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By C. W. Fitzgerald

INTRODUCTION Continuous mining machines are used in regular flat ore beds having uniform thickness. Since coal is the most common type of material occurring in such beds, most continuous miners are used for the extraction of coal from underground mines. The first continuous mining machine for under¬ground coal mining was introduced in 1948. In one machine, the continuous miner combines the functions performed by a conventional face drill, a cutting ma¬chine, and a loading machine. It breaks or digs the material out of the surrounding solid and transfers the material back through the machine chassis by means of a chain conveyor. The conveyor carries the material to a haulage system, usually a rubber-tired vehicle known as a shuttle car. Generally, continuous miners are used in seam heights from 890 to 3660 mm (35 to 144 in.). For seam heights of 1070 mm (42 in.) or less, the haulage system may be a multiple-bridge conveyor or battery-powered tractors that haul low-bed trailers. Proj¬ects are being undertaken by private industry and through government contracts to develop a continuous haulage system for all seam heights. As of 1976, the majority of continuous miners were of two types. The first type is the drum miner, which mounts the cutting elements on a series of drums across the cutting head of the machine, sometimes using a cutting chain to cut clearance for the gear drive. In the drum-type machines, the cutting head rotates parallel to the material face. The second type is the auger miner, which utilizes cutting elements mounted on two auger-type cutting heads. One head is located on each side of the machine, with the heads mounted per¬pendicular to the material face. Chain-head ripper-type miners/miners having rotary cutting elements with oscillating motion and twin-head boring-type miners have all been popular within the last 15 years. Although these are considered obsolete, some machines are still being supplied for specialized applications. GENERAL DESCRIPTION This chapter describes only continuous mining ma¬chines available as manufacturers' production models as of September 1976. Figs. 1 through 11 illustrate some typical machines currently in use. Cutting Elements The cutting elements are the interface between the machine and the material being mined. In describing the cutting elements, consideration must be given to the differences between the drum- and auger-type machines, the bit-tip speeds, and the bit types. Drum-Type Continuous Mining Machines: Three of the four principal manufacturers of drum-type miners use multi-motor designs that provide separate a-c motors for driving the cutting elements. Gear trains are used to reduce the speeds of the motors to the rotational speeds of the cutting elements. One of the three suppliers drives the cutting elements of its low-seam models with a heavy-duty drive chain that is equipped with cutting bits; all other functions of this machine have separate motor drives that are either electrical or hydraulic. The fourth principal manufacturer generally provides two a-c electric motors, utilizing gear reducers, drive shafts, and hydraulically operated engaging clutches to power all of the operating functions, including the cut¬ting elements. Some drum-type miners use trim chains, equipped with cutting bits, to cut clearance for the gear drives. These trim chains vary from two 305-mm (12-in.) chains to one 760-mm (30-in.) chain per machine, de¬pending upon the manufacturer's design concept. In all machines other than the low-seam models that use chains to drive the heads, the trim chains are driven by sprockets on the drive shaft of the final cutterhead drum; therefore, the trim chains are not used for power trans¬mission to the cutting elements. In addition to cutting clearance for the gear drives, the trim chains provide uniform bit spacing all the way across the head and assist in moving the cut material to an area where it is either loaded directly into the miner's conveyor or is easier to load into the conveyor. On a drum-type mining machine, the cutting ele¬ments all rotate from the top to the bottom. Therefore, the recommended procedure is to raise the cutterhead to the maximum seam height, sump the entire machine forward to maximum depth by means of a crawler drive, and then shear downward until the cutter elements reach the floor level. The maximum sump depth varies ac¬cording to the drum diameter, the type of material, the floor conditions, and the operator's abilities. It normally varies an average of 460 to 760 mm (18 to 30 in.). Cutter drums are supplied with two types of cutting bit holders. Weld-on holders are attached permanently. Pin-on holders are replaceable at the face. Cutter-drum diameters over the bit tips vary from 660 to 965 mm (26 to 38 in.), depending upon the chassis height of the machine and the range of cutting heights. Auger-Type Continuous Mining Machines: As cut-

Jan 1, 1982

By Henning E. Soderberg

Yesterday, air pollution was somebody else's problem -- today, it is everybody's problem. The coal industry with thermal coal drying, is aware of their problem and the necessity of doing an acceptable job; however, there is much to be said as to how good a job is required and what performance limits should be set up. American Air Filter Company has been one of the pioneers in the solution of the thermal coal dryer dust problems, Because of high moisture content, products of combustion and occasional temperature surges, only wet collection has been considered as the practical approach. Our first installation goes back some 12 years with a total to date of 29 Individual wet collectors, each, fabricated of suitable corrosion-resistant material, at 14 operating plants. To eliminate a potential air pollution problem, a performance requirement of not more than approximately one-quarter (1/4) grains per cubic foot in the dust collector discharge was used. In nearly all installations, operating performance surpassed requirements, but discharge stacks were not entirely free of discoloration. However, plant nuisance and air pollution complaints were eliminated. This satisfactory performance was accomplished by medium priced wet dust collectors operating at a 4-6" W.G. pressure drop with cater drain requirements of about 1 gallon of drain water per 1000 cubic feet of air exhausted.

Jan 1, 1962

By M. M. Fine

One of the most persistent topics at technical gatherings and in the recent scientific press has been the reduction of iron ore. To cite some of them, in May 1960, a symposium on the subject was sponsored by the Electrochemical Society. The proceedings, comprising two dozen papers, were later published.3/ More recently, November 1966, a similar gathering took place at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Mich. The latest meeting was the International Congress on Production and Utilization of Reduced Materials, Evian, France, May 1967. If the volume of literature, symposia and conferences is a measure of industry concern, then current interest must be at a high level. To the casual observer of the metallurgical scene, the abiding and recurring attention to iron ore reduction outside the blast furnace must be somewhat puzzling in that so much research endeavor has resulted in so little commercial activity.

Jan 1, 1968

By J. A. Cooper, M. R. Petersen, P. O. Jackson, J. C. Langford

The organic, inorganic, and radiological characteristics of airborne aerosols have been measured as a function of particle size in controlled atmosphere test chambers and operating uranium mines. Concentrations of benzo(a)pyrene in two mines ranged from 26 to 57 ng/m3 of air. The carbon chain length of adsorbed n-alkanes was correlated with particle size. Normal mining activities produced an ore dust aerosol with mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) greater than 2 µm. The elements Na, Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, V, Fe, and U exhibited elemental ratios similar to bulk ore and had comparable MMAD's. The S, Zn, and Pb were higher in aerosols than bulk ore and were associated with smaller MMAD particulates. Radon daughter particle size distributions were influenced by the kinds of particulates

Jan 1, 1981

By Maria C. Jaime

Optimization of the rock cutting performance plays a major role in the tunneling operation. For a given set of tool and cutting environment, rock fragments may be chipped away in numerous manners and it is crucial to understand and be able to predict the dynamics at the cutter-rock interface. This paper presents rational and realistic 3D finite element modeling of rock cutting where typical computational issues ?such as contact formulation, appropriate rock material response, mesh distortion, and crack propagation? are overcome. Cutting forces and failure mechanisms in this finite element analysis are successfully validated by laboratory single-cutter scratching tests in sandstone.

Jan 1, 2010

By J. Leonard Frame

A coal-fired fluidized bed combustion (FBC) system will be installed at the Owatonna Tool Company, Owatonna, Minnesota. Two FBC combustors will burn solid fuels: coal, petroleum coke, and wood and paper wastes. Crushed dolomitic limestone will be used to control sulfur emissions to EPA limits. The combustors will supply indirectly heated hot air and hot water for paint drying operations, washing processes, and space heating. The program is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and the Owatonna Tool Company, and is one of five programs designed to demonstrate industrial applications of coal-fired fluidized bed equipment. The paper will describe the combustion system and the results of development tests with dolomitic limestone for sulfur emission control.

Jan 1, 1978

By D. X. Tang, G. Wilson, Y. Luo, S. S. Peng

Knowing the location of voids/fractures in roof rock will be greatly helpful for roof support design. The drilling parameters obtained during normal roof bolt installation cycle provide a fast and economic way for determining void location in roof rock. In this research, feed pressure and rotation torque are found to be good indicators for identifying the voids, based on the results of a series of laboratory experiments. A set of computational rules has been developed to locate voids in mine roof using the measured roof drilling parameters and implemented in MRGIS, a software package developed to allow mine engineers to make use of the large amount of roof drilling parameters for predicting roof geology properties automatically. Anew feature, 2D map+3D figure display, is also added to MRGIS.

Jan 1, 2004

By Rossen Halatchev

The production sequence optimization of open pit mine is a procedure that reflects the exploitation conditions over life of mine. These conditions are determined by the geological characteristics of the deposit, requirements of the mining and processing technologies and economic parameters of the exploitation. From a technological point of view the production sequence optimization deals with two aspects - spatial and time. Each of them plays a tremendously important role in searching for the optimum solution of the problem. This paper treats the time aspect of the production sequence optimization. This aspect is revealed in the context of the problem of the working zone formation of the open pit mine in time. The problem formulation places an accent on the determination of the theoretically possible time distribution of the waste and ore quantities of each bench of the open pit mine. A mathematical solution to the problem has been developed based on combinatorial analysis. The solution provides a multi-variant investigation of the production sequencing with the use of an optimization model developed as a linear programming formulation. The model objective function uses the Net Present Value as a criterion for assessing the effectiveness of production sequencing. A case study is provided for the conditions of Assarel copper open pit mine (Bulgaria) to illustrate the applicability of the approach. The results obtained reveal the complex nature of the variation of the Net Present Value as a function of the mining factor.

Jan 1, 2002

By George R. Stephans

The Climax Mine is a panel caving mine which has had a long history of incidents of severe ground control problems. The nature of the ore deposit, which lends itself to the caving meth- of of production, a1 so makes the mine susceptible to large scale stress concentrations which are referred to as ?weight? problems. These problems have increased with increased production and also with expansion to deeper mine levels. During the past twenty years the mine has had to learn to cope with these problems in order to remain in operation. A number of practical guidelines and useful techniques have emerged from these efforts. The purpose of this paper is to share a few of these ideas. The Mine is located near Leadville, Colorado on the continental divide at an elevation of 3450 meters. The ore body is a large low grade deposit of disseminated molybdenum sulfide. It measures about 1200 to 1600 meters in diameter and it had an original depth of about 660 mters. The Mine has been in operation since 1918 and the massive nature of the ore body together with its blocky, highly fractured condition made it natural for the caving system to have been adopted for production at an early date. Open pit mining was started in 1973. The total plant has a capacity of more than 50 thousand tons per day, and more than 400 million tons of reserves at an average grade of 0.310 percent molybdenum disulfide remain to be produced.

Jan 1, 1982

By S. Chander

The use of various electrochemical techniques to study mechanisms of sulfide mineral- flotation reagent interactions is briefly reviewed in this paper. Prior to such studies it is desirable to thermodynamically determine solution conditions favorable for formation of hydrophobic species deemed to be responsible for flotation. The thermodynamic equilibrium involving both the stable and metastable species can be conveniently represented by an Eh-pH diagram. Thermodynamics can also be used to predict conditions where a mineral might not float if depressants are present. Under favorable conditions of flotation there is competition between reactions leading to formation of hydrophobic species with reactions that lead to formation of hydrophilic species. Due to the sluggish nature of the reactions involving sulfide minerals, a knowledge of the kinetic behavior of the system is necessary. Electrochemical methods of investigation are wed in laboratory studies to (1) control the state of oxidation, (2) determine the type and amount of electroactive species present at the mineral surface, and (3) study kinetics of electrode processes. By combining electrochemical techniques and wetting measurements the identification of hydrophobic species that might be present at the mineral surface could be achieved. Both contact angle measurements at mineral electrodes or flotation in a cell equipped with a particulate bed electrode can be used for the wetting measurements.

Jan 1, 1987

By Nelson M. Solow

Raise boring of mine ventilation shafts in many cases offers a lower cost and higher speed method of construction in comparison to conventional shaft sinking. Where underground access is available for raise boring the potential savings indicate that raise boring should be considered as an alternative to other methods. Raise boring machines are currently in use which have the capability for reaming shafts up to twenty feet in diameter, depending on the strata and depth. These large capacity machines make it possible to consider raise bored shafts for moving large volumes of air. Although we will consider here only ventilation shafts, raise boring should also be considered for men and material shafts. When the mine planner has determined the volume of air required through a shaft at a particular location he is faced with the problem of selecting the shaft size. The principal factors in optimizing the shaft size are the construction costs for the shaft 'and the power cost to move the air through the shaft. The larger diameter the' shaft is the more it costs to construct, but for a given volume of air the power required (cost) becomes lower as the diameter increases. The construction cost is paid only once, when the shaft is constructed. The power costs, however, are paid throughout the life of the shaft. Methods of optimizing air shaft size found in the literature (References 1 and 2) amortize the construction cost and include it in the average annual cost of operating the airshaft. These methods derive a formula for the average annual cost vs. shaft size and de-rive the formula to compute the optimum size for a given air flow rate. It is, however, desirable to take into account tax considera-

Jan 1, 1977

By Jon “Ike” Isaacson, Frank Perrone, Eric Prantil

"Tunneling through an urban environment carries many inherent risks to the immediate local infrastructure and subsequently to the project stakeholders. On the CQ031 Contract of the East Side Access Project in Queens, New York, twin 22.5’ diameter Herrenknecht Slurry TBMs were mined within close proximity to many infrastructure assets, with cover of less than half a shield diameter at times. Multiple public bridges and critical railroad infrastructure including catenary poles and signal towers supporting the busiest rail interlocking in the United States required underpinning systems. The support program for these structures was refined over the course of the four tunnel drives. It is the intent of this paper to show how the interaction between the temporary structures, instrumentation monitoring plan, and risk assessment program melded to provide a system which the owner, contractor, and designer relied on as a tool to ensure the project success without impacting the public surroundings. PROJECT BACKGROUND The East Side Access (ESA) megaproject located in New York City, N.Y is a multi billion dollar program for the Metropolitan Transit Authority Capital Construction (MTACC) with the main goal of bringing the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) commuter rail to Grand Central Station located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. When completed, the project will significantly reduce congestion both into and out of Penn Station, the current terminus of the LIRR. In order to accomplish this, multiple contracts of varying scope are required to operate simultaneously in both Queens, N.Y and Manhattan. In 2009, the CQ031 Queens Bored Tunnels Contract was awarded to the joint venture of Granite Construction Northeast, Traylor Bros. Inc., and Frontier Kemper (G.T.F). The main scope of this contract was to excavate four segmentally lined soft ground tunnels underneath the Sunnyside Rail Yard in Queens, New York. Additional scope of work included the construction of a tunnel approach structure, electrical substation, and multipurpose ventilation and egress facility."

Jan 1, 2016

By Tatiana Kotrikova, Steven Kolarz, Alan Kolodne, James Parkes, Matthew Goff

The WMATA Yellow Line is the section of steel segmentally lined tunnels that have experienced leakage and significant corrosion in isolated areas. A three part rehabilitation design has been developed for curtain grouting, structural repairs, and corrosion protection to provide continued performance. As WMATA’s first Construction-Manager-at-Risk (CMAR) project, the design development benefitted from collaboration with the Contractor through the final design development process. Rehabilitation work started in Fall 2022 and will be completed by late Spring 2023. Details of the project, the remediation design, and the process and benefits of the CMAR approach in the design development are presented.

Jun 13, 2023

By C. A. Hollingsworth

The Deep Leg Flotation Cell was developed to solve a problem which confronted the Smith-Douglass Company on moving from one mining area to another. Poor recovery and, to some extent, inferior concentrate grade were encountered in the silica flota¬tion circuit. This was believed due to the softness of the phosphate which caused it to form slime. In view of the urgency of the matter, the problem was attacked from two angles. The first involved the development of a flotation cell which would not create slime and the second, a new or improved reagent for floating silica from phosphate rock which would be less sensitive to slime than reagents currently in use.

Jan 1, 1964

By Sean Harvey

One of the manifestations of the dynamically induced failures in deep coal mines is the violent ejection of coal from the ribs. A possible protection against such failures is the use of a specifically designed dynamic support system with reinforcement units having the sufficient capacity to absorb the kinetic energy of the dynamic failure and a skin support that can adequately contain the disintegrated coal. With this method of mitigation in mind, a recently introduced yielding rock bolt, trade name Roofex, has been identified (Harvey and Ozbay, 2009) as a possible energy absorbing component of a dynamic support system. According to the manufacturer?s specification, the Roofex bolts can yield 300 mm (or more) displacement while holding 80 kN pull load. In order to assess the performance of this support unit in coal ribs, a series of in situ pull tests performed in two coal mines in Colorado. The results show that, under conventional pull test loading conditions, Roofex yielding bolts perform very close to their claimed specifications, thus showing a potential for their use as the main energy absorbing component of a dynamic support system. Further studies are required to confirm the in situ performance of these bolts under dynamic loading conditions and also to develop a containment component for a dynamic support system for the mitigation of dynamic coal rib failures.

Jan 1, 2009

By George W. Toth

In a recently completed research project for the U.S. Bureau of Mines - Twin Cities Research Center, a computerized costing procedure for uranium in situ leach mining was developed by the NUS Corporation. This costing procedure, termed a cost model, employs a process engineering approach for estimating total project costs as well as equipment and manpower requirements for uranium in situ leaching operations in either Texas or Wyoming. 80th capital and operating costs are generated by the model along with the overall production cost/pound U3O8 subject to a known rate of return. Conversely, rate of return on equity can be solved for, subject to a given price of yellowcake. During the course of the research effort, this cost model was applied 50 typical site conditions in Texas and Wyoming. Sensitivity rests were conducted for numerous key parameters to determine the cost influence attributable to incremental changes In parameter values. The results of these sensitivity tests along with a description of the in situ leaching cost model have been documented as Bureau of Mines, Mineral Research Contract Report No. J019912, "Cost and Sensitivities Analysis for Uranium In Situ Leach Mining," dated March 1981.

Jan 1, 1981

By Arthur E. Belton

Ever since the industrial Revolution both major and small companies have put much emphasis on the use of incentives to compensate top management for extra effort and extra skill. For many years industries have also provided hourly rate employees with incentive plans. More recently incentive plans have been extended to include the "front line" supervisors. Many companies have what are called Christmas bonus or profit-sharing plans. The incentives for foremen in mining, which we shall discuss, differ from such bonus plans in that the incentives are paid on a definite measured performance for each individual, and thus directly reflect his effort and skill. What is the objective for paying incentives? The objective for any part of an industrial Engineering Program is to increase productivity and reduce unit cost. The unit cost must include the entire cost of the program. From what base do we start an incentive plan? One should think of art incentive program as the top rung of the Industrial Engineering ladder. Therefore, a company must take several steps before reaching this top rung. The following steps are necessary:

Jan 1, 1960

By W. C. Dailey

The Groveland Mine. Concentrator and Pellet Plant are located in Dickinson County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The construction of the Groveland Mine in 1959 was the first United States operation for the Hanna Mining Company in mining and beneficiating low grade iron formations. (1) The plant produced concentrates at 675,000 lt/yr. (746,600 mt/yr.) which was used as sinter feed in the steel industry from 1959 to 1963. Upon completion of a pelletizing plant in April, 1963 production increased to 1.6 million lt/yr (1.77 million mt/yr) of pellets. After the plant expansion, mill capacity increased to 2.2 million 1t/yr (2.43 million mt/yr.), producing 2.0 million It/yr (2.23. million mt/yr.) of pellets assaying 63.0% iron and 7.0% silica. (1) Prior to April, 1971 the concentrator operated with a flowsheet consisting of spirals and a petroleum sultonate iron notation circuit. This was presented in a paper by R. R. Smith and E. E. Sougstad, "Flotation at the Groveland Mine" in the 50th Anniversary Volume entitled "Froth Flotation". The ore body at the Groveland Mine consists basically of two types of iron formation (34% total iron, 20% magnetic iron head), the most abundant of which is a bedded magnetite-chert-silicate rock. This is intermingled to varying degrees with non-bedded to poorly bedded hematite-clastic quartz-chert rock. (1) In developing the Groveland flowsheet, Humphrey spirals were used because of their ability to produce a coarse size concentrate at a low cost. Tests run in the lab and pilot plant on the Groveland ore showed a. spiral weight recovery in the 27 to 33% range. (2) However as the ore body was opened up, it became evident that the most abundant ore type did not liberate at the coarse size fraction needed for spirals. Plant recoveries for the first five years operating the spirals only averaged from 10 to 15% weight recovery. In 1971 the weight recovery on the spirals had dropped to a low of 5%. To increase iron recovery and at the same time increase plant capacity with the least effect on the present operations the mill flaw-sheet proceeded from a spiral-notation circuit to an all flotation circuit to a magnetic separator-flotation circuit. During this changeover the concentrate grade also had to be improved to meet market demands. To do this the following changes evolved

Jan 1, 1978

The floatability of a bituminous coal in NaG solutions was evaluated using a modified Hallimond tube to delineate the role of the electrostatic interaction between bubbles and particles in determining the coal hydrophobicity. Zeta potential measurements showed that bubbles are negatively charged in the entire pH range tested, while coal particles are positively charged below pH 6.0 and negatively charged above it. Also, both sodium and chloride ions were confirmed to act as indifferent ions without any specific effects for both coal particles and bubbles. Flotation as a function of pH exhibited a maximum and minimum at low salt concentrations which is shown to be determined mainly by the coal hydrophobicity as measured by a new hydrophobic levitation technique. At high salt concentrations (above 0.1 mole/dm3), the flotation without such maximum or minimum is controlled by the electrostatic interaction between the bubble and the particle.

Jan 1, 1992

By Kevork Chouzadjian, Gary Davis, Nicholas Katsikaros, Bruce Kelley, Mellie Mavatoi

A process has been developed to recover gold and copper from two waste materials at the Bougainville Copper Limited mine in Papua New Guinea. It involves the bioleaching, in reactors, of a pyrite concentrate to liberate refractory gold and generate sulphuric acid, ferric sulphate and biomass for bacterial leaching of a chalcopyritic waste rock dump. Gold is to be recovered by cyanide leaching and copper by solvent extraction/electrowinning. The reactor bioleaching was developed in continuously operated reactors of 1 m3 capacity by CRA Advanced Technical Development at Cockle Creek, while the dump leaching was developed in 750 kg columns on site at Bougainville Copper Limited. The process was to be piloted on site.

Jan 1, 1990