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There are multiple stages in a mining operation that a mining engineer has to draw polygons to be used as operation guidelines. These polygons are drawn by hand and based on engineer?s experience. However, having automatic procedures for forming the shapes can increase the quality and decrease the efforts required. These shapes need to be homogenous in grades and rock types so that the quality and dilution of material sent to the plant can be estimated with the good approximation. In this paper, a clustering algorithm with shape control is introduced which can provide reasonable guidelines for all the aforementioned shapes by manipulating its parameters. At the end, implementations of the algorithm on a small part of a gold deposit with different mining strategies is presented and evaluated based on homogeneity of grade, rock types and determined destinations as well as the shape.

Feb 27, 2013

The Pogo Mine, near Delta Junction, Alaska is a 2500 TPD gold operation employing processes including grinding, gravity, rougher flotation, leach, CIP, and E/W. An OCS(Optimizing Control System) expert control system has been implemented on rougher flotation in early 2008. The OCS system communicates with the Plant DCS(Distributed Control System) through OPC(OLE for Process Control) communication. The initial strategy was to control the flotation cell froth level set points to achieve target froth velocities. This strategy was enhanced by controlling both level and air flow setpoints. The flotation cell air and level are adjusted to reach cell pulling rates (froth velocities). The pulling rate setpoints for each cell are determined based on downstream capacity (concentrate surge tank level). The effect of pH and upstream disturbances is also taken into account in adjusting the air and level setpoints. Feed forward compensation is employed down the flotation row to minimize disturbances.

Jan 1, 2009

By P. Sangurmath, C. Gundewar, M. Riyazulla, V. Vasudev, N. Shadaksharswami

Dharwar craton in the southern Indian shield, comprises the Neoarchaean foreland in the west and a relatively younger accretionary complex composed of granitoids and intervening gold-bearing volcano-sedimentary belts. The Hutti schist belt hosting a major gold producing mine is situated in the northern part of the eastern Dharwar craton. It is a horse-shoe shaped structure comprising predominantly of pillowed metabasalt of tholeiitic composition with minor amounts of clastic sediments and felsic volcanic rocks. The belt is intruded on all sides by circular to tabular bodies of granites and granodiorite. Important gold deposits are located at Hutti, Hira-Buddini and Uti villages. Felsic volcanics in the Hutti belt occur as tabular bodies of quartz porphyry and breccia. Two of the gold-bearing reefs in the Hutti mine, Viz., Middle and Strike reefs are intimately associated with tabular sub-vertical sheets of mylonitic quartz-feldspar porphyry intruding pillowed metrabasalt. In Uti mine area, the felsic volcanics occurs as a tabular body. At Hira-Buddini, the felsic volcanic occur as a irregularly shaped sheet in pillowed metabasalt. Mineralogical and geochemical studies suggest that the felsic volcanic rock in Hutti mine area is a rhyolite and at Uti and Hira-Buddhini it is of dacite composition. Scheelite occurs as veins, veinlets, stringers and blebs along fracture planes of felsic volcanics in the Hutti mine area, whereas at Uti and Hira-Buddini it is insignificant. On the basis of spatial association of metabasalt and felsic volcanics and on geochemical grounds, we interpret that the felsic volcanics might have originated by the partial melting of basalt. REE patterns of the granite, granodiorite and metabasalt of Hutti are similar to each other indicating that they could be co-magmatic. However, REE in the Hutti felsic rocks is significantly higher than in Uti and particularly Hira-Buddini mine areas. The two felsic volcanic samples drawn away from the mineralized zone from all the three mine areas were analyzed for tungsten. In Hutti one sample assayed 0.15% and another 0.062%. At Uti, in one sample it assayed 0.056% and another less than 1 ppm, whereas at Hira-Buddini, it is less than 1 ppm in both the samples. The spatially associated basalt analyzed 23 to 235 ppm tungsten, whereas granites and granodiorites have very low (<1 ppm) tungsten. Therefore, the source of tungsten in the felsic volcanics of Hutti area could be traced to metabasalt. The absence of significant amount of tungsten in the felsic volcanic of Hira-Buddini could be attributed to the lack of REE enrichment compared to REE in Hutti and Uti felsic volcanics.

Jan 1, 2007

By Leslie Burnside

Homestake Mining Co. set out to complete final reclamation at a former open-pit gold mine in west central Nevada. The goal was to exceed regulatory standards by satisfying the company&apos;s own high corporate standards for successful reclamation. Homestake&apos;s completion requirements challenged available technology due to the unsuitability of heap material as a growth medium, the harsh environmental conditions of the site and the region&apos;s lack of native growth medium. Accomplishing these goals required enlisting a multidisciplinary project team to develop, test and implement appropriate and cost-effective revegetation alternatives.

Jan 1, 1999

Mine Terex articulated dump trucks are working on a large restoration project of an abandoned open cast coal site in Blacklaw, central Scotland. The project is part of the construction of a 42-turbine wind farm complex. During the scheduled 18-month duration of the project, three 28-t(31-st) Generation 7 TA30 dump trucks and the six 36.5-t (40-st) TA40articulated trucks are estimated to move about 1Mm3 (1.3 million cu yd)of material. The trucks are working12-hour shifts, 5.5days a week.

Jan 1, 2005

By Pat Wilmoth, Joseph P. Gildner, Dan Nowak, Shane Yanagisawa, Don Z. Painter, Gordon F. Revey

Frontier/Traylor is presently completing construction of twin tunnels for the Tri-County Metropolitan Transit District of Oregon’s (Tri-Met) westside lightrail system. The tunnels are each 4,550 m (14,935 ft) in length and 6.48 m (21.29 ft) in diameter. The 1/3 of each tunnel was driven from the west portal using drill and blast methods and the remaining 2/3 was driven from the east portal using a TBM. The paper describes: The difficulties encountered by the TBM mining the weathered Columbia River Basalts. The execution of drill and blast work despite challenging ground conditions, stringent noise and vibrations specifications, and public relations problems. The excavation and lining of the Washington Park Station 79 m (260 ft) below the park zoo.

Jan 1, 1997

By P. Zhang

A multiyear, comprehensive study of flotation reagents used in phosphate beneficiation was conducted. The study involved the evaluation of pure fatty acid compounds, comparison of various anionic collectors and testing of iso-acids. Various C12 to C22 fatty acids were tested as Florida phosphate collectors. The saturated fatty acids were found to be very poor collectors when using the standard conditioning procedure, whereas the unsaturated C16 to C22 fatty acids showed fair to good phosphate collecting ability. The C18 fatty acids oleic, impure oleic and linoleic and the C20 eicosenoic acid were shown to be the best phosphate collectors. The best flotation results were obtained using Liqro GA tall oil and oleic acid. Four isostearic/iso oleic acid type fatty acid collectors were compared with a commercial grade oleic acid and with Liqro GA tall oil as phosphate collectors using standard laboratory conditioning and flotation procedures. The most selective collector evaluated was Century 1108, a high isostearic acid-type reagent. However, it was concluded that this excellent-performing reagent was too expensive for commercial use. Overall, the most promising reagent was probably Century MO-5. This collector is essentially an iso-oleic acid/stearic acid mixture (not isostearic acid), and it costs much less. This program laid a sound foundation for developing single collector, all anionic flotation processes.

Jan 1, 2009

By J. F. Lupo

Leaching operations combine both metallurgical and hydraulic processes to extract metals from the ore heap. In the design of leaching operations, metallurgical tests and simple hydraulic tests are often conducted to define operational parameters such as leach cycle time, application rate, lift height, and effective leach area. While metallurgical constraints are often the primary focus on leach facility design, the hydraulic factors are also critical to the overall success of the operation. Some of the hydraulic factors that are known to impact solution flow through heaps include: • Ore physical and hydraulic properties, • Variation in ore properties under heap loading, • Ore mineralogy and its susceptibility to chemical and/or mechanical degradation, and • Heterogeneities within the heap. This paper presents a discussion on hydraulic factors that may impact the effectiveness of leaching operations. In addition, methods are presented which may be used to assess flow conditions within active and inactive heaps.

Jan 1, 2000

Several common ratios used for determining spontaneous combustion activity rely on comparing the amount of various products of oxidation with the amount of oxygen consumed to produce these products. As coal gets hotter, oxidation reactions become more efficient meaning more products produced for less oxygen consumed. There are many problems associated with accurately determining the true amount of oxygen used. These problems relate to the monitoring technique (and its associated uncertainties) used to generate the results, deficiencies in the established equations utilized in calculations, dilution with other gases and other sources of oxygen depletion. Typically the oxygen deficiency is over estimated, resulting in the under estimation of the indicating ratio. For this reason the use of ?one off? calculations to determine the status of the underground environment is not recommended. Instead trends of these ratios should be used to identify increases which indicate an increase in oxidation intensity. This paper outlines problems associated with the monitoring techniques and equations used to determine the oxygen deficiency.

Jan 1, 2009

By J. P. Ducarme

Numerous fatal/nonfatal accidents involving underground workers struck by powered machinery occur yearly, with continuous miners and roof bolters involved in the majority of these accidents. In an attempt to reduce these accidents, researchers at the the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Pittsburgh Research Laboratory conducted studies of operator interactions with the motions of continuous mining machines and roof bolter boom arms. These operators generally perform their tasks in close proximity to the equipment in confined workspaces, often employing awkward postures. Since experiments with human subjects using the actual equipment were not feasible due to safety concerns, researchers opted to conduct controlled experiments in laboratory settings. Utilizing motion capture technologies and computer simulations, the studies collected data on equipment and operator movement in a range of seam heights and working postures. This article details the results of these studies to examine operating speeds based on usage and seam height.

Jan 3, 2010

By Steve Klein

The Transbay Downtown Extension (DTX) in San Francisco involves the construction of a large-span tunnel with a width ranging from 43 to over 60 feet. The tunnel will be excavated using the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM), also known as the Sequential Excavation Method (SEM), in highly fractured and sheared rock. This paper discusses the FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua) analyses that were completed for conceptual design of the tunnel support system and to develop surface settlement estimates for the evaluation of measures to protect existing buildings located above the tunnel from damage.

Jan 1, 2008

By C. Allen

Vale Inco Ltd. is trialing several energy conservation initiatives in an effort to minimize costs and reduce green house gas emissions. The Ventilation on Demand (VOD) concept is a major project being carried out in various phases at Vale Inco mines. Due to the complex nature of a dynamic VOD system, Vale Inco is taking a systematic approach of testing VOD system components with milestone evaluations of each project. Coleman Mine was selected to pilot test the functionality and robustness of automated louvers in the underground environment; with the goal of optimizing mine airflow such that ventilation would be available for developing a new ore body. This project involved installing automated louvers in the exhaust raises; and installing variable frequency drive (VFD) starters on auxiliary supply fans. Because the VOD project created efficient utilization of the ventilation air in the 153 OB, the 170 OB is currently being developed without increasing the total fresh air into the mine. This paper describes the louver system component of VOD as applied at the mine.

Jan 1, 2009

By H. Y. Sohn, R. D. Hagni, M. K. Kojo

Reflected light microscopy was used to study the mineralogy and textures of experimental reactions of a nickel concentrate with a slag. Such an interaction is an important step in the bath smelting of nickel sulfide concentrate. Concentrate particles in the central portions of the pellets are rounded and develop vermicular SO2 gas porosity. In the outer portions of the pellets, the original minerals of the concentrate, pyrrhotite, pentlandite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and violarite have agglomerated and reacted to form two intergrown phases: 1) pyrrhotite solid solution (Fe0.75Ni0.18Cu0.01S) and pentlandite solid solution (Fe0.58Ni0.51Cu0.03S). Magnetite formed euhedral crystals, skeletal crystals, and dendrites at the margins of the matte. Prismatic ferrohypersthene and octahedral Mg-Al-Fe spinel crystals and dendrites are present in the glassy slag.

Jan 1, 2001

By H. -J. Langhoff

"The paper describes not a result, but a starting point to implement sustainable development to a region characterized by a typical down river landscape, agriculture, and extractive industry. The NaturFreizeitNiederrhein GmbH (NFN) is a private company with associates from administrative bodies, the local mining companies and multiple representatives of environmental protection groups (local and national), tourism organizations, cultural societies and also aquatic sport and fishing clubs. Center of the concept is the "NFN Lake District." The development concept aims to provide the agricultural industry with alternative means of income, while protecting wildlife and the ecological balance as well as preserving the social und cultural system and enhance the safety against flooding from the river Rhine. The mining industry contributes their coordination of obligation concerning reclamation and recultivation of the already existing individual projects. While designing the landscape components and establishing the infrastructure for the different tasks, the production of gravel and sand is yield as a by product. The result is a long term perspective for region and industry."

Jan 1, 2005

By R. Gensemer

A number of state and federal agencies are calling for development of aquatic life criteria for conductivity. These aquatic life criteria or ?benchmarks? are based on observed correlations between conductivity and benthic macroinvertebrate community composition, generally measured by composite metrics or indices. However, development of an aquatic life criterion for a composite variable like conductivity is made difficult by a number of factors. Based on a database from West Virginia, observed patterns of invertebrate community composition versus conductivity may instead be related to a combination of abiotic (e.g., ionic composition, habitat) and biotic (e.g., life history, colonization potential) factors. Many benthic invertebrate taxa also do not respond to increasing conductivity in a consistent relationship. Many states have determined that a composite variable, like conductivity or TDS, is not appropriate for criteria development, as many studies have shown that toxicity varies as a function of ion composition and can be mitigated by elevated hardness. We conclude that the relationships between conductivity and changes in benthic macroinvertebrate community composition are neither strong nor reliable enough to warrant derivation of a criterion based solely on conductivity.

Jan 1, 2011

By L. W. Berry

Drill and blast planning is critical to successful mine production, both in timing and in results. However, typical planning, reporting, and information exchange usually involves large quantities of data collated in a discordant set of spreadsheets, databases, and reports. Collecting, analyzing, modeling, and distributing all data necessary for efficient drill and blast operations is time consuming and cumbersome. MineSight Axis Drill and Blast provides an extensible core of functions, seamlessly integrated with other MineSight software tools, to make sense of this information. The benefits of improving the management of drilling and blasting processes are immense and result in improved fragmentation at a lower cost, improved shovel and truck productivity, and enhanced ore processing.

Jan 1, 2011

By Paul H. Madsen, Victor S. Romero

The Tren Urbano project in Puerto Rico includes a 19 m diameter tunnel constructed by the stacked drift method, which involves installation of a pre-supported concrete arch using multiple tunnels. Geotechnical conditions consisted of weak rock and highly weathered, unstable alluvial soils. Due to low cover, reinforcement of the arch was required. Ground behavior ranged from firm ground to mixed-face to raveling and flowing ground. Consequently, construction of the individual drifts involved many different soft-ground techniques such as steel set supports, shotcrete support, shield tunneling, forepoling, and consolidation grouting. During construction, the design was modified to improve constructability. Although settlement was experienced during excavation of the drifts, arch movements were within predicted limits and minimal surface settlement was observed upon excavation of the interior.

Jan 1, 2001

By Shemek Oginski

The 5 km (16,194 lf) of 6.1m (20 ft) diameter TBM driven tunnel built by the J.F.Shea Co. will serve as sewage overflow storage. The TBM tunnel and four connecting tunnels excavated by drill and blast methods in hard granite will remain unlined. Based on the Geotechnical Baseline Report (GBR), the Contract documents provided a design with no required pattern of rock bolts, no probing, no pre-excavation or consolidation grouting, and lastly, no final lining of the tunnels was deemed necessary. This paper will provide a general overview of these topics with the emphasis on the actual ground conditions encountered versus the projected conditions provided in the GBR and how the GBR reflected the design of the project. Proposed modifications to the temporary and permanent ground support will be presented and the necessity of probing and pre-excavation grouting will be evaluated.

Jan 1, 2005

By K. Freytag

The extraction of lignite in open-cast mines has a severe impact on the landscape. Proper landscaping after the shut-down of the mines has always been the statutory responsibility of the mine operator. The large area of the land used for open-cast lignite mining requires special regional planning procedures well in advance of the permitting procedure stipulated in the mining law. The lignite plan determines, among other things, the objectives of land reclamation. These objectives will then be outlined in more detail in the mine operation plans and implemented accordingly. Apart from the actual mining laws and regulations, a large number of environmental laws also determine the process of land reclamation. The success achieved in the field of land reclamation in all mining regions during the recent decades has shown that the lignite mining industry creates new landscapes that do not leave any scars in the countryside and merge very well with it.

Jan 1, 2005

By S. G. Gendler

The choice of ventilation schemes in the Northern Mujsky railway tunnel and definition of the nec-essary quantities of air ensuring regulated radiation conditions in the tunnel system has been accomplished. The influence of natural draught on the stability of tunnel ventilation has been estimated. The design of a portal venti-lation gate allowing minimal influence from natural factors is described. The dependence of pressure loss in the sliding ventilation gates on their spanning value of the vehicle tunnel section has been determined. The selection of parameters for an atmospheric air heating system in winter has been carried out. The operation regimes of air heaters, dependent on the temperature of atmospheric air, have been established.

Jan 1, 2009