Search Documents

By W. O. Crosby

Washington Camp, in Santa Cruz county, Arizona, is a small and little-known mining-district situated on the lower, eastern slope of the Patagonia mountains, about 20 miles east of Nogales and a like distance south of Patagonia Station on the Sonora railroad, which connects at Benson, 83 miles from Nogales, with the main line of the Southern Pacific. This district is also about 4 miles north of the international boundary, 35 miles west of Bisbee and 40 miles north of Cananea, in Sonora. The topography of the district, which lies at a general elevation of 5,500 ft. above the sea, is only very moderately rugged, and presents no obstacles to mining-operations. Although some of the claims of the camp, including the Pride of the West,, Belmont and Holland, were extensively worked for silver 25 years ago, they passed, at moderate depths, as in so many other districts, out of the argentiferous lead carbonate and sulphide, into zinc, copper and iron sulphides ; and for two decades the camp was abandoned and almost forgotten. In recent years, however, its apparent possibilities as a copper-producer have led to a revival of mining-activity; but not, as yet, with conspicuous success. Although economically relatively unimportant, the deposits of Washington Camp are, mineralogically and structurally, nevertheless, typical examples of ore-bodies developed in connection with the garnet ledge now recognized as a normal feature of granite-limestone contacts; and, in the opinion of the writer, this is an instance where a minor example is yet essentially normal and capable of throwing important light upon the origin and genetic relations of the type.

Jan 1, 1906

By T. P. Meloy

Traditionally the mineral and mining engineers have characterized particles by sieving and-settling. Within the last decade, with the advent of the scanning microscope, entirely new experimental and theoretical approachesl-10/have been taken to minutely define the particle surface. This approach depends upon a hypothesis which takes advantage of the recent developments in automatic micro-scopes which can acquire large amounts of information in a short time and the new computational techniques which rapidly reduce the information to meaningful, practical data. Historically sieving and settling are the oldest sizing techniques known. Sieving by square screens, shown on Figure l-A is a common, current practice for sizing particles both in the laboratory and in production. A woven cloth is used which usually has square openings. The size particle that will pass through the opening dependent on a complex relationship of its morphology. As can be seen in Figure l-A, neither the width nor the height of the particle is determined by sieving. From square screens one and only one parameter characterizing the particle size is obtained, that parameter is the radius of the sphere that will just pass through the given sieve opening. A variation of square mesh screen is the slot screens, shown in Figure 1-B. Here another measure more closely associated with the height of the particle is obtained. Once again, one and only one parameter is associated with the particles' shape.

Jan 1, 1977

By Nicholas J. Grant, John S. Benjamin, Bill C. Giessen

In the course of a study of hard particle-duc tile binder composite alloys, interest arose in the nature of the products of the reaction between the inter metallic compound NiAl and the binder niobium. No published information was then available. A program to

Jan 1, 1967

By D. S. Choi

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the effect of shape and size on strength of geologic materials. The results indicate that the shape effect is caused by the development of confining pressure at the interfaces. The linearization of the obtained formula is of the same form determined by experiments. The size effect is attributed to the fact that the geologic materials contain discontinuities in the form of fractures, bedding planes, and cleats. The maximum reduction factor for the size effect is the one-sixth power of the volume of a cubic test specimen. The results of this work are particularly useful in determining the strength of coal pillars in underground mines.

Jan 1, 1989

THE 145th* meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers was held in New York, Feb 17-21, 1936 On the fifth day, Feb 21, an Institute party journeyed to Schenectady, N Y, and made there a tour of inspection of the "House of Magic" of the General Electric Co The meeting proper (Feb 17-20) consisted of the annual business meeting, 43 technical sessions at which 214 papers were presented, two regular sessions of the Board of Directors, two conferences of Section and Division Chairmen, the second of which was attended by the Board of Directors, a late afternoon session for Student Associates and members of Affiliated Student Societies and Student Chapters, which was addressed by President Buehler, Dr George Otis Smith and others, two formal lectures, luncheon Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for members and guests, four group dinners and ten group luncheons, nineteen committee meetings, the annual reception and dinner-dance, an informal dance, a dinner-smoker and the anual meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary The attendance record for the past three annual meetings follows (figures are in the order 1936-1935-1934) total registration, 1658¬1609-1534, dinner dance, 666-577-543, dinner-smoker, 528-490-425, informal dance, 218-279-295, women's registration, 184-179-160, excursion, 183 (1936), luncheons, 1135-1132-1034 The Mineral Industry Education Division met at the Engineering Woman's Club Sunday afternoon and evening, Feb 16, with 55 present Three problems of current interest were discussed accrediting of engineering schools by the Engineers' Council for Professional Development, the question of what metallurgical engineers shall be taught, and the need for more attention to the industrial minerals in the curricula of mining schools A buffet supper was served In the evening the meeting became a joint session with the Industrial Minerals Division A second session of the Division was held on Wednesday afternoon, Feb 19, in the Engineering Societies Building The Sunday meeting was the only Annual Meeting technical session held outside the building

Jan 1, 1937

By M. Kaufman, A. E. Palty

THE mechanical properties of an alloy under given test conditions are in the main determined by the grain size and the phases present, their distribution and temperature-time dependence. Alloys intended for use at elevated temperatures, especially multiphase alloys depending upon precipitation reactions for strengthening, are particularly susceptible to changes in the phases present. Unfortunately, for modern superalloys, very little published information exists which relates the mechanical properties to the basic structural variables. The present work is an effort to do this for an alloy widely used in aircraft gas turbines and related applications, Udimet 500.* The mechanical properties inves- two heats is within the normal specifications for the alloy. However, the elements which most strongly influence the phase reactions, C, Ti, Al, and Mo, are comparable in the two heats. There was no intentional addition of boron, but normal pickup is about 0.002 pct. The vacuum-melted material was received in the form of centerless ground wrought bar stock % in. diam. PHASE STUDIES A) Methods—Two methods were used to determine the phases present: X-ray diffraction measurements on electrolytically digested residues, and microscopic examination. No single commonly used electrolyte will reveal all the phases that may be present; therefore, two complementary acids were selected: HCl and H3PO4. The necessity for this will be shown below in the results. The acid concentrations used were 10 pct HC1 in alcohol and 10 pct H3 PO4 in water. The current density was maintained below 0.1 amp per sq in. Residues were rinsed and separated by centrifuga-tion. X-ray diffraction patterns were obtained in a 114 mm Debye-Scherrer type camera using cobalt radiation. A temperature of 2250°F was selected to obtain as complete solutioning of phases as possible without encountering incipient melting. Specimens were

Jan 1, 1961

The preeipitation of dissolved lead from a strong brine by metallic iron is a chemically controlled, first order reaction. The precipitation rate is sensitive to changes in chloride concentration and temperature. The precipitation of dissolved silver is a diffusion controlled, first order reaction. The precipitation rate is insensitive to changes in chloride concentration and temperature.INTRODUCTIONLead and silver sulphates can be extracted from electrolytic zinc plant tailings, or residues, by leaching with strong brine solutions, the lead and silver going into solution as complex chlorides. One of the methods which can then be used to recover the dissolved lead and silver is to precipitate them with metallic iron. The deposition reactions which take place are of the type Pb++ Fe - Fe++ Pb............ (a)To fit such a method of precipitation successfully into a practical flowsheet it is necessary to have some knowledge of the kinetics of the various reactions, Le. to know how the precipitation rates vary with temperature, brine and metal concentrations, and so on. Reaction rates are also needed to design suitable precipitation vessels. However, when examining the possibility of using a brine leaching process to extract the lead and silver from the residue produced at the Risdon plant of the Electrolytic Zinc Co. of Australasia, it was found that, although the use of metallic iron to recover lead and silver from the pregnant brine had been reported by Ralston (1924) and by TrumbulI, Hardiek and Lawford (1948), very little was known about the precipitation reactions. Consequently a laboratory investigation was undertaken, and this paper covers those aspects considered to be...

Jan 1, 1961

By Lawrence E. Mannion

In southwest Wyoming lies buried the world's largest source of natural sodium carbonate, or soda ash. Perhaps a hundred billion tons of trona (sodium sesquicarbonate) are contained in ancient lake beds in the Green River basin'). There the Green River Formation encloses more than 40 extensive beds of trona. At least 25 of these exceed 3 feet (1 meter) in thickness and most of them are more than 300 square miles in extent. Five have been exposed in mines and lie between 800 and 1500 feet below the surface. Others lie at depths of from 400 to 3500 feet. Three companies have underground mines that supply trona to adjacent soda ash plants. These are the FMC Corporation, Allied Chemical Corporation, and Stauffer Chemical Company. A fourth, Texasgulf Corporation, has a mine under development. In 1974, annual soda ash capacity in the Green River area was approximately 4,300,000 tons, which requires the mining of about 7,500,000 tons of trona.

Jan 1, 1975

By Allen V. Reicks

This paper reviews the impact of the idler set on the performance of belt conveyors. Idler rolls as part of the load support system and their interaction with the conveyor system will be discussed. in particular, the rotating performance of the individual idler roll concentrating on the rotating resistance and life of the bearing and seal design are addressed in detail. A basis for the development of performance specifications for use in conveyor design that takes advantage of the idler manufacturers design and manufacturing expertise is discussed.

Jan 1, 2008

By Andrew Starkey

Ground anchorage systems in the form of rock bolts are used extensively throughout the world as supporting devices for civil engineering structures such as bridges and tunnels. It is widely recognized that non-destructive testing methods for ground anchorages need to be developed as a high priority [1 ], with only a small proportion of anchorages currently being monitored in service [2]. The condition monitoring of anchorages is a relatively new area of research, with the objective being a wholly automated or semi-automated condition monitoring system capable of repeatable and accurate diagnosis of faults and anchorage post tension levels. The GRANIT tm system developed by the University of Aberdeen is capable of measuring the integrity of ground anchorages and has won two major UK Awards - the National John Logic Baird Award for Innovation in 1997 and a Design Council Millennium Product Award in 1999. The normal procedure with the GRANIT tm system [3,4] is to train a neural network on dynamic response data that has been sampled from an anchorage over a range of post-tension levels. Further data is needed in order to test the neural network. The paper presents neural networks that have been trained on data taken from a number of anchorages on different sites, and the results of the diagnosis of these neural networks on new test data is presented. The results show that the cross-diagnosis of anchorages is possible, where a neural network trained on one anchorage is capable of successfully diagnosing the post-tension level for an anchorage of similar construction, and the high level of accuracy that can be attained with the GRANIT tm technique is shown. The paper also introduces a mathematical model of the GRANIT tm process.

Jan 1, 2001

By A. K. Kyllo, G. G. Richards

"The formation and control of accretions is an important aspect of process operation for gas injection. The nature of the accretion formed can have a considerable effect on a process, especially on the life of the lance or the refractories in the tuyere region. There are three basic shapes of accretion formed on tuyeres; pipes, hemispheres and hollow-cored hemispheres. However, there are wide variations within these shapes. Generally, the type of accretion formed will depend on the injector design, certain operating parameters and the physical properties of the bath materials. This paper seeks to collect the results of previous and current physical and mathematical modelling together with data gathered from operating furnaces, to obtain a better understanding of the effects of process design and operating variables on accretion formation.IntroductionAn important consideration in the design of a gas injection process is the possible freezing of the bath either around the tuyere or on the lance. With proper design, freezing may be controlled to provide protection of the lance or refractory, and to avoid blockage. Improper design may lead to tuyere blockage and significant refractory or lance erosion. In view of this, a good understanding of the heat transfer in the injection region is essential.While tuyere blockage has been a persistent problem since the inception of submerged gas injection processes, the problem of accretion formation was not studied in detail until the development of the shrouded tuyere by Savard and Lee. A number of studies relating to accretion formation have been carried out since then, but there is still little information available relating the nature of the accretion formed to the design of the injection system.The build up of materials on lances is a similar problem, and may also be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on circumstances. Unfortunately, there is even less information available regarding build up on lances than there is relating to tuyere accretions. While the form of build up on lances is generally a simple coating of the lance, accretions on tuyeres tend to be more complex. Tuyere accretions tend to occur in one of three basic forms: pipe, hemispherical and hollow-cored hemispherical (Figure 1). However, there appears to be a considerable variation within these forms."

Jan 1, 1996

By C. G. Dunn

It is well known that plastic deformation alters many of the properties of a metal and subsequent heat-treatment partially or completely restores these properties.l In the deformed or strained state, the metal is unstable and tends to change toward a condition called a "strain-free state." The transformation occurs through recovery, recrystallization, and grain growth—processes that may take place singly or in combination. The distortion of the lattice of an individual grain of a metal in a state of strain may be rather complex in nature, because plastic deformation produces: (I) dislocations within mosaic blocks; (2) elastic variations of the lattice spacings; and (3) gross alterations throughout the lattice, especially along slip planes, along composition planes between a grain and its mechanical twins, and along boundaries of deformation bands. These gross alterations are of the nature of bent planes or rotated regions of the crystal lattice and are revealed by a spread in the orientation of the grain. Although we cannot describe these strains and their formation accurately because of insuffcient knowledge, we can, nevertheless, use the information as well as possible to obtain a better understanding of recovery processes. In recovery, the lattice of a grain is not made anew as it is in recrystallization, but is improved or mended in such a way that the basic structure remains unaltered: Until recatly observations were .that recovery produced no marked changes in the shapes of spots in Laue diffraction patterns, whereas recrystallization did, but now it is known for silicon ferrite2 that Laue spots may become quite sharp entirely through recovery. Consequently, the shape of Laue spots alone would not be a suitable test to distinguish between recovery and recrystallization. There is considerable evidence that the micro-structure usually does not change visibly during recovery. Absence of a visible change in the microstructure, therefore, provides a sufficient test of recovery in many cases. However, including this observation in a definition of recovery as a necessary condition (this is usually done) is unfortunate, because recovery may, as will become evident later, produce new grain boundaries that are visible not only in the microstructure but also in the macrostructure. For the present, therefore, let us say that a necessary condition for a process to be one of recovery is that the principal orientation or orientations of a deformed grain be essentially unchanged throughout the transformation toward the strain-free state. Several transformations may occur that fulfill this condition, and the nature of the distortion in a grain indicates what these must be if the lattice is to be mended in part or fully. Consequently, it will be convenient as well as

Jan 1, 1947

By Parker A. J, Ruane M, Wadley L. G B

Copper, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, palladium, silver, and gold can be recovered from the copper sulphide precipitated from the "copper boil" of the Sherritt-Gordon nickel process used at Western Mining Corporation's Kwinana nickel <refinery. The method is based on an oxidative ammonia leach of copper, nickel, and the precious metals at temperatures below 40°C to produce, in part, elemental sulphur, in the residue. This is followed by heating to decompose thiosulphate and remove some ammonia with precipitation of some of the copper, palladium, gold, and silver. Addition of sulphur dioxide to pregnant liquor precipitates copper, as either Chevreul's salt or copper(I) ammonium sulphite, together with the remaining gold and silver. Less than 10 per cent of the dissolved palladium and less than 1 per cent of nickel and cobalt precipitate to this stage.In one option, the Chevreul's salt is dissolved in a solution of copper(II) sulphate, acetonitrile, and water to generate a solution of copper(I) sulphate. Gold and silver do not dissolve. The solution of copper(I) sulphate is thermally disproportionated by distilling acetonitrile to give exceptionally pure copper powder, with desirable characteristics for powder metallUrgy. Nickel, cobalt, and ammonium sulphate are recovered from the motherliquor of the Chevreul's salt precipitation by return to the Sherritt-Gordon process, where recovery procedures already exist. Palladium is recycled for eventual removal as a sulphide with the gold and silver.In the other option, solid copper(I) ammonium-sulphite is <thermally disproportionated in water at 150°C to copper powder.

Jan 1, 1978

The Technical Study Panel on the Utilization of Belt Air and the Composition and Fire Retardant Properties of Belt Materials in Underground Coal Mining (hereafter referred to as the Panel or the TSP) was established by Section 11 of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act). The Panel was charged with providing “independent scientific and engineering review and recommendations with respect to the utilization of belt air and the composition and fire retardant properties of belt materials in underground coal mining.” The TSP was impaneled by the Honorable Elaine L. Chao and commenced its work on January 9, 2007. At this first meeting, Mr. Richard E. Stickler, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, asked the Panel to report on many issues including how recent technological advances could be applied to atmospheric monitoring systems, point-type heat sensors, current state of fire-resistant vs. fireproof belt materials, and belt fire suppression systems to improve miner safety. In addition, Mr. Stickler asked the Panel to review belt air velocity limitations. The Panel members attended 12 days of public meetings over a nine-month period. Three of the public meetings were scheduled for the Panel to hear from technical experts and those persons or organizations interested in providing input. The meetings were held in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania with emphasis on belt fires, belt maintenance, belt flammability and toxicity, ventilation, and escape issues; in Salt Lake City with emphasis on ground control and convergence issues; and in Birmingham with emphasis on fire detection, sensors and atmospheric monitoring systems. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) personnel, representatives of the major belt conveyor manufacturers and a representative of the National Mining Association provided discussions at the Coraopolis meeting. In Salt Lake City, Utah, MSHA district managers and ventilation specialists, a member of the Aracoma Mine No. 1 investigation team, a representative of the Bureau of Land Management, and industry and consulting representatives of the Utah Mining Association and the Colorado Mining Association made presentations. In Birmingham, Alabama, atmospheric monitoring system representatives, NIOSH researchers, representatives of coal mining companies, and UMWA workers from two Alabama mining companies made presentations. In addition, a staff member of The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness also presented comments to the Panel. In conjunction with the meetings in Salt Lake City and Birmingham, three-member subcommittees of the Technical Study Panel made field visits to the Skyline Mine, the Aberdeen Mine, and the Jim Walter Resources Mine No. 4. The mine visits were scheduled to see first-hand the mining conditions under which belt air was being utilized as an additional source of intake air for working sections.

Jan 1, 1950

By George M. Bouton, Lawrence Ferguson

The experiments described in this publication were inspired by the Bell System's large interest in lead-alloy sheathed cables and by the wide range of fatigue and corroding conditions to which they are sometimes subjected in service. The first experiments consisted of operating specimens of lead + I per cent antimony telephone cable sheath alloy in a fatigue test while they were immersed in water taken from a manhole. Because of many published reports concerning corrosion-fatigue phenomena of various metals and alloys, a reduction in fatigue life was expected(1)2 Instead, however, the fatigue test ran on for many times the normal number of cycles an4 was finally stopped without failure. Because of this, the experiments were broadened to include the effect of many media on the fatigue properties of four lead alloys over a wide range of testing speeds and strains. One material, a viscous tacky polymerized isobutylene3 used in

Jan 1, 1945

By P Goblet, S A. Séguret, E Cordier, A Galli

In salar-type deposits, lithium grades can be measured by bailers introduced at different elevations in the drill holes at locations where, later, the brine will be pumped out to recover the metal. When they are duplicated, these a priori rudimentary measurements may show large differences without indicating whether this is due to the procedure itself or to some physical causes linked to the dynamic behaviour of the salar (seasonality, rainfall, underground flow etc). In the reservoir presented in the paper, the problem is complicated by the double lack of stationarity of the lithium grades: the grades not only increase importantly with the depth but at the same time their fluctuations decrease, making it necessary to use non-stationary geostatistical techniques to simulate them. Reservoir simulation is developed in two steps: first, geostatistical simulations of the lithium grade create possible realisations of the reservoir; then, each geostatistical simulation is followed by a pumping simulation that calculates, at each drill hole of a given extraction scenario, the lithium produced each year over 40 years. For the set of 100 simulations produced in this way, a scenario reduction is made to choose the five most representative simulations where more complex calculations will be carried out (for example, changing hydrogeological parameters such as porosity and permeability, or the elevation of the filters, the number and the location of the pumping and the reinjection drill holes etc). The paper first presents an analysis of the geostatistical model sensitivity to the grade uncertainty when measured by bailer. Among the 100 measurements at our disposal covering the future production domain, 50 per cent are duplicates measured at the same place but at different times. They are randomly sampled to produce five subsets of 75 values, which will constitute the future 3D conditioning points for the geostatistical analysis and the simulations. For each subset, trend, standard deviation and variogram models are fitted, leading to five sets of 20 geostatistical simulations of grades. In this way, the reliability of the different parameters involved in the procedure is evaluated, as well as its impact on the pumping results. Then, a reconciliation study is conducted between the non-stationary nugget effects encountered in the 3D variograms of the lithium grade and a pure statistical analysis of 25 duplicates measured at different locations and/or different times. The result is that if the nugget effect reaches 20 per cent, which is the case of three conditioning subsets out of five, the reconciliation is good and the nugget effect of the variogram model represents the bailer uncertainty, ie the measurement error. Since the geostatistical simulation incorporates a nugget effect, it handles the bailer uncertainty and the impact on the produced metal is included in the evaluation. The final conclusion is that, after the hydrogeological pumping simulations, the initial differences between the five geostatistical models do not influence the final results: lithium grades measured by bailers can lead to a robust evaluation of the extractable resources, a conclusion that conflicts with conventional wisdom.CITATION:Séguret, S A, Goblet, P, Cordier, E and Galli, A, 2017. Bailer uncertainty evaluation in a lithium salar deposit, in Proceedings Eighth World Conference on Sampling and Blending , pp 395–402 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 9, 2017

By Herbert W. Huse

Nitrogen, and its compounds, unique among the materials described in this volume, is absolutely essential to the existence of the human race. Almost all minerals are important and the absence of any one of them would be sorely felt; but nitrogen is an integral part of the cycle of life itself. Man cannot live without nitrogen which, as an inert gas, composes the major part of the air he breathes; as compounds, nourishes the vegetation which he eats; and, as protein, forms a part of his very flesh and blood. Nature originally provided man with a vast reserve of usable nitrogen compounds in the form of fertile soil. She constantly replenishes the supply by "fixing" nitrogen in the air at the estimated rate of 400,000,000 tons per year (an insignificant 6 lb per acre) during electrical storms. She has also placed certain microorganisms in the soil which are able to "fix" nitrogen and convert it into forms which plants can use. Legumes like cow peas, soy beans, clover, and alfalfa have extraordinary roots which serve as stimulating hosts to these bacteria which, in turn, nourish the plant. By plowing in all or part of such crops, their above-average nitrogen content can be returned to the soil for other more useful crops. The mechanism for this recycle is supplied by "denitrifying" bacteria which attack the dead plant tissue and liberate nitrogen and ammonia. However, since one crop of grain, sugar beets, potatoes, tomatoes, etc., takes out a major portion of the nitrogen which a plowed-in legume crop can supply, this method of fertilization is obviously inadequate. Drastic intervention by man has become necessary to support the ever-growing population of the world.9,15,20 Old civilizations with a high population density, such as the Chinese, were able to exist for centuries by carefully tilling the soil, rotating crops, and returning to the soil all the nitrogen in vegetable wastes plus human and animal excreta. But the lack of a means for augmenting their supply of nitrogen placed a ceiling on further development and kept the mass of the population in a chronic state of undernourishment, frequently punctuated by famine. Nitrogen plays another important role in the life of mankind. In the form of explosives, nitrogen helps to wrest from the earth many materials needed for our material well-being. Also, in the form of explosives and propellants, nitrogen increased the destructiveness of wars to a point only exceeded by the fantastic power of atomic energy. Man's first really effective efforts to improve his position with respect to nitrogen began in the 18th Century with the mining of sodium nitrate. By the late 1880's this had become a big industry serving a large part of the world. In the late 1890's nitrogen, in the form of ammonia, was being recovered from coke-oven operations. In 1900 nitrogen, in the form of nitric oxide, was being obtained from the air by an electric-arc process. About 1904 another "fixation" process based on the reaction of nitrogen with calcium carbide to form cyanamide was commercialized. By 1913 the Haber-Bosch process of "fixing" atmospheric nitrogen by reacting it with hydrogen to produce synthetic ammonia was successfully applied on a large scale, first in Germany and then throughout the industrial areas of the world.9 All the above methods of obtaining nitrogen compounds are still in use and, between them, they assure mankind of adequate supplies for all time. While this fortunate situation is not unique amongst industrial raw materials, all too few of man's needs are so well in hand.

Jan 1, 1960

By W. C. Hardy, B. W. McArthur

The purpose of this work is to show application of laboratory data in calculating solution gas-drive performance of the Cisco K-I reservoir. Included herein is a diagram showing the graphical relationship between six variables common to all solution gas-drive mechanisms. With an iterative process one may assume existence of any of these six variables at a particular pressure and calculate the production performance likely to occur in a reservoir produced by solution gas drive. Four unique pressure values are described at which the material balance equation alone is sufficient to predict the cumulative volumes of gas produced. Information derived from these pressure points establishes a criterion for determining compatibility of the pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) analysis of the produced crude with the gas production history. Two averaging procedures are used to arrive at a relative permeability-saturation relationship which describes the field-wide performance. INTRODUCTION The Cisco K-1 reservoir is a lenticular-type sand structure lying at approximately 6,300-ft subsurface. It is located in the H. and T. C. Railroad Co. Block 97, SW 1/4 S 392 and NW 1/4 S 385, Scurry County, Tex. Correlation of data from logs indicated that the Cisco K-1 reservoir occupied approximately 3,218 acre-ft of space with a closure of from 15 to 20 ft. Analysis of the production data indicates that the initial formation pressure and temperature were 2,450 psig and 121°F, respectively. The bubble point occurred at 1,715 psig after production of 12,256 STB oil and 11,520 Mcf gas. Only traces of water have been produced since initiation of production. Successive material balance calculations from June, 1952, to June, 1957, showed that no initial gas cap or water influx has contributed to production of oil and that the Cisco K-1 reservoir originally contained approximately 1.44 X 10" STB of oil. THEORY Methods for calculating solution gas-drive perform-

By Clarence E. Sims, Donald W. Williams, George A. Moore

INTRODUCTION DURING the past several years, the steel casting industry has made studies of heavy castings in which the test bar has been taken from heavy sections rather than from attached or separately cast coupons. It has been noted that the ductility properties of these heavy sections are often lower than those normally expected. Such lowered ductility is usually accompanied by a spotty test bar fracture, and the ductility values can often be greatly improved if a low-temperature aging treatment is given to the casting. A loss of ductility of this type is considered "abnormal," since it is not accompanied by an increase of tensile strength or hardness, and "temporary" when the ductility can be restored by aging. The cure of such an abnormal condition represents a real improvement in the quality of the steel, Several types of abnormal loss of ductility can be distinguished, of which those caused by excessive amounts of inclusions of undesirable type and those caused by unsuitable grain size and ingot structure are well known. The particular type of abnormal lowered ductility currently under consideration may be distinguished by the fact that the low-temperature aging treatment necessary for its relief is insufficient to cause any visible change in the microstructure as ordinarily observed. As this aging will in fact eventually occur at room temperature, the phenomenon of present interest may be given the symptomatic definition, "Temporary Abnormal Low Ductility." Some hundreds of previous investigations, largely qualitative in nature, have established, beyond reasonable doubt, that hydrogen is normally present in newly manufactured steel and that this gas, in small amounts, can cause a temporary abnormal loss of ductility. The commonly observed association of high gas content and low ductility has given strong evidence for the presumption that hydrogen-, possibly assisted by other gases, is the primary cause of the low ductility observed. Accordingly, The Steel Founders' Society of America has, since Nov. 1, 1944, sponsored investigations at Battelle Memorial Institute whose primary objective is to obtain quantitative information on the relation of the amount of hydrogen and nitrogen in steel, together with associated methods of steelmaking and treatment, to low-ductility effects and porosity. The interest of this investigation thus extends to permanent abnormal losses of ductility, such as are caused by the inclusions which sometimes result from special deoxidizing practices and possibly from metallic nitrides, but as these can be distinguished from the temporary effect of hydrogen, they have been excluded from the work reported here except when they

Jan 1, 1948