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By T. J. Batchler, T. M. Barczak

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) requires that the transverse load capacity of stoppings be equal to or greater than traditionally accepted in mine controls, which for block stoppings is generally accepted as 39 psf as referenced in the preamble to the CFR standard. This measure is based on physical testing of a freestanding wall in accordance with ASTM E 72 specifications, where our past research has shown that the dominant parameter is the tensile strength of the sealant. A new protocol based on rigid arch loading of the structure is proposed to determine the true transverse load capacity of block stoppings. Arching is achieved by the restraint of the stopping against the mine roof and floor, whereby compressive forces are developed within the wall. A laboratory procedure using the NIOSH Mine Roof Simulator (MRS) to simulate rigid arching of block stoppings was developed and results verified through full-scale in-mine tests. The rigid arch tests have demonstrated transverse load capacities more than an order of magnitude higher than the ASTM E 72 evaluation method from which the 39-psf requirement is derived. More importantly, the rigid arch tests have shown that the load capability is dependent on the physical properties of the block and geometric properties of the wall and not the sealant.

By Oliver Q. Leone

The effect of oxygen content in the anode metal on titanium electrorefining characteristics was studied. Increasing quantities of oxygen in the anode resulted in increased anode scale formation, decreased anode and cathode current efficiencies, lower titanium recovery efficiencies, and higher oxygen content of the cathode products. The titanium electrorefining process performed best when the anodes did not contain more than 0.5 percent oxygen, although anode dissolution was recorded for alloys containing up to 25 percent oxygen. Back emf affords a useful index of an alloy to electrorefining.

Jan 1, 1965

By J. P. Powell

The application of secondary producing methods for recovering additional oil from known fields has been recognized for many years as important to the economy of the nation. One of the most successful secondary methods is waterflooding, which conserves our natural resources by preventing premature abandoment of stripper leases and revitalizing previously abandoned areas. Waterflooding as a secondary-recovery method was introduced into the Midcontinent region in 1931, and its use as such has become widespread. As with most new methods, the most favorable fields and leases received primary attention, whereas those with viscous oil or less favorable sand characteristics were bypassed. Numerous reports3 4 5 6/ have been published giving the results of individual waterflooding projects, In this report, attention is directed to the effect of a single factor, the viscosity of the oil produced,

Jan 1, 1959

By J. G. Kirby

According to the Bureau of Mines annual survey, there were 319 petroleum refineries in the United States as of January 1, 1957 capable of processing 9,123,674 [ ]-barrels of crude oil daily. This was the first time in eleven years that the total number of refineries increased. The crude throughput capacity of the refineries increased 491,284 barrels daily (6 percent) above the January 1, 1956 capacity. The East Coast and Texas Gulf Coast refining districts accounted for 60 percent of the additional capacity installed. Three new refineries were put into operation on the East Coast during the year with a total daily crude throughput capacity of 154,434 barrels while the other refineries in the district report a net loss in capacity, installing equipment capable of processing 140,000 barrels, but dismantling equipment with a capacity of 150,100 barrels. In the Texas Gulf Coast district, one new refinery with a daily crude oil capacity of 5,000 barrels was placed in operation in 1956 and 143,700 barrels of crude capacity was added to existing refineries. The capacity of the average refinery to process crude oil increased from 27,145 barrels daily to 28,601 barrels in 1956.

Jan 1, 1957

By Robert A. Cortese, Henry E. Perlee

Coal dust and float coal dust, produced during normal mining operations, in underground coal mines, are carried from the point of origin downstream by the ventilating air, where it deposits on the surfaces of the mine entry. In an explosion, this dust is lifted from the surfaces by the aerodynamic disturbances and, if of sufficient quantity, can continue to propagate the explosion. To prevent the surface coal dust from contributing, it must be inerted, typically by spreading pulverized limestone, i.e., rock dust, over the coal dust surface. To facilitate the dusting operation, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Pittsburgh Research Laboratory(PRL), developed an automated system that continuously monitors the accumulation of coal dust. This system could activate a rock-dusting machine that disperses rock dust into the ventilation air when dangerous deposits accumulate and deactivate the machine when sufficient inert has been deposited on top of the coal dust. The system consists of a microprocessor-controlled optical float dust deposition meter. This device measures the light intensity reflected from a deposited layer of dust. A standard cap lamp is used as a fixed-position light source. From the reflected light signal, the microprocessor determines the hazard level of the deposited layer and performs the appropriate action. Full-scale studies conducted in the Experimental Mine at PRL's Lake Lynn Laboratory, using alternating thin layers of rock dust and coal dust, successfully demonstrated the operation of the device. Based on the statistical data from these studies, a mathematical model was developed to predict long-term error in total rock dust content using this inerting procedure. Downwind dust dispersion was also examined to provide optimum placement of the dust sensors and to determine the need for better rock dust dispersion techniques.

Jan 5, 1998

By R. V. Higgins

"INTRODUCTION When nations throughout the world are pitted against each other in a war in which petroleum plays a major role, scientist and engineers of the petroleum industry must give serious thought to ways and means for recover¬ing greater percentages of oil from natural reservoirs than in the past. Petroleum and its products are vital to highly mechanized modern warfare, and the victorious nations will be those whose armies, navies, and air forces are supplied with adequate fuel oil, gasoline, and lubricants until the war is won.Efficient recovery of oil from underground reservoirs depends on many interrelated techniques; evaluation of the producing performance of wells upon the basis of their productivity indexes is one such tool. Oil wells usually yield oil at a maximum rate when first ""brought in"". The rate of production begins to decline soon after the first oil is delivered to the tanks, and although part of the decline usually can be attributed to natural reduction of reservoir pressure as oil and as are withdrawn from the reservoir, a larger proportion frequently is caused by greater saturation of water and as in the producing formation about wells and clogging of the pores of the sands by silt, organic salt, and insoluble hydrocarbons. If the maximum quantity of oil is to be recovered from reservoir sands and rocks by wells, it is then imperative that the ability of wells to produce oil be watched closely and all adverse influences that affect the case with which oil can flow to wells be corrected if possible."

Sep 1, 1942

By R. J. Hundhausen

This report describes the exploration and recent utilization studies the Bureau of Mines conducted on the Iron King, Chambers, and Dry Camp chromite deposits in the John Day district, Grant County, Oreg. The field investigations were undertaken during parts of 1939 and 1942 to determine the tonnage and grade of chromite in the district that could be utilized as a war reserve for the steel industry. As a result of the Bureau's field work, which included construction of 9 miles of access road, 6,204 feet of diamond drilling, 195 channel samples, and 1,020 linear feet of trenching, an ore reserve of 208,000 tons of 22-percent chromic oxide was indicated in the 3 deposits. Less than 1,000 tons of this ore has been mined since the field work was completed because the 2 largest deposits are submarginal in grade and there is as yet no incentive to develop and mine the ore. Since the war, however, the Bureau has been seeking means of utilizing the ore. Two methods of utilization that show promise are direct smelting of the ore in an electric furnace and use of the chromite for making refractory brick.

Jan 1, 1956

Entering June, U. S. producer pricing of 99.5 percent unalloyed aluminum ingot was divided at 53-57 cents per pound. The Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. took the initiative and raised its June 1 ingot values by 4 cents to 57 cents. Consolidated Aluminum Corp. announced plans to increase ingot prices by 4.5 cents per pound to 57.5 cents per pound effective May 15. Dealers increased their May ingot quotes by 1.5-2 cents to 50-50.5 cents. CADMIUM While producers in the United States kept May cadmium at $2.25-$2.50, dealers increased their quotes by 15-30 cents to as high as $2.15.

Jan 1, 1978

By Alfred L. Ransome

The plan to develop a standard system of names and definitions of regions and districts in Alaska was borne of the need for a tool to use in statistical and economic studies of the mineral industry of the Territory. The purpose of this report is to present to the mineral industry, and to those individuals interested in the mineral or allied industries in Alaska, the system used by the Bureau of Mines in connection with its legal function of collecting and disseminating mineral statistics. It is hoped that the specific descriptions given will result in a more complete understanding of what is meant by the regional and district names that appear in publications of the Bureau of Mines relative to the mineral industry of the Territory. Problem of Standardization of Names and Definitions The question might be asked, does the naming and defining of regions and districts in Alaska present a problem relative to the establishment of a standard? Is it necessary to establish a standard?

Jan 1, 1954

By Sidney Katell, JOHN H. FABER, BRYCE L. MADDOX

The information abstracted from the various publications appeared in the magazines under such headings as Business and Industry , Chemical Engineering Developments , Companies in the News , Headlines of the Month , Industrial News , Industry , Refining and Gas - Processing News , Refining News , What's Happening , and others . Although most items are related to chemical and petroleum plants , a few pertain to related fields , such as markets , drilling costs for petroleum , and field prices of crude oil . Certain articles discuss various aspects of cost -estimating procedures or description of processes . Cost bibliographies prepared by other groups are discussed in items 70 and 271. The two references can be considered as supplemental to this report , since the amount of overlap in the contents is insignificant .

Jun 15, 1957

By D. E. Shanks

The Bureau of Mines investigated the effects of HCI concentration and solution temperature on the solubility and crystal form of the chlorides of Co, Mn, and Ni when sparged with HCI gas at temperatures of 20°, 40°, and 60° C. Increasing HCI concentration in solution caused the chlo-rides of Co, Mn, and Ni to crystallize (salt out) because of the common ion effect. The salting-out crystallization was most effective for NiCI2, which had a solubility of 0.7 pct at 20° C and maximum HCI concentration. COCl2 salted out to a minimum solubility of 9.4 pct at 20° C and 22 pct HCI concentration and increased in solubility at greater HCI concentrations because of the formation of chloride complexes. MnCl2 was intermediate in behavior. The effect of temperature on solubility was greatest for CoCl2 and least for NiCI2, 15 and 7 pct change, respectively, over the temperature range of 20° to 60° C. The salted-out chlorides of cobalt and nickel formed the hexahydrates and those of manganese formed the tetrahydrate in saturated metal chlo-ride solutions at 20° C and low concentrations of HCI. Increasing the temperature or the HCI concentration caused a 108s in waters of hydra-tion. At 60° C, the salted-out crystals of NiCl2 formed the tetrahydrate in HCI concentrations up to 18 pct and the dihydrate at higher concentrations, while cobalt and manganese chlorides formed the dihydrates, even in water.

Jan 1, 1985

By O. C. Blade

"INTRODUCTION This report on the properties of motor fuels sold through service stations in the United States is a continuation of a series of reports made in accordance with a cooperative agreement between, the Coordinating Fuel Research (C.F.R.) Committee of the Coordinating Research Council (C.R.C.) 3/ and the Bureau of Mines of the United States Department of the Interior. The first of these reports presented data on motor gasolines sold during the winter of 1935-36.-4/ Further reports have been issued describing motor gasolines sold during the succeeding summers and winters to the summer of 1941 and during the winter of 1942-43 and the summer of 1943 5/ No reports were made on motor gasolines sold during the winter of 1,) 41-42 and during the summer of 1942. The present report presents analytical data for 1,356 samples, representing the products of approximately 103 companies. As in previous surveys, the companies covered by the survey include both large and small suppliers. Conforming to former reports, the data cover three groups of samples - regular-price, premium-price, and third-grade gasolines - and each group has been averaged separately. The number of samples, items and brands comprising each group is as follows: Regular-price, 770 samples, 286 items, and 94 brands; premium-price, 537 samples, 236 items, and 72 brands; third-grade, 49 samples, 31 items, and 18 brands. The meanings of these terms as used in the surveys are as follows:"

May 1, 1944

By Paul T. Alexander

After evaluating preceding studies and designs of lightweight supports, ESD selected the all-hydraulic and the hydromechanical concepts for detailed design and fabrication. Further analysis and testing showed that the all-hydraulic design was economically justified and met all the crucial engineering, manufacturing, and design criteria identified during the evaluation phase. Following Bureau of Mines approval of the detailed design, four all-hydraulic support models were fabricated. Once functional and structural testing was successfully completed, 40 additional units were constructed and distributed for in-mine testing. The units were very well-liked by all three demonstration mines. The wide- spread interest in supports for seam heights greater than 8 feet led to expansion of the design data package. ESD designed four basic models to cover the new height range, but no hardware has yet been fabricated for the new design.

Jan 1, 1982

By R. S. Dean

This report, the third of a series of annual reports of the Metallurgical Division to be released in this form, covers the fiscal year July 1, 1936, to June 30, 1937. The technological work of the division is performed by sections. Thus, an efficient organization is provided to prosecute the various problems under investigation, and a logical system is set up for presenting the material contained in this report.

Jan 1, 1937

By R. F. Farrell

A goal of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, is the advancement of minerals technology through the development of improved metals and minerals processing. In support of this goal, the Bureau of Mines has developed a general method for preparing solutions from a wide range of metal and mineral samples for chemical analysis. The development of the method from current knowledge of vessel material, pressure dissolution techniques, and the fluoride-boric acid reaction is given. The method uses 7 ml of a mixture of HC1-HNO3-HF acids in a ratio of 3.5:2:1.5 sealed in plastic bottles that act as pressure vessels when heated in a boiling water bath. A final volume of 100 ml is obtained by the addition of 93 ml of a 1. 5-pct H3BO3 solution to the bottles, which are reheated; precipitated fluorides as well as sample residue are dissolved by the fluoride-boric acid reaction. A copper slag and a steelmaking slag treated using this method were analyzed by atomic absorption spectroscopy yielding values for Si, Mg, Ca, AI, Fe, Mn, Na, As, Pb, Sb, and Zn very close to certified values with an average relative standard deviation of 2.13 pct. The low cost, reduction in preparation time, ease and safety of sample handling, conservation of reagents, and ability to dissolve volatile materials without loss make this method superior to traditional wet digestion techniques for many materials, and ideal for use with atomic absorption, and optical emission or X-ray emission spectroscopy.

Jan 1, 1980

Mine waste and mine reclamation are topics of major interest to the mining industry, the government and the general public. This publication and its companion volume are the proceedings of a conference held in Pittsburgh, April 19-21, 1988. There were nine sessions (50 papers) that dealt with the geochemistry, hydrology and problems of mine waste and mine water, especially acid mine drainage. These comprise Volume 1. The nine sessions (43 papers) that dealt with reclamation and restoration of disturbed lands, as well as related policy issues, are included in volume 2. Volume 2 also contains the ten papers that pertained to control of subsidence and mine fires at abandoned mines. Poster session presentations are, in general, represented by abstracts; these have been placed in the back of both volumes.

Jan 1, 1988

By R. Blickensderfer

Test equipment that simulated frictional impacts between coal-cutter bits and mineral inclusions at a coal face during operation of a continuous coal mining machine was used by the Bureau of Mines in the laboratory to study the incendivity of impacts between various rocks, metals, and hard-metal alloys in an explosive mixture of air-7 pct natural gas. Quartzitic sandstone was found to be the most incendive of several rocks tested. Limestone concretions from a coal seam, known locally as "sulfur balls," sparked furiously but were not incendive. Among the metals tested, the type of steel used in commercial coal-cutter tools was the most incendive material tested. A l7-4PH stainless steel was less incendive and appears to be the most promising high-strength steel alloy, reasonably economical, for use in coal-cutter bits. Some hard-metal alloys, primarily titanium and zirconium diboride composites, were also evaluated as possible replacements for the conventional cobalt-bonded tungsten carbide used in the tip of coal-cutter bits. The metal-bonded diborides were generally less inc endive but more brittle than the conventional tungsten carbide. Carbonitride coatings on tool bits were also tested but found to have no advantage. The source of ignition during frictional impact between metal and rock was studied. Immediately after impact, a yellow flash was observed and a smear of metal near its melting point occurred on the rock. This hotspot on the rock, rather than the yellow flash or sparks or metal fragments, was observed to be the cause of the ignition.

Jan 1, 1974

By H. W. Brandt

A field test was designed to inject a specially formulated two compound epoxy resin into the roof rock ahead of a working face to cement fractures and formation interfaces at the Westmoreland Coal Co., Winding Gulf Div., Eccles No. 5 Mine, Eccles, West Virginia. Five 30 foot long X 2 inch diameter, hold were drilled at an angle of 15° above the plane of roof line front the face of a working entry. The epoxy resin compounds were pumped through a proportioning unit and mixed in-line before being discharged into the drill hole under treatment it injection pressures up to a maximum of 450 psig. When the coal face was advanced an anomalous failure of the roof rock occurred in the treated section. Further testing was suspended until the cause of the failure could he determined. The polymers were tested, under confined conditions, in 2 inch pipe columns. Extreme temperature and pressure (up to 2400 psig) rises were recorded as they cured, It was concluded that this pressure source fractured the rock and caused the roof failure. The entire program was terminated after it was determined that the heat rise and resultant high pressures could not he controlled chemically or mechanically.

Jan 1, 1978

During the period January 1, 1977 through July 31, 1977, 5 percent (264,000 tons) of U.S. capacity was closed due to power curtailments in the Pacific Northwest because of the shortage of water. During July, one plant in Tennessee cut production by 50,000 tons annually due to a power reduction by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Full capacity production was resumed at a West Virginia smelter during September. If demand for aluminum is strong it seems likely that aluminum supply during the remainder of 1977 and in 1978 will be tight. The price was increased 3¢ per pound to 51¢ per pound effective March 28, 1977, and by an additional 2¢ per pound to 53¢ per pound, effective July 5, 1977. New projects and expansion of existing facilities are planned by Australian aluminum companies over the next 2 to 3 years. The companies listed have committed themselves to spending approximately A$801 million: Alcoa of Australia Ltd. -New alumina plant at Wagerup, south of Perth. Darling Ranges bauxite is located near the proposed project. A$650 million. Coma 1 co Industries Pty. Ltd. -Increase bauxite mining capacity and upgrade or replace other facilities at its Weipa mines on Cape York Peninsula region of Northern Queensland. A$81 million. Alcan Australia Ltd. -Expansion program that will increase capacity of the Kurri Kurri aluminum smelter north of Sydney about 50 percent, and improvement of other facilities at the plant. A$70 million.

Jan 1, 1977

By Michael Radnor

The purpose of the study was to 1) examine the social and economic impacts of surface mine blasting in relation to variations in conditions of terrain and geology, population density and type, levels of ground motion and air blast; 2) consider technical, legal and government policy issues; and 3) examine the potential, nature and extent of surface mine blasting impacts and its regulations upon both communities and surface mining companies. Phase One designed the empirical research and technical analyses of Phase Two, focused upon surface coal mining and quarrying in the Eastern U.S. Several broad conclusions are evident: 1) blasting is not the major issue for communities or surface mine companies; 2) while the number of instances of severe cracking or annoyance are relatively small, the impact can be severe for individuals immediately involved; 3) blasting/drilling cost curves tend to rise significantly at intervals below 1.0 particle velocity, in/sec, dependent upon the size of a permit area and the size of a mine; and 4) the legal, complaint, cost and density analyses do not suggest the need for a general lowering of present regulations.

Jan 1, 1981