Mining Engineering Commons^™

Impacts Of Changes In Land Use And Land Cover On Atmospheric Chemistry And Air Quality Over The 21st Century, S. Wu, L. J. Mickley, J. O. Kaplan, D. J. Jacob

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The effects of future land use and land cover change on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and air quality are largely unknown. To investigate the potential effects associated with future changes in vegetation driven by atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, climate, and anthropogenic land use over the 21st century, we performed a series of model experiments combining a general circulation model with a dynamic global vegetation model and an atmospheric chemical-transport model. Our results indicate that climate-and CO 2-induced changes in vegetation composition and density between 2100 and 2000 could lead to decreases in summer afternoon surface ozone of up …

The Simulation Of Material Types In A Western Australian Iron Deposit, Jacqueline Ferreira

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Geostatistical methods are currently used by mining companies to determine a resource model of the tonnage and head grade that may be obtained from a potential orebody, making it one of the first and most vital operational stages in any mining project. Currently long term mine planning is based on the estimated head grades model, which provides vital information on the quality of the ore. The risks associated with mining a particular ore may be reduced if geometallurgical information, such as material types, is incorporated into the operational flow model. Material type proportions are obtained from evaluated reverse circulation (RC) …

Collectors For Enabling Flotation Of Oxidized Coal, Raghav M. Dube

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

The coalburg seam coal is an example of difficult to float bituminous coal. Laboratory tests conducted on coalburg flotation feed sample revealed recovery values around 28% with 15% product ash when using fuel oil as collector under natural pH conditions. A detailed study showed that increasing pH from natural value of 5.6 to 7.5 provided a significant improvement in recovery of approximately 32 absolute percentage points. The improvement is believed to be result of the release of humic acids from the surface and the dispersion of clay particles thereby leaving a more hydrophobic surface.

Based on the tests conducted with …

Effects Of Coal Comminution In Relation To Waterjet And Selected Feed Properties, Yaqing Li

Masters Theses

"The necessity to develop a viable alternative to oil means that the development of coal-water fuels (CWF) has become increasingly important. However, the existing methods of comminution to prepare ultrafine particles for CWF are very inefficient. Consequently, a number of novel methods of comminution have been investigated in order to increase the efficiency of the process.

In this research, a new method of comminution using a high-pressure waterjet has been tested to produce ultrafine particle sizes necessary for efficient CWF process. To establish the fundamental performance of the waterjet mill, the influence of the operational pressure, standoff distance, feed size, …

The Effects Of Water On Sympathetic Detonation And Dead Pressing Of Dynamite And Emulsions, Adam Michael Doerfler

Masters Theses

Dynamite and emulsions are very effective explosives in blasting; however they do have some shortcomings. Dynamite is prone to sympathetic detonation whereas emulsions are prone to dead pressing. While this does not happen all the time, the conditions in which the explosives are used do have an effect on whether or not they will sympathetically detonate or dead press.

Numerous researchers have investigated sympathetic detonation for a relationship between the distance between charges, hole separation distance, and size of explosive. This research aimed to look at how hole separation distance was affected when water was introduced into the boreholes for …

Automated System To Improve Levelness Of Reconstructed Soil, Venkata Srikiran Bodapati, Larry G. Wells

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Extraction of coal, ores, and minerals from the earth by surface mining has occurred for many years and has always presented a significant challenge with regard to restoration of productive soil to mined areas. Federal and state regulations require that land should be returned to pre-mine productivity or reclaimed as per specific standards following mining. Excessive compaction of reconstructed soil caused by traffic of heavy earth moving equipment has been an enduring challenge regarding successful restoration of soil. A mechanical system was previously designed and developed to reconstruct soil to a depth of 1.22 m (48 in.) while completely avoiding …

Development Of Strategies To Minimize The Release Of Trace Elements From Coal Waste Sources, Mohammad Rezaee

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

To assess strategies aimed at minimizing the release of trace elements and the impact of disposal of coal waste materials on the environment, two long-term leaching experiments of up to five months duration were performed using waste materials from two plants cleaning high and low sulfur bituminous coal. The tests evaluated the mobility of major trace elements under different disposal scenarios: (i) a static leaching test designed to simulate the quiescent conditions encountered by coal waste material stored under water in a stable impoundment, and (ii) a dynamic test to simulate waste materials exposed to the atmosphere, either in variable …

3d Finite Element Analysis Of Pwa-Oil Sand Terrain System Interaction, Y. Li, Samuel Frimpong, W. Y. Liu

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A simulator for analyzing the interaction between the oil sand terrain and a pipe wagon articulating (PWA) system has been developed in this paper. An elastic-plastic oil sand model was built based on the finite element analysis (FEA) method and von Mises yield criterion using the Algor mechanical event simulation (MES) software. The three-dimensional (3D) distribution of the stress, strain, nodal displacement, and deformed shape of the oil sands was animated at an environmental temperature of 25C. The 3D behavior of the oil sand terrain was investigated with different loading conditions. The effect of the load and contact area on …

Selecting An Electrical Power Source At The Scoping Level For A Mining Project, Christopher Dawson Van Arsdale

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The electrical power source is a critical component of the scoping level study as the source affects both the project economics and timeline. This paper proposes a systematic approach to selecting an electrical power source for a new mine. Orvana Minerals Copperwood project is used as a case study. The Copperwood results show that the proposed scoping level approach is consistent with the subsequent much more detailed feasibility study.

Calling For Justice In The Goldfields Of Tanzania, Madoshi H. Makene, Jody Emel, James T. Murphy

Geography

Tanzania is the third largest gold exporter in Africa, thanks in part to the liberalization of the mining sector which started in the early 1990s. Neoliberal mining reforms promised a win-win situation in which government, investors and local host communities would benefit through export earnings, profits, local employment, andcorporate social responsibility initiatives (e.g., the building of schools and clinics). While the rising price of gold and foreign investments in mining activities have delivered on some of these promises, many residents in mining regions have not benefited socioeconomically. Worse still, their communities have unjustly borne the brunt of the environmental, social, …

Fractal Oxidation Kinetics And Risk Evaluation Of Spontaneous Combustion In Coal Mines, Yutao Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"The spontaneous combustion of coal occurs when air supply is sufficient for the oxidation of coal and air velocity is insufficient for the dissipation of generated heat. Spontaneous combustion, if not eradicated immediately, may lead to coal ignition and even a full-blown fire. The fire may engulf a large area and spread further if they are not immediately attended to. This will not only endanger miners and mining operations, but also result in possible mine closures and even fatalities.

Porous structure has a significant effect on coal adsorption and spontaneous combustion. In this research, fractal theory was utilized to quantitatively …

Underground Mine Fire Simulation Using Multiscale Modeling Approach, Xichen Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Underground mine fires have always been a major concern. Past events show that fire poses a severe safety hazard to mine workers, and causes tremendous economic loss to the mine and surrounding communities. A good understanding of the interaction between a mine fire and the mine ventilation network is crucial for effective fire emergency planning and hazard control. Unfortunately our understanding of a fire is still limited due to the complex nature of mine fires and a lack of adequate resource for studying them.

A new multiscale modeling approach coupling conventional 1D and 3D techniques has shown to be a …

Finite Element Analysis Of Blade-Formation Interactions In Excavation, Osei Brown

Masters Theses

"The efficiency and costs of mining operations greatly depend on the efficient design and use of excavators. The performance of these capital-intensive excavators requires thorough understanding of the physical and design factors that affect the formation-cutting tool interaction process. The current body of knowledge, based on experimental and analytical methods, provides limited understanding of these factors, which limits the accurate design and performance of excavators. The soil constitutive equations used in most of the available finite element (FE) models also fail to adequately capture the elastic and plastic behaviors of soil formations. This research initiative uses FE techniques to model …

Geostatistical Methods For Estimating Iron, Silica And Alumina Grades Within The Hardcap Of The Section Seven Iron Deposit, Tom Price, Philip John Savory

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many iron ore deposits have a weathered zone (Hardcap) near the surface which is highly variable in grades. Estimating the amount of ore grade material (HG) in this zone is difficult as a result of this variability. The Section Seven Deposit at Tom Price is largely mined out and has production data available in the form of grade blocks that were marked out during mining as HG and non- HG. Hardcap domains and a block model representing them were created and estimates were made from original exploration data using Ordinary Kriging, Global Change of Support, Indicator Kriging and Median Indicator …

The Psychological Wellbeing Of Women Operating Mining Machinery In A Fly-In Fly-Out Capacity, Anne Bailey-Kruger

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The present study aimed to address the gap in the current mining research by investigating women’s experiences of working in the mining industry in a “bluecollar” work role and the impact of fly-in fly-out (FIFO) mining on their wellbeing. An Interpretative Phenomenological Approach (IPA) was used as a framework to explore the experiences of 19 female machine operators through in-depth interviewing at one mineral mine site in Queensland, Australia. IPA analysis revealed three themes as identified by the participants. The first theme described how workplace barriers to job progression were salient issues for the women, particularly in respect to discrimination …

Shock-Tunnel Waveform Analysis, Dave Mclane, John Rathbun

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

A Reversibility Analysis Of Encoding Methods For Spiking Neural Networks, Catherine Johnson, S. Roychowdhury, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

There is much excitement surrounding the idea of using spiking neural networks (SNNs) as the next generation of function-approximating neural networks. However, with the unique mechanism of communication (neural spikes) between neurons comes the challenge of transferring real-world data into the network to process. Many different encoding methods have been developed for SNNs, most temporal and some spatial. This paper analyzes three of them (Poisson rate encoding, Gaussian receptor fields, and a dual-neuron n-bit representation) and tests to see if the information is fully transformed into the spiking patterns. an oft-neglected consideration in encoding for SNNs is whether or not …

Ethane, Ethyne And Carbon Monoxide Concentrations In The Upper Troposphere And Lower Stratosphere From Ace And Geos-Chem: A Comparison Study, G. González Abad, N. D.C. Allen, P. F. Bernath, C. D. Boone, S. D. Mcleod, G. L. Manney, G. C. Toon, C. Carouge, Y. Wang, Shiliang Wu, X

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Near global upper tropospheric concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO), ethane (C2H6) and ethyne (C2H2) from ACE (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment) Fourier transform spectrometer on board the Canadian satellite SCISAT-1 are presented and compared with the output from the Chemical Transport Model (CTM) GEOS-Chem. The retrievals of ethane and ethyne from ACE have been improved for this paper by using new sets of microwindows compared with those for previous versions of ACE data. With the improved ethyne retrieval we have been able to produce a near global upper tropospheric distribution of C2H2 from space. Carbon monoxide, ethane and ethyne concentrations retrieved using …

Opportunistic Validation Of Sulfur Dioxide In The Sarychev Peak Volcanic Eruption Cloud, S. Carn, T. M. Lopez

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

We report attempted validation of Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) sulfur dioxide (SO 2) retrievals in the stratospheric volcanic cloud from Sarychev Peak (Kurile Islands) in June 2009, through opportunistic deployment of a ground-based ultraviolet (UV) spectrometer (FLYSPEC) as the volcanic cloud drifted over central Alaska. The volcanic cloud altitude (∼12-14 km) was constrained using coincident CALIPSO lidar observations. By invoking some assumptions about the spatial distribution of SO 2, we derive averages of FLYSPEC vertical SO 2 columns for comparison with OMI SO 2 measurements. Despite limited data, we find minimum OMI-FLYSPEC differences within measurement uncertainties, which support the validity …

Note: Miniature 120-Kv Autonomous Generator Based On Transverse Shock-Wave Depolarization Of Pb(Zr0.52ti0.48)O₃ Ferroelectrics, S. I. Shkuratov, Jason Baird, E. F. Talantsev

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The design of autonomous ultrahigh-voltage generators with no moving metallic parts based on transverse explosive shock wave depolarization of Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃ (PZT 5248) poled ferroelectrics was explored and studied. It follows from experimental results that the output voltage produced by the shock-wave ferroelectric generators (FEGs) is directly proportional to the number of PZT 5248 elements connected in series. It was demonstrated that miniature FEGs (volume less than 180 cm³) were capable of reliably producing output voltage pulses with amplitudes exceeding 120 kV which is the record reported in open literature.