Blogs
Silicates
The Silicates are in part strictly anhydrous, in part hydrous, as the zeolites and the amorphous clays, etc. Furthermore, a large number of the silicates yield more or less water upon ignition, and in many cases it is known that they are, therefore, to be regarded as basic (or acid) silicates. The line, however, between the strictly anhydrous and hydrous
Fire Assay
Table of ContentsHOW TO USE FIRE ASSAY AND INSTRUMENTAL TECHNIQUESAtomic Absorption AAInduction Coupled Plasma/Atomic Emission SpectroscopyEmission SpectroscopyPROTECTION FROM LEAD INGESTION Fire Assay is the most common technique for analyzing precious metals was developed and refined almost to perfection before the 15th century (5). Government, mining and smelting companies, private analytical laboratories, universities, and geochemical exploration companies depend on fire assay
Difference Between Specific Gravity and Relative Density
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt_EltYbByo
Borates
The aluminates, ferrates, etc., allied chemically to the borates, have been already introduced among the oxides. They include the species of the Spinel Group.
Fire Assay Furnaces and Furnace Equipment
Table of ContentsCoal, Coke and Oil FurnacesGasoline Fired FurnacesGas FurnacesFURNACE TOOLSMoldsCRUCIBLES AND SCORIFIERS The furnaces used in assaying are many in design, varying mainly with the kind of fuel used. The furnaces are classified as follows: (1) Pot furnaces, in which the assay is in direct contact with the fuel; (2) Muffle-furnaces, in which a muffle or receptacle containing the assay
Volumetric Determination of Lead
Some assayers check their fire-assays of lead by a wet method. For the convenience of those who desire a rapid method to check their fire-assays, the ammonium molybdate method is here given. This method is based upon the fact that ammonium molybdate, when added to a hot solution of lead acetate, will give a precipitate of molybdate of lead (PbMoO4),
Vibrating Feeders
Table of ContentsElectric Vibrating FeederVibrating Feeder CapacityElectric Vibratory Feeder Capacity Formula Electric Vibrating Feeder The Electric Vibratory Feeder is a vibrator that provides an extremely efficient, simple and economical solution to the problem of making the most stubborn material flow freely. No longer need there be a sticking together of wet ore in the ore bin, or the arching over and
Underground Mine Closure
As with ore mining operations it is necessary to leave an underground mine in a socially responsible state when mining ceases because underground mining has a smaller foot print in surface mining this is generally a less onerous task. However, there are still a number of important issues that must be dealt with and some of these are specific to
Underground Mine Water Management & Mine Roof Support
In addition to the operational issues of dust control, confined spaces electrical dangers and poor visibility that we’ve discussed in the previous topic there are two other dangers that are every present in underground environments. These are risks due to rock fall and due to water in flow. In this topic, we’ll have a look at how these are managed,
Underground Mine Safety
Underground mines are inherently dangerous environments considering both illness and accidents there are around one million work related deaths around the world every year. The mining industry takes safety very seriously with an aspiration goal of zero fatalities. The safety of workers must always be of primary importance in any mining activity. Hazards in underground mining can be effectively managed
Underground Mining
In this module, I’ll take you through the key aspects related to underground mining activities. In this module, we will look at economic considerations in regard to underground mining, geological conditions suited to underground mining, the different operational and technical approaches using underground mining and important operational considerations including roof support, ventilation, safety, water management and post mining issues such
Safety in Open Pit Mining
Welcome back to the surface mining model. In the previous topic, we learned about different types of surface mining operations, about equipment, about different methods that are commonly used to extract coal or different ore deposits. It’s not difficult to understand that mining is one of the most dangerous working environments in the world and in this topic, we will
Mining Excavation Methods
In the previous topic, we saw that blasting is the mining operation used to break the rock mass in order to facilitate the removal of the overburden. We saw that some of the main equipment used to remove the overburden are truck lines, trucking shovels, excavators. In this topic, we will look at some of the characteristics of these excavation
Open Pit Mining Operations
The previous topic has established that surface mining operations include several main activities that include the ore extraction or mine of the material, the overburden excavation and removal, the overburden transport, the waste disposal, the low grade material pile and transport for future treatments or separated process. The ore extraction and the material handling process were covered in module one.
Open Pit Slope Design & Stability
In the concept of mining a deposit, mining operations should be planned and organized in order to maximize the productivity. Slope stability issues directly affect the productivity. It’s for these reasons that they need to be addressed with theoretical and technical expertise. And the realization of a surface mine, 3 fundamental processes should be taken into account. The first one
Surface Open-pit Mining
First of all let’s define what we mean with surface mining. Surface mining means the extraction of mineral deposits or coal reserves or stones of different kinds that are outcropping the earth’s surface or located at shallow depth from it. The economic depth for surface mining can range from 100 metres to 1 kilometre and over. The surface mining can
Types of Rock Failure
Rock mass failure does not always involves discontinuities. There are cases, especially for excavations, like the tunnel you see on this photo where the stress simply exceeds the strength of the rock metrics, and, hence, this later can fail. We have seen, in a previous topic, that creating an opening in a rock mass modifies the stress distribution in the
Rock Joint Failure
In previous topics, we have seen that discontinuities constitutes as a weakness in the rock mass. In fact, failure of a slope, for example, is often triggered by the failure of discontinuities in triggering block instability. These can occur on natural or man-made slopes. This figure illustrates two possible failure scenarios involving failure of discontinuities. On the left, failure occurs
Ground Rock Stress Distribution
In previous topics, we’ve discussed strengths of materials because failure typically occurs when stresses exceed the strengths, it is important to know the stress distribution in a ground close to an opening, for example. This will be the topic of this module, but first, let’s consider vertical stress. To some extent, this represents at a certain point in the ground
Rock Mass Classification – Rock Mass System
For most rock engineering projects, it is required to characterise not only the intact rock, but also the rock mass as a whole, and this in terms of strength and deformability. Indeed we said, in a previous topic, that the presence of discontinuities tend to confer to the rock mass lower strengths and higher deformability. However you can imagine that
Rock Discontinuities Characterisation
Table of ContentsThe first one is the orientationThe second parameter we’re interested in is the spacingThe 3rd parameter is the continuityThe fourth parameter is roughnessThe fifth parameter is the wall strengthThe sixth parameter is the apertureThe seventh parameter is the fillingThe eighth parameter is the seepage We have seen in the previous topics that discontinuities are critical for the behavior