Engineering Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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.

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 …

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) …

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.

Sulphur Dioxide As A Volcanic Ash Proxy During The April-May 2010 Eruption Of Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, Iceland, H. E. Thomas, A. J. Prata

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The volcanic ash cloud from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April and May 2010 resulted in unprecedented disruption to air traffic in Western Europe causing significant financial losses and highlighting the importance of efficient volcanic cloud monitoring. The feasibility of using SO2 as a tracer for the ash released during the eruption is investigated here through comparison of ash retrievals from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) with SO2 measurements from a number of infrared and ultraviolet satellite-based sensors. Results demonstrate that the eruption can be divided into an initial ash-rich phase, a lower intensity middle phase …

Electric Breakdown Of Longitudinally Shocked Pb(Zr₀.₅₂Ti₀.₄₈)O₃ Ceramics, S. I. Shkuratov, E. F. Talantsev, Jason Baird

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Electric breakdown of longitudinally-shock-compressed Pb(Zr₀.₅₂Ti₀.₄₈)O₃ (PZT 52/48) ferroelectric ceramics was experimentally investigated. It was found that a dependence of breakdown field strength, E_g, of shocked ferroelectrics on the thickness of the element, d, ranging from 0.65 to 6.5 mm is described by the E_g (d) = γ  · d^-w law that describes the breakdown of dielectrics at ambient conditions. It follows from the experimental results that the tunnel effect is a dominant mechanism of injection of prime electrons in the shocked ferroelectric elements. It was demonstrated that electric breakdown causes significant energy losses in miniature autonomous …

Impacts Of Future Climate Change And Effects Of Biogenic Emissions On Surface Ozone And Particulate Matter Concentrations In The United States, Y. F. Lam, J. S. Fu, S. Wu, L. J. Mickley

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Simulations of present and future average regional ozone and PM 2.5 concentrations over the United States were performed to investigate the potential impacts of global climate change and emissions on regional air quality using CMAQ. Various emissions and climate conditions with different biogenic emissions and domain resolutions were implemented to study the sensitivity of future air quality trends from the impacts of changing biogenic emissions. A comparison of GEOS-Chem and CMAQ was performed to investigate the effect of downscaling on the prediction of future air quality trends. For ozone, the impacts of global climate change are relatively smaller when compared …

Determination Of Time-And Height-Resolved Volcanic Ash Emissions And Their Use For Quantitative Ash Dispersion Modeling: The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull Eruption, A. Stohl, A. J. Prata, S. Eckhardt, L. Clarisse, A. Durant, S. Henne, N. I. Kristiansen, A. Minikin, U. Schumann, P. Seibert, K. Stebel, H. E. Thomas, T. Thorsteinsson, K. Tørseth, B. Weinzierl

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Aprilg-May, 2010 volcanic eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland caused significant economic and social disruption in Europe whilst state of the art measurements and ash dispersion forecasts were heavily criticized by the aviation industry. Here we demonstrate for the first time that large improvements can be made in quantitative predictions of the fate of volcanic ash emissions, by using an inversion scheme that couples a priori source information and the output of a Lagrangian dispersion model with satellite data to estimate the volcanic ash source strength as a function of altitude and time. From the inversion, we obtain a total fine …

The Depolarization Of Pb(Zr0.52ti0.48)O₃ Ferroelectrics By Cylindrical Radially Expanding Shock Waves And Its Utilization For Miniature Pulsed Power, S. I. Shkuratov, Jason Baird, E. F. Talantsev

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The effects of depolarization of Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃ (PZT 52/48) poled ferroelectrics by cylindrical radially expanding shock waves propagated along and across the polarization vector P₀ were experimentally detected. Miniature (total volume 100 cm³) autonomous generators based on these effects were capable of producing output voltage pulses with amplitudes up to 25 kV and output energies exceeding 1 J.

Development Of A Waterjet System For Direct Delivery Of Granular Iron And Activated Carbon To Remediate Contaminated Aqueous Sediments, Gavin H.R. Risley, Andrew Curtis Elmore, Joel Gerard Burken, Grzegorz (Greg) Galecki

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

While the Techniques and Technologies Associated with Contaminated Sediment Remediation Are Relatively Mature, There Are Several Issues Associated with These Practices that Make Them Unattractive. the Inability of Currently Used Mechanical Mixing Implements to Place Amendments in Aqueous Environments and their Intrusive Behavior toward Benthic Communities Are Just Two Examples of a Necessity for an Improved Delivery Method. Waterjets May Be a Viable Option for Placement of Particulate Remediation Amendments, Such as Activated Carbon and Granular Iron, at Depth. a Custom Waterjet Nozzle and Injection System Has Been Fabricated by the Authors to Examine This Delivery Concept. the Developed Injection …

Command And Control For Boring System, W. A. Berger, J. A. Carter, Marian Mazurkiewicz, R. M. Pell, R. A. Spalletta

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A system having a number of land units [100, 4000, 5000] is disclosed which operates to efficiently find and create boreholes [5] to one or more underground targets [1]. Each of the land units [100, 4000, 5000] may be remotely controlled from a central command unit [6000]. The land unit also may be self-controlled, or partially controlled by the central command unit [6000]. The system [10] is reconfigurable to reallocate tasks to functional land units [100, 4000, 5000] which were originally allocated to land units which have been destroyed and are now non-functional.

Virtual Prototype Modeling And Simulation Of Pipe Wagon Articulating System, Y. Li, Samuel Frimpong, W. Y. Liu

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Virtual prototype of pipe wagon articulating (PWA) system has been developed and simulated based on the kinematics and dynamics of machinery and Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) software. It has been integrated with real-time three dimensional (3-D) system simulations for detailed and responsive interaction with dynamic virtual environments. By using this virtual model, the conceptual design examination and performance analysis of the PWA system have been realized dynamically in virtual laboratory. System dynamic force, displacement and tension of pipe have been measured through verifying this 3- D virtual prototype. By comparing the static tension and dynamic tension of …

Addressing The Dual Challenges Of Meeting Demand For Minerals And Sustainable Development, R. Larry Grayson

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In recent decades, excellent progress has been made globally in finding mineral resources, extracting them efficiently and effectively, dramatically reducing environmental degradation, and preventing adverse health and safety impacts on workers and stakeholders. The industry has realized tremendous advances in technology and applied science; has met changing and more stringent environmental performance criteria; has made remarkable reductions in fatality, illness, and lost-time accident rates; and has connected better than ever before with the communities in which mining, milling, and smelting are housed. A new era focused on continuous improvement in tackling key sustainable development parameters has come and is intensifying …

Efficient Cable Shovel Excavation In Surface Mines, Kwame Awuah-Offei, Samuel Frimpong

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The cable shovel is widely used in surface mining. High operating and ownership costs necessitate efficient use of the cable shovel. Operator practices have long been suspected to contribute towards the inefficient use of the shovel. Crowd arm and hoist rope speeds are key measures of operator practices. the objective of this work is to find the crowd arm and hoist rope speeds for optimal shovel performance for given initial conditions and material properties. Shovel kinematics and dynamic modeling, using shovel geometry and the simultaneous constraint method, respectively, have been employed to build models of the excavation process. Dynamic models …

The Effects Select Physical Parameters Have On An Explosively Formed Projectile's Performance, Phillip R. Mulligan

Masters Theses

"Identifying how changes in the physical parameters of an Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP) affect its performance is crucial in determining what physical parameters could be changed to achieve a desired performance. This research analyzes five of the physical parameters of an EFP, similar to an Iranian design (Worsey, 2009), and the effects on performance. The five physical parameters selected for this research were charge weight, confining geometry, flyer thickness, flyer curvature, and explosives-type. Eighteen different EFP designs were used to test the penetration, measured velocity, production of a dominant projectile, and kinetic energy of these five physical parameters. Of the …

Impact Effects Of Explosively Formed Projectiles On Normal And High Strength Concrete, Laurin Ashley Bookout

Masters Theses

"The ability to quickly estimate the damage that a projectile will do to a structure is highly desired for structures that will be required to resist threats of this nature. There are several formulas for concrete penetration due to projectile impact that are based on empirical data. However, there is a lack of publicly available data for projectile impacts with striking velocities that exceed 1 km/s and have weights greater than a few grams. This research is intended to expand the available data on explosively formed projectile impacts and determine which, if any, of the existing equations can be used …

Characterizing Formation Dredgeability For Clamshell Dredge, Bismark Osei

Masters Theses

"The lack of metrics to assess clamshell dredge formation dredgeability limits the ability of engineers to predict the dredgeability of compact material and increases the risks associated with clamshell selection. Research is, therefore, necessary to increase our understanding of clamshell dredgeability assessment by evaluating possible metrics that will allow the operator to select the optimal clamshell for the operation. Work done and motor energy are possible dredgeability metrics that can be estimated using micro-processor based machine monitoring. The objective of this work is to test the hypotheses that: (i) work done by the pistons during dredging, by a hydraulically actuated …