology is concerned with the understanding of the mechanisms of friction, wear, and lubrication.Tribology is concerned with the correct use of materials for interacting solid surfaces, with the interaction of those surfaces with lubricants, with the chemistry, physics and use of lubricants and their additives. It is concerned with the reduction of friction and wear (or, in the case of belts, brakes, clutch plates, and similar devices, in achieving optimum friction with minimum wear) and is concerned with the avoidance of associated failures in machinery.Lubrication is usually the solution to a problem of friction and wear. Yet far from all the problems of friction and wear are solved by lubrication. The wear of grinding rods or shovel track pads can hardly be solved by lubrication, to name just two examples with which mining engineers will be familiar. There are indeed many situations of wear and friction where the surfaces in contact are unlubricated.In part, tribology is a matter of design. A major aspect, however, has to do with the choice of materials, to satisfy external constraints upon the component design or choice. The operating conditions for much industrial equipment, particularly in mining are, often very severe. The development of wear resistant materials, including materials which are applied as coatings, is clearly an important technology from the point of view of tribology."

Jan 1, 1987

By Antônio Peres, Rogério Guimaraes, Lauro Takata, Harold Wyslouzil

"Serrana’s concentrator, in Araxii, has capacity of producing approximately 800,000 tomes of phosphate rock per year, with a P205 grade of 36%, from ores grading between 13% and 14% P205. The annual mining rate is around 3.5 Mt and the apatite is concentrated according to the following sequence: crushing, grinding, desliming, flotation and low and high intensity magnetic separations.Two industrial flotation columns (3.0 m x 4.5 m x 14.5 m) were commissioned in 1993 as a replacement for circuits of barite and apatite fines flotation. In 1994, four additional flotation columns of the same dimensions were put into operation, replacing 42 Wemco mechanical cells (300 ft3 each), in the barite pre-flotation, coarse apatite (two columns) and tailings regrind flotation Circuits. Overall, 66 mechanical cells (300 ft3 each) were replaced by only six flotation columns, designed by Cominco Engineering Services Ltd - CESL.The present paper describes the stages of process development, pilot plant testwork and implementation of the industrial project, highlighting the most relevant aspects of each of them. The results achieved are related to improvements in flotation selectivity, gains in P205 recovery and better process control, resulting in better quality products and lower production costs. Other benefits included a decrease in flotation reagents, electrical energy and maintenance materials consumption. These factors contributed to a significant decrease in the cost of phosphate rock production at Serrana, in Araxa - M G."

Jan 1, 1999

By D. Prince, G. Nollet

"Since 1994, Aur Ressources has operated Louvicourt mine, a zinc and copper mine close to Val d’Or, at a rate of 4300 t/d. Ever since the start-up of the plant, management has encouraged innovative approaches in reliability. The first of three papers will discuss the vibration monitoring program in place. The program will be described and two examples will be given: detection of a rolling bearing defect on a pinion driving the ball mill and identification of wear on the bearings of the flotation cells. Figures on the return on investment and the costs of a monitoring program will also be given.The second article will discuss the lubrication aspect. Since the establishment of a good monitoring and oil analyses, Louvicourt mine decreased its oil consumption by more than 38 000 L/yr. In addition, the company set up an oil regeneration system that restores the original properties of oil.The third article will cover the management aspect. Work organization as well as the management philosophy enabling the employes to push predictive technology to higher levels will be examined in detail. The key elements which made it possible for Louvicourt mine to position itself among world-class companies in the organization of maintenance will be discussed."

Jan 1, 2002

By C. H. Dionne, J. A. Holmes, B. J. Huls

"Falconbridge Limited is presently developing flowsheet alternatives for implementation at the Strathcona Mill. The main thrust for change arises from the need to reject more pyrrhotite from the concentrate. To maintain appropriate levels of sulphur in the smelter concentrate, however, enhanced removal of non-sulphide gangue minerals must be realized. This could best be done in the Non-magnetics flotation circuit.Laboratory investigations were followed by an on-stream pilot test at Strathcona. The application of a column cleaner on the Non-magnetics concentrate resulted in significantly lower levels of fine gangue at equivalent sulphides recovery.This paper discusses the laboratory and pilot testing and results, with a focus on piloting. Also included is a discussion of the Strathcona Mill Flowsheet and the role of the Nonmagnetics flotation circuit.INTRODUCTIONFalconbridge Ltd. is currently developing means to reduce atmospheric sulphur dioxide emissions. One alternative is a reduction in the amount of pyrrhotite in Strathcona Mill concentrate, which reports to the smelter. Pyrrhotite in the Falconbridge ores contains an average of 39 percent sulphur and 0.64 percent nickel. By comparison, pentlandite contains an average of 33 percent sulphur and 34 percent nickel.A consequence of the rejection of pyrrhotite is a decrease in the sulphur assay in the remaining concentrate. This decrease causes downstream difficulties in the roasting process. Therefore, the content of non-sulphide gangue in the mill concentrate must also be reduced in order to maintain sulphur grades adequate for roasting. The resulting concentrate will have lower sulphur dioxide emissions while maintaining nickel production."

Jan 1, 1991

By Poul Hansen

"In mid-I986, a world-class mining enterprise was created in British Columbia, bringing together the copper mining operations of Lornex Mining Corporation and Cominco into a new entity, Highland Valley Copper. This paper will focus on the background and rationalef or the formation of this partnership, the resulting operating changes and the productivity and cost benefits expected.IntroductionSince the deterioration of the world copper industry in 1981, the future of the Lomex and Cominco mines in the Highland Valley of British Columbia looked increasingly precarious. Despite the expansion of the Lomex mill complex in 1981 to one of the world's most cost-efficient copper and molybdenum concentrators, persistent low metal prices had made the remainder of the ore in the Lomex orebody marginally economic and had significantly foreshortened the expected life of the operation.Cominco had acquired the Bethlehem Copper assets in order to consolidate its ownership of the Valley orebody, and was feeding the Bethlehem concentrator with ore from the Valley orebody. In spite of the high grade and free-milling character of the Valley ore, profitability of the Cominco operation was severely restricted because of the limited capacity of the Bethlehem concentrator and its location high on the hillside above the orebody."

Jan 1, 1987

By Olaf Andersen

Crucible melt extraction yields short metal fibers with eqivalent diameters as low as 50 µm from almost arbitrary metals and alloys. Highly porous components can be made from such fibers by suitable deposition and sintering methods. This technology is being developed at the Dresden based Department of Powder Metallurgy and Composite Materials of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing and Advanced Materials (IFAM) and has been applied to gold alloys and iron-base alloys containing small additions of precious metals. From the manufactured gold fibers, sintered structures were made for decorative applications. Additionally, it was found that due to rapid solidification during the fiber formation, precious metals can be finely dispersed in ironchromium- aluminum (FeCrAl) and FeAl20 alloys. Good catalytic activity at elevated temperatures was found in compositions containing 3 wt.-% Ce and 0.5 wt.-% Pt.

Oct 1, 2003

By Joseph J. Mgumbwa

Pillars are any structures left between two or more underground openings. The stability of pillars is normally considered to depend on shape (defined by width to height ratio), rock mass strength, extraction ratio, in situ stresses and the gross structural features (i.e. joints, contacts, faults etc). Recent experience has shown that pillar stability is also controlled by the relative orientation of the orebody with respect to the in situ principal stress. In inclined orebodies, pillars are loaded in compression and shear, thus creating unsymmetrical stress distribution. Failure mechanisms of these pillars are little known. This paper investigates the failure mechanisms of pillars under shear loading. Two dimensional elastic numerical modeling was used to examine the behavior of pillars in different orebody inclinations relative to the major farfield stress orientation. First, the paper reviews pillar design approaches including the empirical pillar design chart and uses numerical modeling to investigate the effect of the major farfield stress orientation on pillar stability. It is concluded that the empirical pillar design chart be used with caution, and that for orebodies under shear loading mine planning and design should take this into consideration since such geometrical orebody/stress relations put mine structures at higher risk of instability.

Oct 1, 2010

By L. Lariviere, M. Grenier, R. Khalili, D. Shook

A mineral processing facility near Montreal, CEZinc, Noranda Inc., has recently implemented a leading-edge intranet solution for monitoring the performance of plant operations, and providing condition-based maintenance. This innovative multi-faceted software implementation incorporates: web-delivered plant information systems; area-wide control loop performance assessment (using sophisticated algorithms to evaluate poorly performing controllers); and integrated alarm management functions.The system has enabled a project to improve plant operations through better process control. Maintenance technicians, engineers, supervisors and managers all can see the performance of the controllers, and the performance of the plant itself, through webdelivered graphics and reports. Information is combined from many sources, real-time, historical, relational and analytical, to provide a complete picture of plant operation.The web-based solution centralizes the administration of user access, and simplifies the deployment of several different kinds of information to many desktops. It is an extensible system that allows users to create and share their own web pages and data views.The paper will discuss the solution architecture and the improvements the IT, operations, maintenance, and engineering groups have experienced, and overall benefits to the facility.

Jan 1, 2003

By Thomas Deschamps

The main objective of this work was to investigate the effect of binder addition on the geochemical properties of surface paste tailings. Nine leaching columns were prepared following different disposal configurations: non-cemented, non-cemented with cemented layers, and cemented .The proportions of cement by total paste weight were between 0 and 1% for a whole column; the maximum amount of cement in a single layer was 2%. The material used was a sulphide-rich tailings coming from a Canadian hard rock polymetallic mine. The columns have been flushed once a week during 30 weeks. The recovered leachates were analyzed for pH, Eh, conductivity, and a wide range of elements. The drainage rates were monitored during the initial disposal as well as after each column flush. The results show that binder addition can improve the whole environmental performances for some of the studied disposal configurations. The disposal configuration consisting of intercalation of three 2% cement paste layers within non-cemented layers (0.66 wt.% of cement for the whole column), and the configuration with 2% cement added only in the two bottom layers (0,44 wt.% of cement for the whole column), showed the best results in terms of water quality and drainage rates.

May 1, 2007

By Knut F. Garshol

Quality and durability of sprayed concrete depends on the concrete mix design, the type and use of accelerator and all the aspects of the placement onto the rock surface in the underground working. A large number of influence factors are involved and they must be managed for a successful and durable permanent sprayed concrete structure to be produced. The paper discusses some of the central issues, including how to view the long-term effects of chemical admixtures and accelerators in wetmix sprayed concrete. Permanent lining sprayed concrete for rock support is increasingly being used today and the durability can be equally achieved as for any other concrete.

May 1, 2003

? CONSTRUCTION AND MINING COSTS ARE HIGH IN THE ARCTIC ? VERTICAL KIMBERLITE PIPES WITH HIGH STRIP RATIOS ? SITE SPECIFIC GEOMETRIC CONSTRAINTS ? OPEN PIT FOLLOWED BY UNDERGROUND MINING ? HIGH KIMBERLITE UNIT COSTS TRACK INSTALLED ON PIT WALL ? INTENDED TO REPLACE MAIN HAUL RAMP ? 5 MIN HOIST CYCLE TIME ? KEY ADVANTAGES - REDUCED CYCLE AND STRIPPING RATIO ? TECHNOLOGY EXISTS IN OTHER APPLICATIONS

May 1, 2003

By B. Hilscher, P. Nayak, N. Yoon

"The mining industry is currently facing challenges with declining feed grades and is struggling to find solutions to improve the project’s economic value. By means of pre-concentration, ore sorting aims to separate the barren material from the valuable ore to reduce energy consumption and tailings generation, while increasing the feed grade, concentrate grade, mill recovery, and revenue. In addition, ore sorting allows the modification of deposit geometallurgy in order to allow the creation of an optimal mill feed.This paper evaluates the applicability and challenges of ore sorting by utilizing the results from four different mines, and reviews them in detail. The mines include two underground and two open pit mines that are base metal and precioius metal operations. In order to understand the applicability of ore sorting in these operations, initial rock-by-rock test results and different types of assays (atomic adsorption [AA], inductively coupled plasma [ICP], and fire assay) are utilized. Using the assay results, the grade recovery curves for ore sorting are generated and they are further improved by using and developing an ore sorting algorithm, which is discussed in this paper. The application and evaluation of ore sorting in greenfield and brownfield properties will also be discussed.The state of the art ore sorting technologies for both rock-by-rock and bulk sorting are reviewed in this paper. The future technologies on the horizon, including different combinations of sensors, are explained. The sorting technologies include, X-ray transmission (XRT), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), colour, infrared, electromagnetic, and laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS).IntroductionOre sorting is a sensor-based sorting technique introduced between the excavation stage and processing stage, where the unwanted waste is diverted to the waste dump and only the ore is sent to the mill for further processing. As a result, the quality of the material entering the mill is improved and the dilution of the ore is reduced. In greenfield projects, sensor-based ore sorting provides an opportunity to reduce the capital cost of the project and increase the return on investment (ROI). With most operations currently facing the challenge of finding a high grade deposit, having a sorting unit provides several advantages while keeping the cost at minimum."

Jan 1, 2017