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By M Laxman, A Kundu

After multiple tailings dam failures in recent times, the owner organisations have made increased efforts to step up the governance systems to industry best practise in the design, construction and operational management areas. The measures include but are not limited to, site investigation, rigorous peer review (both internal and external), certification through appropriately qualified personnel and improvement in operational management practises. While a lot of focus is on design and operational practices, the construction stage requires adaptation (both in terms of materials and approved design) and immediate decision making on site. Work undertaken in these areas is mostly irreversible and sometimes poses serious threat to the future TSF raise/ expansion planning and may lead to reduced life of the TSF and additional risk to the Owner.This technical paper will discuss some challenges and highlight the importance of appropriate processes to achieve a successful construction regime. The process will include a robust quality control/ quality assurance process, a team of designer-constructor-owner with suitable skills and technical understandings and robust documentation of the entire construction process from day 1 to the completion of construction.CITATION:Kundu, A and Laxman, M, 2018. Robust construction and quality assurance culture for tailings storage facilities – equally important as robust design and review practice, in Proceedings Mine Waste and Tailings Stewardship Conference 2018, pp 111–116 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 23, 2018

By L Sandery, S Light

Within 22 months of commencing decline development, the Prominent Hill Ankata Underground Project achieved its full production rate of 1.2 Mt/a.In 2010 construction of the Ankata Underground Project was approved. Decline development commenced in November 2010 and the turnout for the first sublevel was reached by August 2011. The first stoping ore was produced in the first quarter of 2012 and production was successfully ramped up to full production during the third quarter of 2012.Diamond drilling commenced in October 2011 and was conducted concurrently with the underground development. This presented challenges as mining and production targets had to be balanced with underground exploration activities. To achieve production on schedule, without adversely affecting the diamond drilling program and future development, meticulous and adaptive planning techniques were required. This included involvement from engineers, geologists, underground operators and underground diamond drillers.The granularity of these planning techniques allowed the management and prioritisation of development and diamond drilling down to an almost hourly basis. A constant flow of information from drill assay results was fed back into the planning systems. This resulted in a constantly evolving mine plan as the orebody was further refined. High priority areas were identified and targeted to allow continued development and a successful rapid ramp up to full production.CITATION:Sandery, L and Light, S, 2014. Managing the diamond drilling interactions in commissioning the Ankata underground mine, in Proceedings 12th AusIMM Underground Operators’ Conference 2014 , pp 75–80 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Mar 24, 2014

By A Turner, P Hills, D Johnson

Underground mining for gold began in Beaconsfield in 1877 and development of the Tasmania Mine saw the sinking of multiple shafts, including the Hart Shaft over the ensuing 35 years. The mine closed in 1914 at a depth of 455 m due to prevailing economics, eventually reopening in 1999. The modern mine closed in 2012 after extending the mine from a historical depth of 455 m to the exhaustion of the modern Ore Reserve at a depth of 1210 m. West Tamar Council took over the lease for the immediate area around the Hart Shaft as an extension of the adjacent museum. The Hart Shaft and above ground structures became a significant drawcard for visitors. Tasmania was affected by sustained wet weather during May, June and July of 2016 which caused severe flooding and significant Statewide damage. This uncharacteristically intense wet weather caused saturation of the ground surrounding the Hart Shaft. Eventual shaft failure was first identified in August 2016. The failure of the shaft occurred at approximately 50 m below surface and resulted in a plug of material completely blocking the shaft. Significant surface subsidence affecting the surface infrastructure ensued. Due to the unstable nature of the surrounding material, it was determined that addressing the failure above the blockage would not provide a permanent solution to prevent the continued flow of material into the shaft. Many options to stabilise the shaft were considered, however it was assessed that a concrete plug in the shaft in competent ground at a depth of 100 m below surface and well below the blockage, would provide the only long-term solution. Man-entry was considered unsafe. The solution to access ultimately entailed filling the entire shaft with granular fill up to 100 m depth to act as formwork for a concrete plug. The rising mains at 400 mm and 250 mm diameter, which remained in place in the shaft, provided the avenue for placing the fill and ultimately, the concrete plug. Once the plug was in place the remainder of the shaft up to the underside of the blockage and over the top of the blockage to the surface was successfully filled with a combination of more granular fill and flowable cement stabilised sand. The Hart Shaft and surrounding above ground infrastructure was successfully stabilised and re-opened to tourist access. CITATION:Johnson, D, Turner, A and Hills, P, 2018. Stabilising and filling the Beaconsfield Hart Shaft, in Proceedings The Fourth Australasian Ground Control in Mining Conference (AusRock), pp 42–57 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 30, 2018

By R H. Knight

Production mine geology must be accurate and efficient in order to reduce risk and ensure that ore value and mining operation revenue are maximised. Present grade control practices are commonly based on outmoded and inaccurate 2D geological mapping techniques where spatial relationships are estimated by eye, sketched by hand and projected to arbitrary reference planes. The 3D mapping approach outlined in this paper integrates 3D photogrammetric imagery with implicit modelling techniques to enable more accurate grade control and reconciliation in underground mines. High-resolution stereo photographs are taken of daily ore development headings. Ore contacts are traced directly on a 2D face photo using a stylus and rugged tablet. Area-weighted face grades are estimated and calculated on mapped 2D face planes. In the office, a 3D photorealistic mesh is processed and georeferenced. 2D face mapping data is transformed into its actual 3D location and true 3D mine mapping is performed by digitising oriented 3D polylines representing ore contacts and other geological features directly onto the image surface. Three-dimensional spatial relationships are fixed, eliminating the projection error of traditional 2D methods. Ore envelope and waste solids are modelled within the closed, drift-round mesh. Volume-weighted ore envelope and round grades, as well as round volume and tonnage, are calculated. Ore/waste classifications, grade, tonnage and per cent dilution are quantified per round, visually assessed in 3D and reconciled with short- and long-term models on a daily basis. Updated geological continuity models provide geological guidance in development headings under geological control and accurate 3D structural and form-line mapping improves definition drilling and stope planning. Three-dimensional imagery provides a permanent detailed survey and geological record of mine workings that can be revisited virtually to reinterpret geological ore controls in light of new observations and insights. In addition images can be used to monitor daily production performance, create training scenarios for miners, engineers and geologists and prepare management presentations. This approach adds value to underground mines by improving the accuracy and efficiency of mine geology practices. The method is particularly effective in mines with visually distinct and geometrically complex orebodies, such as those in the Balmat zinc mine located in New York State, USA, which are used to illustrate the method.CITATION:Knight, R H, 2017. 3D mine mapping – improving grade control and reconciliation in underground mines using photogrammetric imagery and implicit modelling techniques, in Proceedings Tenth International Mining Geology Conference 2017, pp 203–212 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 20, 2017

By R Hughes

"Spring Creek Mine uses high pressure water to extract the thick Main seam in the Upper Rewanuicoal measures. The extraction method results in the creation of large voids which collapsespontaneously. This can result in the displacement of large volumes of methane, which may create a signifi cant hazard if not correctly managed. A system of automatic dilution doors is employed to mitigate this risk. This paper describes the evolution of the system and gives some examples of its eff ectiveness."

Jun 1, 2012

Mining is a necessary part of our modern lifestyle. However, mining can cause damage and pollution of the environment and therefore we must manage our resources wisely accounting for the physical, biological and social environments. Contrary to the view of some people not conversant with the facts mining has in many cases improved the environment. This paper described how two sand dune systems that were unstable prior to mining have been stabilised by revegetation after mining.

Jan 1, 1987

By Nichol R

- PART A The Hoppers Crossing Pumping Station is one of the principal components of the Western Trunk Sewer Project which replaces the 90 year old Main Outfall Sewer and will convey 60% of Melbourne's sewage flow from Brooklyn to the Board's Farm at

Jan 1, 1987

There is no other effective way for study ing firedamp and coaldust explosions than to produce controlled explosions in a pre-monitor- ed environment - either mine openings kept for the purpose, or special surface galleries. Such explosion testing facilities have been employed historically at Buxton in U.K., with lesser known installations at Bruceton, U.S.A., Tremonia, West Germany, Katowice-Mikolow, Poland and elsewhere. Both firedamp and coal dust explosions are studied. Normally coal dust explosions are initiated by somewhat standardised methane air mixtures, by explosives, or purely by coal dust. Various structures and suppression installations are installed in roadways and galleries prior to explosion to simulate destruction and suppression, and the results of such tests form the basis of suppression installations, especially stone dust barriers and water barriers. Other data collected from these experiments include rev- ersals of explosion waves, pressures and temperatures and duration of explosion waves, analyses of aftergases etc. Other uses of explosion testing galleries include testing of explosives, electrical equipment and frictional . sparking.

Jan 1, 1981

By R Cannings, J Wallace, M McCamley

The mining industry continues to have major disasters (Bingham Canyon, Pike River, Upper Big Branch, Mount Polley and Samarco), which often have a devastating effect on the enterprise, in terms of personnel deaths and injuries, environmental destruction, and financial and reputational loss. These disasters are not imposed from outside the business or organisation, they are almost always a function of loss of control of the management of the organisation’s critical assets and processes that they contain or to which they are exposed.Asset integrity is discussed as an effective response to business risks in order to mitigate, control and recover from loss scenarios that could expose a mining operation to significant property damage and business interruption, or even total loss. Vital to this process is the identification and control of risks to critical assets. Components of a critical asset assurance program are presented for discussion.Formal risk assessment has a longer history in industries other than mining, eg petrochemical, nuclear, military, aviation and space industries. Risk assessment is a structured, proactive approach to understanding and improving risks, as opposed to a reactive ‘fix-it-when-it-breaks’ mentality. Risk assessment techniques were triggered by major public disasters, such as the Flixborough chemical plant disaster (1973), Three Mile Island nuclear plant event (1979) and others.Today, most industries see risk assessment as an inherent part of their business, but do mining sites capture business risks that are related to major loss scenarios, which could have a significant impact on the operation?Does your risk assessment process:- involve a team having the right skill set so that the discussion is both stimulated and technically sound?- use generic assessment when a site-specific assessment is needed?- fail to consider all possible outcomes, including maximum foreseeable loss (MFL)?- fail to identify all hazards and controls associated with a particular activity?- fail to monitor controls effectively?This paper addresses the issues identified by these questions and provides some direction for developing a risk management process where business risk associated with critical asset integrity is integrated with other business and safety and health risk processes to provide a robust method for managing your business. Case studies and common findings from critical asset failures are used to support the need to include critical asset assessments as part of business risk management processes.CITATION:Wallace, J, McCamley, M and Cannings, R, 2016. How robust are your asset integrity management processes? In Proceedings International Mine Management Conference, pp 53-64 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 22, 2016

By A Manzoori, M T. Shadloo

This paper describes a CFD modelling study which was carried out to investigate possible improvements in the design of an alumina precipitator tank at the Jajarm plant of Iran Alumina Company. In particular, the tank has an impeller located very close to the tank bottom, such that it quickly becomes covered with settled solids after a shut-down of the agitator, making it difficult to restart. A CFD model was firstly set up in which the existing design was evaluated in terms of flow pattern, off-bottom suspension and distribution of solids, and power consumption. Further simulations were then carried out to test alternative designs, leading to a recommended design, which maintains good mixing, with the same power consumption and without the use of a low-clearance impeller.

Jan 1, 2006

By M D. Griffith

Oct 12, 2022

By L Abrahamsson

The aim with this paper is to discuss experiences from the ongoing research project ‘Attract: A roadmap to attractive, inclusive, and safe mining workplaces’. The project’s aim is to analyse possibilities, effects, and consequences of the green and digital transformation in the Swedish mining industry from workplace, socio-technical and gender equality perspectives. The research project (2022–2025) at Human Work Science at Luleå University of Technology is financed by the strategic innovation program Swedish Mining Innovation (a joint venture by the national research funds Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency). The project includes a multidisciplinary research group of five senior researchers and five PhDstudents and a broad repertoire of methods, eg literature reviews, qualitative interviews with both managers and workers, workplace observations, workshops, surveys, and project seminars where the researchers and the company representatives together analyse the results. One important part of the project is the applied approach where the researchers work together with two mining companies and one subcontractor company. The project has two parallel main subprojects.

Sep 1, 2024

By Tagawa H

In Japan, geological condition do not only vary in a wide range of strata but are also extremely complex with the existence of faults and aquifers. With respect to rocks, in particular, it is very rare that homogeneous rocks are distributed uniformly. In general, geological conditions are distributed in a wide variety, ranging from earth, sand, soft and medium rocks to hard rocks. Under these geological conditions, when planning of the tunnel construction is to be made out, either blasting method or tunnel boring machines must be selected taking into consideration the geological structures along with the designed tunnel route,' possibility of encountering aquifers, hardness of rocks anticipated and also, the adjacent environ- mental conditions. In the process of select- ing an excavation method,, it is important to make a comparative investigation between the above two methods considering the advantages and disadvantages with regard to the respective operating efficiency, economical efficiency and the conditions and scope of application as well. Furthermore, in addition to these considerations, the recent environmental restriction, which does not allow the blasting in the surroundings of residential areas, must also be taken into account. Because of this, in some cases there is no alternative but to use a static excavation method or a tunneling machine even when these are less efficient than blasting.

Jan 1, 1987

By G Cao, Y R. Cui, J X. Zhao, H P. Gui, G H. Wang, Z M. Wang, M M. Ren, B Li

Pyro-metallurgy is still the main process for lead production and a lot of lead direct smelting processes have been developed in recent years. All the processes will experience two steps in common. The first is the oxidisation of PbS to PbO and then reduction from PbO to Pb, furthermore, from ZnO to Zn. So, the composition of melts, especially the slag composition at reduction step change continuously. Up to now, there are few systematic results on the slag physical-chemical properties with its composition change. In this work, the typical lead direct smelting processes were analysed from theoretical and practical standpoints. The full-period slag composition and slag melting point change were compared. Especially, to the PbO and ZnO reduction steps, based on the full-period slag composition change, the slag properties were predicted. Based on dust composition and test results, the mechanism of Pb compound evaporation and its effect on practice and measurement of high PbO bearing slag physical-chemical property is discussed. It is suggested that to restrain the evaporation in practice and to obtain more accurate measurement results of physicochemical properties of smelting slag are the key problem not only to set high efficiency, energy saving process, but also to environmental pollution control.

Aug 21, 2024

By A Llewellyn, M Varvari

The ventilation circuit at the FrogÆs Leg Mine was originally designed to permit mining to progress down to 440 m below surface at a maximum production rate of 500 kt/a, as per the feasibility study. The FrogÆs Leg resource has now been defined down to 640 m below surface at a maximum production rate of 750 kt/a. In order to allow for this increase in production depth and tonnage, it was necessary to upgrade the ventilation circuit.This paper outlines the upgrades to the ventilation circuit that were undertaken and the underlying rationale behind them.CITATION:Llewellyn, A and Varvari, M, 2013. Ventilation upgrade at the FrogÆs Leg Mine - Case study, in Proceedings The Australian Mine Ventilation Conference , pp 95-102 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 1, 2013

The rapid industrialisation of the world was driven by an improved ability to utilise chemical energy. Unfortunately harnessing explosive energy did not come cheaply given the hundreds of lost lives. However, the modem explosives industry has made significant technological achievements, for explosives are now considered to be both safe and extremely effective. Upon closer inspection, it would appear the key to this achievement has been the development of initiation systems. While the focus may have been originally on safety, modem developments have concentrated upon harnessing the benefits of initiation control. Before attempting to gaze into the future, it is worth reviewing some of the significant advances that have occurred.

Jan 1, 1990

By M J. Noy

The automated measurement of rock fragmentation particle size distribution in the muck during muck excavation has been developing over the last 16 years. The introduction of stereo camera imaging of the muck has provided improved automated particle segmentation for image-based measurement algorithms. Recently, a new vision system processing algorithm has been developed. The inclusion of 2D texture in the analysis has provided a significant improvement in the definition of the finer size fractions, which has resulted in the automated analysis no longer requiring calibration.The previous stereo vision system algorithm required analysis calibration to account for poor ‘small particle’ definition in the 3D surface profile. This was because of the depth perception limitations of the stereo camera system at greater than 8 m. The new algorithm has been implemented on a number of shovel-installed vision systems, and the algorithm’s performance in automated analysis has been assessed against a diligent manual analysis of the same fragmentation images. The new algorithm provides improved distribution resolution and accuracy.CITATION:Noy, M J, 2015. Evaluation of a new vision system algorithm for automated fragmentation measurement from a shovel, in Proceedings 11th International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by Blasting, pp 721–726 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 24, 2015

By Pratt V, Davis K

Challenges facing middle management in the 1980's and beyond are not confined to business matters such as industrial relations, government and legal constraints, corporate takeovers, and commodity marketing. More particularly they deal with people issues and the interrelationship of corporate/ family relationships. There is a need for corporations to acknowledge the growing conflict between corporate/family roles being brought about by such matters as equal opportunity, double professional marriage partnerships, personal mobility and the increasing stress faced by managers as a result of current demands and expectations being placed on them. While the main responsibility for managing professional life as well as the relationship between professional and private life rests with the individual executive, corporations nevertheless have a major responsibility to assist these executives in this management process. Corporations in Australia are taking steps to address this situation but much more needs to be done. This was highlighted in the March 1985 "Middle Management" course with its associated Spouses Programme presented jointly by Australian Mineral Foundation and The Australian Administrative Staff College. Effective communication is at the heart of the matter but no amount of training on this subject will bear fruit unless there is an associated commitment by executives to improve the effectiveness of their communi- cation process both in their corporate and family roles.

Jan 1, 1986

By Wallman D

Since 1981 two single entry roadways have been driven at Ellalong Colliery for a total distance of 1 030 metres. They were driven at a height of 1.73 metres within the 3.7 metres thick Greta Seam using a Dosco In-Seam Miner (I.S.M.). Ventilation of the drivage was accomplish- ed by an exhausting fan in series with steel ducting and flexible ducting in the immediate face area. The air quantities provided at the face were more than adequate to comply with the requirements of -the auxiliary fan rules and the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1912, as amended. The experience gained in these drivages demonstrated that the ventilation of long single entry headings can be practically and safely achieved using existing equipment.

Jan 1, 1983

A contract for three 20 ft diameter vertically mounted axial flow fans of the same aerodynamic design, was placed by Mount ]sa Mines Limited in 1963. The hydraulic blade pitch changing mechanism, the method of blade fabrication, and the roll out centre casings are features of these fans. Protection devices and fan control are designed for unattended operation and remote control. The erection and commissioning of the fans during 1964-65 is described.

Jan 1, 1967