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By Helge B. Wurst, Michael P. Cipold, Jan F. Bachmann, Claus C. Bachmann

"In washability, the objective is to establish the set of maximum possible separation performance criteria for a given mineral feed. The method of choice for this has been the conventional sink-float analysis. Time, cost and safety aspects of the sink-float method have prompted the search for a new approach for establishing separation performance criteria, especially as performance levels of separator plants can be maximized if reliable information based on an analysis of washability in conjunction with particle size distribution, elemental constituency becomes readily available. The new method to establish washability and associated performance information utilizes at least two measurement technologies concurrently: single energy x-ray transmission and image processing. For porous or very inhomogeneous materials the results can be refined further by using dual energy x-ray transmission and image processing. The value of the collected data increases considerably if the washability data were additionally available in time to be considered in the control of the process plant. The incorporation of an automated washability monitor gives near real-time data that would impinge positively on the profitability of the plant operation. The method was extensively tested with a range of sample with different densities, varying from 1 g/cm³ (coal) to 5 g/cm³ (iron ore).INTRODUCTIONWashability of minerals like coal and iron ore is expressed by a curve or graph showing the results of a series of float-and-sink tests. Several of these curves are drawn to illustrate different conditions or variables, usually on the same axes, thus presenting the information on one sheet of paper. Washability curves are essential not only for the design but also for the operation of preparation plants.In determining the washability analysis, particle density is the underlying feature of all washability curves. Conventionally, the particles are separated into density fractions by immersing them in fluids of a predetermined density followed by skimming of those particles that stay afloat. The particles remaining afloat thus have a density lower than that of the fluid they were subjected to. The particles that remained at the bottom of the fluid container thus had a higher density higher than that of the fluid. By progressively increasing, for example, the density of the fluid and immersing the remaining particles so as to be able to skim the next density fraction, the particles would be fractionated into density groups. The liquids used range from aqueous solutions to organic liquids to suspensions. Unfortunately the liquids used for this separation process are often toxic and expensive. It stands to reason that a new method of determining washability is sought."

Jan 1, 2016

By S. Kivrak

The firms in construction industry could not sufficiently adapt the rapidly emerging information technologies in recent years into their corporate structures. Therefore, in an effort to further exploit the benefits of information technology (IT), integration of the experiences and backgrounds of construction industry and the advantages of IT, is one of the most open-ended fields for improvement in this industry. Utilization of IT in the construction sites will positively affect the efficiency, productivity, quality and health & safety issues in the construction sites thus the cost and completion time of the projects. Within this context, augmented reality technology, which brings a new perspective into IT, can be put into the service of construction industry. Augmented reality which has been designed to improve the services in many application domains such as school education, military warfare, military trainings, industrial maintenance, retail and medical, can be defined in the simplest form as augmenting the real world with information from the virtual world. The main aim of this study, which presents an overview of an ongoing project, is to develop an innovative method by making a construction worker, foreman, equipment operator or a site engineer watch a very comprehensive and informative animation which will enable the said staff to perform or supervise all the phases of the activity he or she is in charge for in a more efficient, productive, safer and qualified manner by means of smart glasses using augmented reality systems. In this respect, training material related with the activities in the construction sites will be prepared and with a well-fictionalized scenario, animations exhibiting all the phases and details regarding the related activity (e.g. masonry, formwork and rebar works etc.), method of statement, correct and incorrect applications in comparison-wise manner, will be produced. Therefore, the user will be able to reach the training material, method statements etc. in the animations about the activity he or she is in charge for, enabling him or her to figure out the work as prescribed in the specifications. Basic trainings about the system will be given to target group, i.e. construction workers, foremen, operators, site engineers and managers working in the construction sites to apply the system on sites after all the system was tested. After the testings, to determine the effectiveness of this system, semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires will be conducted among the mentioned target group. Therefore, the potential benefits of this system to the construction industry can be determined. The main target of this study is to implement an efficient, thorough construction management by orienting the staff in the construction sites to perform efficient, safe and qualified works by means of smart glasses that use augmented reality. There are relatively few studies about the implementations of augmented reality technology in construction. The outputs to be attained in the end of the study have the potential of improvement of time, cost, quality and safety parameters by ensuring a qualified, safe, efficient and productive construction management via augmented reality technology in the construction industry.

Aug 1, 2013

By A. Taylor, E. Thorn Corthay, R. Storey

In response to requests from its stakeholders, the International Standards Organisation is engaged in development of an international standard for Energy Management Systems (EnMS) which will become "ISO 50001". This new standard will build on the successes of both the EN16001 EnMS standard that has been used by dozens of European companies, as well as the ANSI/MSE 2000:2008 EnMS standard that is currently being used in several pilot projects in the USA and Ontario. This paper provides an overview of the key points of the EnMS standards, and describes how they can be used to drive sustainable energy reductions in the metallurgy industry.

Jan 1, 2010

By N. C. Carter, Wm. H. White, J. E. Harakal

"Of twenty-one ore deposits in British Columbia which are either in production or advanced stages of exploration, five have potassium-argon ages in a range of 165-205 m.y., eight are in a range of 44-55 m.y. and the remainder are either ca. 140 m.y. or ca. 100 m.y. old. Deposits of the oldest group have generally similar geological environments and radiometrically indistinguishable ages of magmatic and hydrothermal minerals. Deposits of the youngest group also have similar geological environments, with successive magmatic and hydrothermal events closely intermingled in time and place. Such deposits find no comfortable home in existing classifications of ore deposits. 1t is suggested, therefore, that those epigenetic deposits which can be shown by radiometrie and/or geologie means to be coeval with genetically related magmatism be designated as ""paramagmatic deposits."""

Jan 1, 1968

By C. F. Starr

This paper deals with the various types of cable in use in mines, with special attention paid to their construction. There will be a few comments regarding the different insulants, jacketing materials and armouring used, depending on their application. Governing standards and the differences therein will also be discussed.

Jan 1, 1969

By Z. Y. Ma, H. Y. Yang

The process of microwave-ultrasound assisted leaching of valuable metals from copper anode slime was proposed in this paper. Design of experiments has been used to study the effect of the main leaching parameters, such as microwave power, ultrasound power and reaction time. The central composite design (CCD) was used to predict the maximum leaching efficiency of copper, tellurium and selenium. The experimental data obtained were fitted to a second-order polynomial equation, and they also were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The 3-D response surface plots and the contour plots were applied to determine the optimal conditions. The optimum conditions of microwave-ultrasound assisted leaching process were: microwave power 834W, ultrasonic power 638W and reaction time 403s. Under these conditions, the experimental leaching efficiency of copper, tellurium and selenium were 98.88±0.56% 98.96±0.78% and 98.57±0.67%, respectively, which agreed well with the predicted values.

Jan 1, 2014

By D. Bouchard, M. Forté, A. Charette

A transparent replica of a casting die was built to achieve a better understanding of the filling mechanisms of aluminum in high pressure die casting. Water and tomato paste were respectively used as analogues for the Newtonian liquid aluminum and the non-Newtonian semi-solid aluminum. The transparent die was installed on an industrial casting press and filling was filmed with a high-speed camera. Differences between the Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids are presented and discussed.

Jan 1, 2006

By O. W. Ellis

Introduction During the month of September, 1928 enough money had. been promised by private individuals and corporations to comply with the Research ?Foundation Act 1928 (Chapter 57, 18 George V) of the Province of Ontario. The Ontario Research Foundation (referred to below as O.R.F.) may be said to 1iave come into being at that time. Under the terms of this Act, the Treasurer of the Province was empowered to match dollar for dollar of the sums subscribed by private .corporations and individuals up to a limit of $1,000,000. However, the response to the appeal for this by the Premier of the Province, the Honourable Mr. G. Howard Ferg uson, was so exceptional that the Act was amended in 1929 so as to empower the Treasurer to increase the maximum contribution on the part of the Province to $2,500,000. In March, 1933, the Chairman of the Foundation, Sir Joseph Flaville, Bart., was able to report that, in the interval between the Premier's appeal and December 1st, 1932, private enterprise had paid ?into the treasury of the Foundation $1,670,050, and that the Provincial Treasurer had assumed responsibility for a like sum. The endownment Fund of the Foundation was, therefore. $3,340,100. This sum was ?invested a lm~ s t entirely in Government securities, in securities guar. anteed by the Government, and in 1mmicipal securities. Sir Joseph Flavelle remarked at that time that "The payment of $1,670,050 to the Endowment of the Foundation by private persons and corporations is a somewhat remarkable performance when it is remembered that for three of the five years the business of the country has been suffering from a severe depression". Since that time it has been the consistent policy of O.R.F. to live within the income derived (1) from the investment of its Endowment Fund and (2) from fees collected for services rendered.

Jan 1, 1950

By S. W. Marcuson, P. J. Mackey

The 1973 Oil Embargo and succeeding disruptions in supply had a profound effect on energy costs and consumption patterns in the developed world. This was especially true in the USA where post World War II growth, fueled by low-cost imported oil, left the country dependent on uninterrupted oil shipments from the volatile Middle East. In this atmosphere, Professor H.H. Kellogg of Columbia University, convinced of the necessity of good environmental stewardship by the writings of the era’s leading environmentalists, developed a methodology for evaluating energy and process efficiency of metallurgical processes and wrote a series of papers describing and applying the techniques. One of these, "Energy Use in Sulfide Smelting of Copper" is recognized as a seminal work which both described the state of energy usage in copper smelting in the mid-1970’s and portended future developments. The background to these papers is examined and the current and past Cu-Ni matte smelting practices in Canada are examined in the context of the results. Data from early 20th century publications describing reverberatory and blast furnace operation is employed to show that energy consumption for much of the century was several multiples higher than that calculated for best reverberatory operation in the 1970’s.

Jan 1, 2015

By Henri-Loui Jacob, Suzie Nantel

"Depuis la fin des annees 1800, la province de Grenville represente pour Ie Quebec une source importante et diversifiée de minéraux industriels. Le Ministère de l'Énergie et des Ressources du Québec, dans Ie cadre de I'entente auxiliaire Canada-Québec, et les compagnies minieres y ant multiplié, surtout depuis 1983, leurs travaux d 'exploration, de cartographie, et d'évaluation pour les minéraux industriels. Ces travaux ant conduit ala découverte et ala mise en valeur de gisements de granite architectural, de graphite, de dolomite et ant aussi permis de repertorier des gîtes et des indices prometteurs de wollastonite, de silice, de calcite. de dolomite, de silicates d'alumine et de terres rares. Les gisements récemment découverts sont actuellement exploités au sur Ie point de l'être et les gîtes et les indices les plus prometteurs ant été jalonnés.ABSTRACTSince the late 18oos, the Grenville Province in Québec has been an important and diversified source of industrial minerals. The Ministere de l'Énergie et des Ressources du Québec, under the Canada-Quebec Mineral Development Agreement, and the private sector have put an emphasis on exploration, mapping and evaluation programs in the Grenville Province for minerals, particularly since 1983. These programs have led to the discovery and the development of deposits such as architectural granite, graphite and dolomite, and have also led to inventories of occurrences and prospects of wollastonite, silica, calcite, dolomite, alumina silicates and rare earths. The deposits discovered lately are presently being quarried or will be in the near future. The most promising occurrences and prospects have been claimed."

Jan 1, 1990

By G. A. Van Wielingen

"The conditioning of natural gas to meet contract pipeline specifications involves in the majority of cases in Western Canada, the appropriation of substantial capital expenditures for treating and processing installations. It is therefore of vital importance to the owners and producers of natural gas to arrive at an appreciation of the economics pertaining to the production and surface handling of their gas reserves at the earliest possible stage of field development. The treating and processing of natural gas often results in considerable changes in composition and related physical characteristics between the wellhead and the point of delivery of the saleable gas. This paper presents a general outline of engineering calculations which can be applied in the pre-determination of the effects that surface handling of gas will have on the composition and physical characteristics of sale-able gas. Emphasis has been placed on the calculation of hydrocarbon dew-points, heating values and shrinkages prevailing at the various stages in the surface handling of natural gas. It is believed that advance information indicating the approximate ranges of these physical properties will facilitate process selection and will provide a basis for the estimation of capital and operating costs of process installations."

Jan 1, 1960

By G. Zeng

Although the solubility of oxygen in zinc electrolyte is less than 9 mg/L, the effect on deposit stability and zinc-dust consumption can be significant. Sodium sulfite is used to deoxygenate the electrolyte. The effect of the sodium-sulfite concentration on cobalt removal is investigated. The results show the reduction of sulfite to elemental sulfur that adhered to the zinc dust surface forming a passivating layer, and small amounts of sodium sulfite have no effect on cobalt removal. The optimum amount of sodium sulfite is 100 mg/L. It is an important consideration in purification circuits to use sodium sulfite as an additive to cobalt cementation.

Jan 1, 2005

By W. J. Pearson

"""POTASH"" is a term applied to the compounds of the element potassium (K) and when used in agriculture and industry is ex-pressed in terms of potassium oxide (K2O), regardless of the actual com-position of the compound. When a chemical analysis is made of a fertilizer, the amount of K is deter-mined and then calculated to the equivalent amount of K2O. However, the compound K2O does not exist in nature. Most of the world's potash supply is derived from mineral deposits similar to those in Saskatchewan and New Mexico. However, there is some production from concentrated surface brines such as occur in Searles Lake, California; Salduro Marsh, Utah; the Dead Sea; and from well brines in Micl1igan."

Jan 1, 1960

By Donald F. MacDonald

METAL PRICES RISE WITHIN the past nine months, the mining industry of the world has been revivified by a spectacular price advance for the metals. ln fact, practically all geological raw materials have been marked up during this period. Reviving industry started the price rise, but the armaments race among the nations has intensified it. These factors, coupled with our decided building shortage, which must be made up, will probably maintain metal prices at decidedly favourable levels over the next two or three years, or longer. OUR MINERAL CIVILIZATION It is interesting to recall that in the past hundred years, while the white population of the world increased some three ta three and a half fold, the consumption of minerals increased seventy-five fold. In other words, ours is a mineral civilization. If we disregard short slumps, which we will occasionally experience, it seems certain that the bread upward trend in mineral consumption will be maintained for many decades into the future. Nations without reasonably abundant and diverse mineral deposits will eventually become nations without much power. Canada is blessed with a splendid store of minerals. Its mineral industry is now facing an exceptionally rosy future. What of the mineral industry of Nova Scotia? GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH ALLOWED TO LAG RN NOVA SCONA Many years ago, when geological science was in? its infancy, much geological study was carried on in Nova Scotia. In 1827, Francis Alger began work on the iron ores in the Bay of Fundy region. In 1886, E. R. Faribault began his series of remarkable papers on Nova Scotia geology. Between these dates, many others published papers on the geology of the Province. The most outstanding of this early group of geologists was Sir William Dawson, whose published works on Nova Scotian geology extended over the period from 1845 to 1891.

Jan 1, 1937

By Nathaniel S. Scott

Caland Ore Company Limited, a subsidiary of Inland Steel Company of Chicago, Illinois, leased an iron ore deposit from Steep Rock Iron Mines Limited on January 1, 1953.. This deposit lay underneath a lake and was covered with 161,000,000 cubic yards of Jake bottom material, mainly silt. Removal of this material was done on a contract dredging basis. This contract was divided into a plant phase and an operating phase. The plant phase consisted of supplying two cutter-type suction dredges, each with two booster pumps in the discharge lines. All six pumps were centrifugal, had 36" discharges and were powered by 10,000 horsepower electric motors. Peak demand was 59,157 kilowatts. One hundred and forty miles of steel tower line were built to bring power to the site. The balance of the plant consisted of tugs, 12 miles of discharge line, varying from 36" diameter to 42" diameter and attendant land-based equipment. A number of interesting dams were constructed

Jan 1, 1961

By Geo. E. Cole

A GREAT deal of time and energy is now being devoted to the study of post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation, in spite of the fact that as yet we have not won the war in which we are presently engaged. If you feel that the study of post-war problems takes our thought away from the problem immediately before us, you may well query, "Well! What has all that to do with winning the war, our most urgent problem today?" The answer has been given by Principal James of McGill University, Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Reconstruction: "Reconstruction is something which must be thought of in advance, partly for the purpose of recognizing exactly the influence of war-time activities, controls, and regulations on the post-war Canadian scene. Many people are acutely interested in this great problem. It is not that they are not interested in the war itself, or epochal events that are taking place from day to day. They have a vision of that future which they hope will be Canada's, and this vision inspires them to even greater efforts at the present time". The trend of events would indicate that changes, economic and industrial, after this war will be greatly out of line with those that followed previous wars in history, for the present struggle has involved every nation in the world. In the peace that will come, every engineer will have a task in bringing the most desirable order out of the most distressing chaos. We certainly are living in a changing world; we are witnessing geo-graphical and economic readjustments that no other generation in world's history has ever witnessed. And there is an opinion gaining strength in our Dominion, as in other lands, that after this war we shall live in a world in which our process of thinking and our very way of life will have to undergo drastic changes to cope with the new order of things. Sadly our world of today has had to revise the sublime vision that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, while salvage operations continue to beat ploughshares into tanks and the peaceful pruning-hook into a weapon for the deviltry of the commando.

Jan 1, 1943

By C. Gerow

THIS paper is entitled "Some" problems, rather than "The" problems, met in selling coal, since the problems to be met in selling any commodity have to deal with an infinite number of circumstances and conditions. These are believed to be more varied in the case of coal than probably any other commodity. This is due, perhaps, to the fact that coal has been one of the basic materials in the guiding of industrial and national achievement for the past two hundred years. During this time its use has developed from a most haphazard one to uses involving all modern scientific methods, which, rather than simplifying matters as regards the marketing of coal, have added many fresh problems, and these vary according to the particular market served. Since the concern of this paper is primarily the selling of Nova Scotia coal, it is proposed to deal chiefly with some of the specific conditions met in the markets presently served by this coal. For the purpose of discussion, these markets may be considered as divided into three main groups, namely, the Maritime market, the Quebec market, and the Ontario market. THE MARITIME MARKET First of all, let us consider the Maritime market. This is a market which has been regularly served by Nova Scotia coal since coal mining became the first industry in Cape Breton, slightly over one hundred years ago. Conditions as applying to the use of coal have naturally tended to adjust themselves to the characteristics of the coal most readily available, and, therefore, marketing problems are fewer in the Maritimes than in districts where many coals of varied characteristics are offered. Up to recent years, the problems involved were chiefly those of providing satisfactory service insofar as de-liveries were concerned. However, with the speeding-up of manufacturing processes and the necessity of reducing costs to a minimum, users of coal have become interested in obtaining coal that will give the most economical service. It is, therefore, now of importance that the salesman should have full knowledge of the particular conditions applicable to each customer's use in order to deal to the best advantage.

Jan 1, 1936

By V. Labiouse, M. Souley, N. Lafrance, C. Auvray

"Chalk rocks have been used for centuries as a strong building material and for the production of lime. The shallow underground room-and-pillar quarries where the chalk was extracted are now abandoned and endure the effects of time and weathering, increasing their risk of collapse. The risk of instability, involving natural or anthropic underground structures, is an issue for more than 10 000 towns in France.In order to investigate the causes of underground quarry collapse and to aid prevention strategies, we carried out a study of the physico-mechanical behaviour and ageing of chalk in abandoned pillars in two underground quarries, in situ-instrumented by INERIS, in the Parisian Basin, France. Core samples were drilled horizontally from pillars in the Saint-Martin-Le-Noeud dolomitic chalk quarry (Oise, France) and the Estreux glauconitic chalk quarry (Nord, France).Uniaxial tests were performed on dry and saturated cylindrical plug samples extracted perpendicular to the cores at regular distances along their lengths. Physical and mechanical properties were obtained. The dolomitic chalk (Saint-Martin-Le-Noeud) exhibits variation in mechanical and physical properties with horizontal pillar depth. Both density and compressive strength seem to increase outwards from the pillar-core to the pillar-wall. This is the opposite of that would be expected from a purely mechanical point of view. SEM analysis revealed progressive degradation and homogeneity of the grains from the edge to the inside of the pillar. At the pillar wall, the crystal faces are well-defined, almost euhedral, and the grains are of variable size. In contrast, at the inside of the pillar, crystals are finer-grained and are anhedral with highly degraded edges. In the physico-mechanical tests and SEM analyses performed on the Estreux samples, no significant variation was observed between the pillar-walls and pillar-core. However, dissolution marks were observed along the entire length of the half-pillar core."

Jan 1, 2015

By E. Asselin, P. Sauve, H. Salomon-de-Friedberg

"Residues from the CESL Copper process were leached using the CESL Gold process. The kinetics of reaction were confirmed to be fast with over 50% of the gold consistently extracted within 2 minutes of leaching. Final gold extractions under the conditions tested here were between 80-90% obtained within 90 minutes. A model for the CESL Gold process was developed. This model is slightly different based on whether the copper concentrate leach residue was ground or unground prior to leaching: the gold leaching rate constant is approximately twice as fast for the ground samples. Unground residues had a P80 of 13 ?m whereas ground residues had a P80 of 10 ?m. The model predicts a 43% decrease in leaching time for ground residue versus unground residue to achieve the same extraction under otherwise identical conditions. The model was more accurate for the ground samples. INTRODUCTIONTeck's CESL Process (Jones, 1996) was developed to provide an economically attractive alternative to traditional copper smelting. It has since evolved to also deal with copper concentrates containing valuable impurities such as nickel and undesirable ones, such as arsenic, while reducing downstream costs. Effective recovery of gold and silver is essential to the economics of the CESL Process. The Brook Hunt 2007 copper concentrate assay data (Wood-Mackenzie, 2007) were examined to determine the ratio of gold plus silver value relative to the contained copper. As indicated in Figure 1 below, nearly two-thirds of concentrates have 10% or more of their total value tied up in their precious metals content.CESL has extensively examined the recovery of gold and silver at bench, pilot and demonstration scale, which has culminated in the present CESL Gold Process (Barr et al., 2007). The process targets the precious metal contained in the leach residues produced in the copper portion of the flowsheet. This residue has two primary components which influence downstream processing. The major iron-rich fraction (-75 wt%) of the residue is a mixture of various forms of iron oxide precipitates including hematite and jarosite (Sahu and Asselin, 2011). The iron fraction ranges from amorphous to crystalline in nature depending on the compound precipitated, upstream operating conditions and feed material composition. The lesser, but by no means less important, fraction is a mixture of elemental sulphur and unreacted sulphides (principally pyrite).Elemental sulphur formed during the oxidative leach of the copper concentrate reacts with cyanide to form thiocyanate (SCN-) making a traditional cyanide leach approach too costly. Since the SCN formation reaction strongly depends on contact time with the CESL residues (Po, 2007) short contact times were preferred. This factor guided the development work towards the eventual room temperature, pressure cyanidation process which results in near complete gold dissolution in 90 minutes. A recent CESL gold demonstration campaign treating 1.5 t/d of residue from the copper oxidation step achieved an average gold extraction of 91% (96% maximum)."

Jan 1, 2012

By W. A. Gow, V. F. Harrison, H. H. Mccreedy

A semi-continuous bench-scale, countercurrent-decantation system, in which the ore was moved countercurrently to the flow of leaching solution, was used to conduct acid-leaching tests on uranium ore with the aid of bacteria. This method, which involved a low degree of agitation, was successfully applied to extract uranium in practical amounts and at practical rates. The acidity of the leaching solution was the main variable investigated in the bench-scale tests done at the Mines Branch, Ottawa. Over 90 11er cent of the uranium was extracted in a six-stage system. The results suggest that this technique could be ap-plied in the utilization of bacterial oxidation and leaching as a method for treating Elliot Lake uranium ore.

Jan 1, 1969