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By M. A. Perras, H. A. Kasani, G. Walton

The development of an underground repository for the storage of spent nuclear fuel relies on a multi-barrier system to isolate the used fuel from the environment – ultimately, the biosphere. These barriers include engineered copper and steal canisters, dense bentonite, and the natural rock as well. In order to reduce the potential flow pathway along the excavation induced damage zone, various slots perpendicular to the excavation axis have been proposed. These slots are called cut-off seals and generally are filled with bentonite as it has high swelling potential and very low permeability. Many different geometries have been proposed, but clear guidelines on the selection of the optimum geometry have yet to be developed. In order to assess the optimum geometry, three shapes have been selected for this numerical study, including a trapezoid, a triangle, and a thin rectangular slot. The cut-offs were modelled for a conceptual shaft constructed in the Queenston Formation from Ontario over a stress to strength ratio that has been found at many underground research laboratories. It was found that the excavation of a triangular and thin slot cut-off had the smallest increase in the damage as quantified based on the extensile volumetric strain within the plastic yield zone. Both shapes showed an increase in the damaged zone by 13 cm at a stress to strength ratio of 2.75. The trapezoidal cut-off damage zone increased by 20 cm at the same stress to strength ratio. Further study is required to better define the optimum cut-off shape for wider variety of conditions and other geological formations.

Jan 1, 2020

By CHRISTOPHER D. HEBERT, SCOTT W. HOFFMAN

All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Information contained in this work has been obtained by SME, Inc. from sources believed to be reliable. However, neither SME nor its authors guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information published herein, and neither SME nor its authors shall be responsible for any errors, omissions, or damages arising out of use of this information. This work is published with the understanding that SME and its authors are supplying information but are not attempting to render engineering or other professional services. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any statement or views presented here are those of individual authors and are not necessarily those of the SME. The mention of trade names for commercial products does not imply the approval or endorsement of SME.

Dec 1, 2019

By CIM Mineral Resource, Mineral Reserve Committee

The CIM Estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Best Practice Guidelines (MRMR Best Practice Guidelines) were prepared by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum's (CIM) Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Committee (CIM MRMR Committee) to update an earlier version that was accepted by CIM Council on November 23, 2003 (CIM, 2003). These 2019 MRMR Best Practice Guidelines supersede and replace the November 23, 2003 version of the MRMR Guidelines. These 2019 MRMR Guidelines are not intended to be prescriptive and are not intended to provide detailed and exhaustive instructions for preparation of Mineral Resource and/or Mineral Reserve (MRMR) estimates. Rather, they are intended as general guidance to assist professional geoscientists (or equivalent) and engineers (or equivalent) in preparing high quality estimates of MRMR that incorporate sound geoscientific, engineering, evaluation and design practices. They are based on well-established estimation and mine planning principles and are designed to provide general guidelines of best professional practices employed in the preparation of MRMR estimates. Although the 2019 MRMR Best Practice Guidelines are intended for use by Canadian-based mining/exploration practitioners, many of the concepts and practices presented herein are in general agreement with current industry practices in jurisdictions with membership in the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO). For this document, persons preparing MRMR estimates are called Practitioners. Preparation of MRMR estimates should be carried out by Practitioners who either hold the status of Professional Geoscientist (or equivalent) or Professional Engineer (or equivalent), or who prepare the estimates under the supervision of a Professional Geoscientist (or equivalent) or Professional Engineer (or equivalent). For the purposes of this document, all references to reporting describe such necessary reports and related documentation that are created as part of the normal-course work flow of preparing MRMR estimates for internal purposes. For clarity, all public disclosure of MRMR estimates made by, or on behalf of, an issuer and intended to be, or reasonably likely to be, made available to the public in a jurisdiction of Canada must comply with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101), as amended from time to time. At least one Qualified Person (QP) must take responsibility for each part of the estimation process when publicly disclosing the results of MRMR estimates. The intended audience for these 2019 MRMR Best Practice Guidelines includes Practitioners at all levels of skill and experience, government agencies, academic institutions, and the public.

Nov 29, 2019

By CIMVAL

This Code for the Valuation of Mineral Properties (the “CIMVAL Code”) is the result of a review more than a decade after the release in 2003 of the “Standards and Guidelines for Valuation of Mineral Properties” (the "2003 Standards"). The purpose of the review is to update the 2003 Standards to reflect domestic valuation, international valuation, and regulatory developments. The CIMVAL Code was adopted by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy & Petroleum (the "CIM") Council on November 29, 2019. The CIMVAL Code supersedes the 2003 Standards. The 2003 Standards were dated February 2003 and were adopted by the CIM Council on March 9, 2003 as the first comprehensive set of standards for Valuation of Mineral Properties in the Canadian mining industry. The 2003 Standards followed recommendations of the Mining Standards Task Force of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Ontario Securities Commission, where in its Final Report (January 1999), the CIM was specifically asked to form a committee of valuation practitioners to review and advise on standards for the Valuation of Mineral Properties. The Special Committee on Valuation of Mineral Properties ("CIMVAL") was created on May 5, 1999 with the mandate to recommend standards and guidelines for Valuation of Mineral Properties to be used by the mining industry in general. The CIMVAL Code is limited to the Valuation of Mineral Properties (including any interests therein) and does not cover valuation of corporations or other entities that hold Mineral Properties as assets. The CIMVAL Code does not cover petroleum and related assets. CIMVAL recommends that the CIMVAL Code be followed for all Valuations of Mineral Properties, including those required by securities administrators and stock exchanges. However, when a Valuation is required under the applicable rules of securities administrators or stock exchanges, such rules prevail to the extent of any inconsistency.

Nov 29, 2019

By Felipe da Silva Siqueira, Weslley Luiz da Silva Assis, Camila dos Santos Pinto, André Luiz Moraes Alves, Guilherme Dias da Fonseca, Paulo Rangel Rios

Neste trabalho estudou-se o comportamento cinético das transformações de fases por nucleação e crescimento nas interfaces (faces, arestas e vértices), das matrizes poliedricas de Kelvin, Voronoi e de Monte Carlo, através da simulação computacional. Com o objetivo principal de comparar os resultados obtidos das simulações com os modelos analíticos de Johnson e Mehl, Kolmogorov e Avrami (JMAK), e de John W. Cahn. As matrizes foram geradas por modelos estocásticos e através do método de crescimento do Cone Causal. Em engenharia o entendimento do comportamento das transformações de fases por nucleação e crescimento são importantes para prever os possíveis locais de nucleação, assim como no entendimento do comportamento dos constituintes presentes do diagrama ferro carbono, na decomposição da austenita, no processo de recristalização, entre outros. Desta forma, o modelamento computacional foi utilizado para o estudo das transformações de fases por nucleação e crescimento, obtendo como resultados a fração volumétrica, o caminho microestrutural e a contiguidade, ambos resultados foram importantes para a caracterização microestrutural e para descrever a distribuição dos núcleos no espaço. Com os resultados obtidos observou-se que se os núcleos estão bem distribuídos nas interfaces o impingement será mais fraco, levando as simulações de Voronoi e de Kelvin a corroborarem com o modelo analítico de JMAK, já o Modelo de Monte Carlo, não apresentou o mesmo comportamento, ou seja, ficou evidenciado que nem sempre a aleatoriedade vai ser válida para todos os casos. Foi constatado também que se aumenta consideravelmente a quantidade de núcleos, a distribuição perde a característica de aleatoriedade e passa a se comportar como clusters, corroborando com o modelo analítico de Cahn.

Nov 10, 2019

By Mariana Sizenando Lyrio, Weslley Luiz da Silva Assis, Harison da Silva Ventura, Gabriella Maria Silveira de Sá, Paulo Rangel Rios, Ana Gabriella Conceição dos Santos

A nucleação em contornos de grão é uma das mais importantes na maioria dos metais utilizados em engenharia. Um exemplo clássico é a nucleação de ferrita no contorno de grão austenítico, mas este tipo de nucleação também é predominante na recristalização. Nesse trabalho, simulações computacionais são realizadas de modo a estudar a transformação de fase nos contornos de grãos equiaxiais e nos contornos deformados. Os grãos equiaxiais são representados por poliedros de Poisson-Voronoi e os grãos deformados por elipsoides de diferentes razões de aspecto. Os resultados são comparados como os modelos analíticos de JMAK e CAHN. A microestrutura final não é visivelmente afetada pela razão de aspecto dos poliedros predecessores. Todavia a cinética de transformação dos grãos recristalizados é significativamente alterada.

Nov 9, 2019

By Felipe da Silva Siqueira, Aline Cristine Lemos Duarte, Weslley Luiz da Silva Assis, André Luiz Moraes Alves, Guilherme Dias da Fonseca, Paulo Rangel Rios, Daniel Gomes de Souza dos Santos

Com o aumento da complexidade dos materiais metálicos, duas ou mais fases produto podem nuclear simultaneamente durante uma transformação de fase. A nucleação de novos grãos pode ocorrer por saturação de sítios ou por taxa constante. Neste contexto, esse trabalho busca estudar a influência da transformação simultânea com nucleação por taxa constante de duas fases produto na cinética, na microestrutura e na distribuição do tamanho de grão em uma região tridimensional. A efeito de comparação, também foi realizado o estudo de reações em que uma fase nucleia por saturação de sítios e a outra fase, por taxa constante e ambas iniciam sua transformação no instante inicial, de forma simultânea. Os resultados obtidos computacionalmente foram comparados às equações analíticas, apresentando ótima concordância entre os modelos. Foi observado que parâmetros microestruturais como tamanho médio de grãos e morfologia das interfaces podem auxiliar o pesquisador a identificar o tipo de nucleação, seja por saturação de sítios, seja por taxa constante.

Nov 8, 2019

By Nathan Fernandes Ignácio, Filipe da Silva Siqueira, Weslley Luiz da Silva Assis, Paulo Rangel Rios

As pesquisas em transformação de fase ganharam novos horizontes a partir dos recentes estudos de Rios & Villa. Eles desenvolveram inéditos modelos analiticamente exatos a partir da geometria estocástica. Estes modelos são exatos para resoluções de problemas de nucleação e crescimento não homogêneos. O presente trabalho visa o estudo da nucleação em clusters, cuja cinética de transformação de fase sólido-sólido diverge consideravelmente daquela prevista pelo modelo JMAK. Nesse tipo de nucleação, os núcleos não estão homogeneamente dispersos na matriz, mas concentrados em regiões preferenciais chamadas clusters. Um dos principais parâmetros dessa nucleação é o número de clusters na matriz. Nesse trabalho, utilizando um modelo estocástico baseado na teoria do Cone Causal, foram simuladas reações de nucleação e crescimento que ocorrem especificamente em forma de clusters esféricos. Foi possível analisar o efeito que a variação do número de clusters provoca na cinética de transformação de fase e comparar os resultados obtidos com o modelo de Rios & Villa. Por meio dessa comparação, é possível observar que o modelo analítico corroborara com os resultados numéricos. Como conclusões principais tem-se que quanto menor o número de clusters, mais lenta é a reação de transformação de fase e que a microestrutura gerada possui características próprias e os resultados podem ser interpretados de maneira errônea se a presença dos clusters não for propriamente detectada.

Nov 7, 2019

By William Gleason

"Mining roots run deep in Glenrock, WY, a town that was founded in part, because of the coal mining that began in the late 1800s. But that rich history also now threatens large parts of the town that were built over the top of the mines. Like many towns in the Western United States, mining is a proud part of the historical fabric and heritage of the town, but the legacy issues from past mining activities continue to present challenges to modern-day engineers.In the case of Glenrock, a small town about 40 km (25 miles) east of Casper, it is flooding from a century of water that has accumulated in the down geologic dip of the furthest northeastern extent of 87 ha (217 acres) of mine workings that has made the town susceptible to sinkholes and other issues (Fig. 1).Full commercial coal mining production began in Glenrock in 1887 during the development of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley railway. Due to poor overlying roof rock and continuous flooding within Glenrock, Mines No. 1 and 2 were fully closed in 1909. During its history, an estimated 87 ha (217 acres) were mined with 50 to 60 percent extraction ratio within the eastern town limits through room-and-pillar mining. It is estimated that the mines produced 22 kt/a (25,000 stpy) during their lifetime. A century later, the water pressure built up in the northeastern most portion of the mine has created serious concerns for residents.In 2016, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s Abandoned Mine Lands Divisions (AML) investigated a number of subsidence events in the town including sinkholes following heavy precipitation. The AML investigations confirmed that most events were related to the previous mining in the area.Mitigation efforts on the mines were done in the 1980s and 1990s, but the problems in the town and in a nearby subdivision persisted, leading the AML to search for alternative solutions."

Nov 1, 2019

By Ernesto Furtado de Mello Neto, Eliezer Thuler, Claudio Vano Nunes, Carlos Alberto Cristofari

The Brazilian steel industry is dealing an adverse scenario with direct competition from global emerging markets. In this scenario, the need to improve asset operational performance, makes complex studies involving technical knowledge and asset life behavior, become important tools to support companies strategic accomplish. These studies allow consider performance, costs and operational risks relationship in the decision make process. The Asset Management approach support these studies in order to observe the whole asset life cycle, understand value chain through all company process and optimize the asset economic life. In this context, the present technical work has the purpose to support asset management decision making regarding ArcelorMittal Vega cold rolling drive motors, through the motors fail behavior modelling and estimated the risks involved in asset management decision. Through the Reliability, Availability and Mantenability (RAM) analysis, simulations were performed considering the failure, repair cost data and investments to build options to mitigate the operational risks.

Oct 9, 2019

By Andrelio Marcos Ribeiro, Lucio Ribeiro Camisao, Antonio Carlos Ataíde, Alan de Sousa Pereira, Renato Siqueira Campos

The annealing and pickling line n. 1, responsible for the production of stainless steel 3xx, 4xx and 430a in thicknesses from 4 to 0.4 mm, has two vertical strip accumulators. These are intended not to let the material exceed the determined time in the furnace and in the pickling, and consequently do not cause defects like burning and excessive pickling. Strip accumulator n. 1 avoids the line from stopping during welding execution of the coils in the welding machine. In sequence, the strip accumulator n. 2 avoids the line from stopping at the end cutting of the tips, and in the coils removal from the pickling. The strip accumulators have a roller table that during the strip accumulation moves vertically downwards while its counterweight moves vertically upwards, and do the inverse movement when the material is released. On December 12th 2018, the failure occurred in the strip accumulator n. 1, where it was verified that the shaft of one of the pulleys had been fractured by high-cycle mechanical fatigue, which was characterized by alternating bending. With the fracture of the shaft, occurred the unevenness of the counterweight that damaged the guides. Failure analysis of this occurrence was based on the PDCA methodology, when was verified a weld between the shaft and the pulley. The analysis of the microstructure transformation in the molten zone, in the heat affected zone and in the base metal was carried out in an optical microscope, and no abnormality was observed. It was also carried out the end test by penetrating liquid, finding an inadequate weld in its geometry, as well as longitudinal trunks along the center of the weld bead. However, after a huge investigation of the causes, it was found that the failure was triggered by an inadequate design of the pulley shaft. It was also verified that the shaft had an open measure, inadequate for the operational context. After the analysis, action plans were drawn up based on the FMEA methodology to inhibit the failure recurrence.

Oct 7, 2019

By Felipe da Silva Siqueira, Weslley Luiz da Silva Assis, Gláucio Soares da Fonseca, André Luiz Moraes Alves, Guilherme Dias da Fonseca, Paulo Rangel Rios

Com o contínuo advento dos materiais aumenta-se as chances de uma dada transformação envolver duas ou mais fases produto. Quando essa transformação de uma fase matriz em duas ou mais fases produto ocorre, ela pode ser simultânea, quando as fases produto iniciam-se no mesmo instante, ou sequencial, quando elas iniciam-se em tempos diferentes. É sabido, pela teoria clássica da nucleação, que a nucleação heterogênea tem vantagens sobre a nucleação homogênea, e que vários sítios podem se tornar preferenciais por favorecerem a nucleação heterogênea. Dois sítios preferenciais bastante presentes são a interface de precipitados e os contornos de grão. Neste contexto, um modelamento analítico e computacional, via cone causal, foi empregado para investigar transformações simultâneas e sequenciais que possuem sítios preferenciais para a nucleação. Considerou-se que uma fase matriz policristalina que possui precipitados esféricos transforma-se em duas fases produto, 1 e 2, onde a fase produto 1 nucleou na interface matriz/partículas e a fase produto 2 nos contornos de grão. Os resultados de simulação tiveram ótima concordância com o modelamento analítico e observou-se que cada sítio preferencial teve um efeito muito distinto nas microestruturas simuladas.

Oct 4, 2019

By Hiago Antunes Amador de Oliveira, William Pratt Rogers, Aaron Young

Monitoring systems are highly critical components in the safety of tailings storage facilities (TSF). Internet of things (IoT) platforms present a unique way to improve TSF monitoring systems. Since there are so many available IoT technologies, this conference paper aims to create a focused list of IoT options for improving TSF safety. To achieve this aim, a brief qualitative review of available literature and state of the art technologies is presented in Section 2. The article further assists this aim by summarizing the benefits of IoT platforms which have been found in the literature. With respect to findings, literature suggests that while sensor technologies have existed as solutions for tailings dams for many years, IoT greatly reduces the cost of deploying, monitoring, maintaining, and gaining insight from these sensors. Additionally, IoT removes the need for manual data collection from sensors, enabling the monitoring of tailings dams from miles away and the use of new sensor technologies. Therefore, as a conclusion, this article recommends that IoT capable monitoring systems be considered for use in TSF monitoring.

Oct 3, 2019

By Caio Trindade Almeida, Tharcysio Oliveira Rocha Paiva

Tharcysio de Oliveira Rocha de Paiva2

Oct 3, 2019

By César Junior dos Santos, Fábio da Silva dos Santos, Robson Rodrigues Martins

Tailings disposal has been a recurring theme of research in the major mining process development centers. This is due to the great interest of companies in reducing the social and financial impacts of their environmental liabilities. Another major driving force behind the search for new alternatives is the recent cases of environmental accidents in Brazil and abroad. According to the International Commission on Large Dam (ICOLD), two major accidents per year involving dams are reported worldwide. Hence, we realize that the analysis of the topic as well as the search for solutions becomes a challenge for both entrepreneurs and research institutions. In this work, a case study of the Herculano Mining will be carried out, working in the extraction and processing of iron ore. The main stages of the study are: technological characterization of tailings from the beneficiation process, analysis of filtration processes of this material for disposal in piles, bench tests and evaluation of the performance of the industrial facilities of the company in question. Herculano has an installed ceramic filtration equipment that faces operational difficulties in certain types of ore. At first, all the possibilities of adjusting this process will be analyzed so that it can filter the necessary mass of waste, acting in the rheology of the pulp (sedimentation, flocculation), regeneration of the ceramic plates and adjustments of the machine (filter), in order to obtain the best condition.

Oct 3, 2019

By Leandro Augusto Viana Teixeira, Márcio Francisco Dill Junges, Adauto Caldara

Innovation in the mining industry is critical when facing ever growing challenges, like the need to increase safety, reduce social and environmental impact, deal with commodities price fluctuations among others. However, successful innovation is not only the product of technological innovation, but it is also dependent on Innovation Management, which consists of changing the way a company fosters innovation, creating a new structure able to leverage technology knowledge and the ability to convert this knowledge in value. This paper presents a restructure option for innovation that focus on R&D development linked to business needs and company strategy. This new system was approached based on four fundamental blocks for innovation management (Approach, Organization, Resources and Metrics), showing how the technology master plan and a management tool are able to bring together all aspects necessary for the proper operation of the system. The new system confirmed the importance of having the initiatives organized as innovation roadmaps, connecting techno-scientific development with the company needs through the use of KPIs that are relevant to the business.

Oct 3, 2019

By Jaiza Bernardo de Oliveira, Iasmim Ariane Silva, Pedro Henrique Medeiros Câmara

The process of manufacturing pig iron in the blast furnace industrial units has the consequence of the generation of slag, a waste that can be produced in high quantity and present damages to the environment, when not reused. In the composition of this tailings, it is sometimes possible to find the presence of metals harmful to nature, such as manganese, which has an important and widespread utility in the metal industries, but still, the slag ends up not being used as a potential source of this element. Knowing this, the slags were subjected to crushing and grading steps to separate the aliquots. These were applied in the tests of technological characterization of the material, from MEV, EDS, Soxhlet and analysis of liberation degree by digital microscope, finding data of several analyzes. Having said that, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate, through the characterization of the slag, that this material has in its composition metallic elements, focusing on manganese, that can be reused in order to avoid the generation of environmental liabilities harmful to the environment. The results show a manganese content with a degree of release greater than 80% in bands from 48 #, which were divided by density and thus allow the gravimetric separation of the material in question.

Oct 3, 2019

By Otávio da Fonseca Martins Gomes, Renata Hiraga de Vasconcellos Cruz

Maghemite is a mineral formed from magnetite oxidation at low temperatures, an intermediate term of the magnetite-hematite series. Maghemite could be misidentified as magnetite by X-ray diffraction, and/or as hematite by spot chemical analysis. Nevertheless, non-stoichiometric magnetite was detected and quantified in samples of Brazilian soils and iron ores by the Rietveld method refinement of its structure. The results were confirmed by optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, thus validating the method. X-ray diffraction with the refinement of the isomorphic substitution of Fe2+ by Fe3+ along the magnetite-maghemite solid solution could help to suitably characterize maghemite in iron ores.

Oct 3, 2019

By Aaron Samuel Young, Hiago Antunes Amador de Oliveira, William Pratt Rogers

Low commodity prices and lack of new high-grade deposits are pushing the mining industry for innovation. Lean mining has been vastly discussed in the past decades as a way to continuously improve mining efficiency. Although very theoretical, lean mining presents a set of new solutions enabled by the digital transformation that the mining industry is going through. This paper proposes a framework for a short interval control system with the purpose to allow timely responses by front line supervisors upon operational deviations. In the first part, the author briefly reviews concepts of short-range planning and lean mining. Then, the materials and methods used for the development of the short interval control system are discussed. Finally, alpha trial results are presented, and next steps discussed.

Oct 3, 2019

By Walter Valery, Kristy Duffy, Alex Jankovic, Peter Holtham

Hatch’s Mine to Process Optimization projects integrate mining and processing strategies, minimizing operating costs and maximizing overall profit. The methodology involves ore characterization, blast audits, plant surveys, analysis of historical data, and integrated modelling and simulation of mining and processing. Blast designs are tailored according to ore type and the downstream process is optimized for the changed feed. This approach has increased throughput and minimized costs for many operations worldwide. The implementation of this methodology at an iron ore operation that faced challenges with increasing mining strip ratio and ore body mineralogy changes is presented in this paper. The larger stripping ratio increased mining costs and constrained the run-of-mine (ROM) delivery to the process plant. Process performance was affected as the ore mineralogy shifted from predominantly hematite to include greater proportions of magnetite. The project objective was to minimize overall cost per ton mined and processed and maximize profit. Tailoring the blast designs according to ore type and process optimization increased the throughput of all process lines. This provided the potential to shut down one of the five processing line, aligning the mine and plant capacity and significantly reducing the processing costs.

Oct 3, 2019