International Journal of Mining & Geo-Engineering
Volume:50 Issue: 2, Summer and Autumn 2016

In this research work, the dissolution of chalcopyrite was investigated under atmospheric pressure, with sulfate media at low temperatures, in 30°C to 50°C. In the galvanic interaction between chalcopyrite and pyrite, pyrite is used as a leaching catalyst. Effects of different parameters such as temperature, stirring speed, pyrite to chalcopyrite ratio, particle size, and solution potential were examined. Results showed that maximum copper recovery in low temperature was achieved after 24 hours, under the following condition: stirring speed of 800 rpm, pyrite to chalcopyrite ratio 4, solution potential 440 mV, temperature 50°C, and particle size of -38 microns. In addition, kinetic studies indicated that chalcopyrite dissolution with pyrite followed the shrinking core model, and the reaction was controlled by the surface reaction. Activation energy (Ea) was calculated as 88 kJ/mol.

In the present study, an investigation was carried out on Parvadeh coal mine in Tabas, Iran, to survey the effect of fractures on unusual methane gas emission in coal mines. This coal mine was chosen for investigating because of its high methane gas content in the coal body and available data from sensors in desired locations. Gas concentration monitoring programs were carried out at the mine site and a large amount of data were collected and analyzed. It is revealed that there is a good correlation between excavating fracture-bearing faces and high methane gas emission events at the mine site. High gas emissions have been observed before, during, or after excavating fracture-bearing faces. When gas content is high and all boundary conditions are met, rockbursts, faults movement and also mining activities can trigger unusual gas emission, and sometimes the gas gushes are violent enough to fit into the category of gas outbursts. Since the fracture generation is happening before the increase of gas concentration in the air, a sensitive and highly accurate microseismic monitoring system can be used to detect locations of rock fracturing, thus provide an effective means to issue warnings of high gas emission in the working area.

In this research work, the zinc extraction was investigated, using bioleaching process from a low grade zinc concentrate which was produced from the accumulated flotation tailings. Zinc content was initially upgraded to 11.97% by flotation process. Bioleaching experiments were designed and carried out by a mixed culture of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, Leptospirilium ferrooxidans, as well as a mixed moderate thermophile bacteria in the shake flasks. Effect of two types bacteria, indigenous bacteria accompany by concentrate sample, and added mixture of bacteria were evaluated. The term of indigenous bacteria refers to the bacteria which initially exist in the natural concentrate sample. The results showed that more than 87% and 94% of Zn was dissolved in the bioleaching condition of mesophile and moderate thermophile bacteria, respectively. Comparing bioleaching and leaching tests indicated that mesophile bacteria improved Zn extraction 36%, in which contribution of concentrate indigenous bacteria (test condition of non-inoculation) and added mesophile mixed bacteria were equal to 34% and 66% of that improvement, respectively. In addition, moderate thermophile bacteria improved sphalerite leaching up to 38% in which contribution of concentrate indigenous bacteria and added moderate bacteria were about 50% separately.

Truncated Gaussian Simulation (TGS) is a well-known method to generate realizations of the ore domains located in a spatial sequence. In geostatistical framework geological domains are normally utilized for stationary assumption. The ability to measure the uncertainty in the exact locations of the boundaries among different geological units is a common challenge for practitioners. As a simple and informative example of such a boundary, one can consider the boundary between ore and waste materials in an ore deposit. This boundary addresses the percentages of the ore and the waste, and also affect the future economy of mine and all precedent mine designs and mine plans. Deterministic approaches, based on interpretation of geological phenomenon, provide just one scenario of ore-waste variation, and do not offer a model for uncertainty of boundaries. On the other hand, geostatistical simulations, based on stochastic models, can measure the uncertainty of such a boundary. Through different techniques for spatial simulation of the categorical data (geological domains) truncated gaussian simulation has been proved to be versatile when geological units have sequential geometries and/or there are few number of indicators (ore and waste). This study addresses the application of TGS for conditional simulation of ore and waste domains in Golgohar iron ore deposit. Separation of the ore and waste domains has affected the ore tonnage estimation and resource evaluation. Various simulations can be considered as the spatial realizations of ore and waste. TGS can generate realizations of the domains and measure the uncertainty of ore-waste boundary. The accuracy of result has been checked through performance evaluation section and different scenarios (e.g. best, average and worst). The best scenario is the one with the most accuracy that is calculated from confusion matrix. The scenario No. 44 with 96 million cubic meters tonnage has an accuracy over 86 percent that is proposed as the best scenario for future mine design and planning.

Tunnelling through cities underlain by soft soil, commonly associated with soil movement around the tunnels and subsequent surface settlement. The predication of ground movement during the tunnelling and optimum support pressure could be based on analytical, empirical or the numerical methods. The commonly used Earth pressure balance (EPB) tunneling machines, uses the excavated soil in a pressurised head chamber to apply a support pressure to the tunnel face during excavation. This face pressure is a critical responsibility in EPB tunnelling because as the varying pressure can lead to collapse of the face. The objective of the present study is to evalute the critical supporting face pressure and grout pressure by observing the vertical deformation and horizontal displacement of soil body during tunneling. The face pressure and grout pressures were varied to see how they might influence the magnitude of surface settlements/heave. A numerical model using PLAXIS-3D tunnel has been developed to analyse the soil movement around the tunnel that includes various geotechnical conditions. The ground surrounding the tunnel found to be very sensitive to the face pressure and grout pressure in terms of surface settlement and collapse of the soil body.

Singularity based on fractal and multifractal is a technique for detection of depletion and enrichment for geochemical exploration, while the index of vertical geochemical zonality (Vz) of Pb.Zn/Cu.Ag is a practical method for exploration of blind porphyry copper mineralization. In this study, these methods are combined for recognition, delineation, and enrichment of Vz in Jebal- Barez in the south of Iran. The studied area is located in the Shar-E-Babak–Bam ore field in the southern part of the Central Iranian volcano–plutonic magmatic arc. The region has a semiarid climate, mountainous topography, and poor vegetation cover. Seven hundreds samples of stream sedimentary were taken from the region. Geochemical data subset represent a total drainage basin area. Samples are analyzed for Cu, Zn, Ag, Pb, Au, W, As, Hg, Ba, Bi by atomic absorption method. Prospectivity map for blind mineralization is represented in this area. The results are in agreement with previous studies which have been focused in this region. Kerver is detected as the main blind mineralization in Jebal- Barz which had been previously intersected by drilled borehole for exploration purposes. In this research, it has been demonstrated that employing the singularity of geochemical zonality anomalies method, as opposed to using singularity of elements, improves mapping of mineral prospectivity.

The microscopic and geomechanical properties of igneous building stones include the level of alteration, presence of micro cracks, peak strength, porosity, proportion of detrimental minerals, etc. Porosity is reportedly of a devastating impact on the peak strength of igneous rocks. The quartz diorite rock samples in this study were selected from five quarries in Natanz, Iran and subject to microscopic and geomechanical investigations. The level of alteration and the minerals detrimental to the strength of the samples were identified from thin sections. Therefore, the geomechanical tests upon density, porosity, durability index, the Brazilian, and triaxial tests were conducted as per ISRM standards. The findings from microscopic studies reveal that alteration is of more intense impact on rock peak strength compared to that of porosity. The results were compared to standard values and a qualitative correlation between strength and microscopic properties was detected accentuating the importance of microscopic studies on construction stones. The correlation thereupon may be adopted in the exploration, exploitation, and process of construction stones to avoid heavy expenditures and damage to the environment.

In this paper attempts have been done to create a mortar with relatively high uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), easy casting, high flexibility, instant hardening, low cost and easy availability. The main use of this material is to physically model the mechanical behavior of jointed rock-like blocks. The effect of four parameters such as joint roughness coefficient (JRC), bridge length (L), bridge angle (γ) and joint inclination (θ) on UCS of non-persistent jointed blocks were studied. For this purpose, 35 cylindrical specimens with a broad range of plaster content (P) and cement content (C) in different ages were tested. In order to increase the strength of blocky specimens, some retarder and lubricant were used. The results showed that using 3 wt. % (Weight percent) lubricant MGAR106 and 0.05 wt. % Retarder decreases water content by 12.5% and increases plaster and cement content of 8.3% and 4.17 % respectively. Consequently, UCS of blocky specimens increased by 284.33%. In order to formulize the effect of P/C content and the age of cylindrical specimens (A) on UCS, Multivariate Non-linear Regression (MNR) and Bayesian Regularized Artificial Neural Network (BRANN) models were deployed. The results showed that BRANN approach can provide more exact predictions of the specimen UCS than MNR model. Moreover, P/C content had more influence on UCS than the specimen age. Finally the UCS tests on blocky specimens indicated that increasing JRC, bridge length and bridge angle increases UCS and it takes its minimum ate joint inclination of 60°. Furthermore, the capability of produced material to model cracking behaviour of jointed blocks was approved.

In this research, first of all, the existing problems in fragmentation measurement are reviewed for the sake of its fast and reliable evaluation. Then, the available methods used for evaluation of blast results are mentioned. The produced errors especially in recognizing the rock fragments in computer-aided methods, and also, the importance of determination of their sizes in the image analysis methods are described. After reviewing the previous work done, an algorithm is proposed for the automated determination of rock particles’ boundary in the Matlab software. This method can determinate automatically the particles boundary in the minimum time. The results of proposed method are compared with those of Split Desktop and GoldSize software in two automated and manual states. Comparing the curves extracted from different methods reveals that the proposed approach is accurately applicable in measuring the size distribution of laboratory samples, while the manual determination of boundaries in the conventional software is very time-consuming, and the results of automated netting of fragments are very different with the real value due to the error in separation of the objects.

Reliable characterization of subsurface soil in urban areas is a major concern in geotechnical and geological engineering projects. In this regard, this research deals with development of a 3D geological engineering model on Mashhad City soil using Sequential Gaussian Simulation (SGS) approach. The intense variability of soil in the study area has sometimes caused serious problems in civil engineering projects in the city. Therefore, a better understanding of these deposits is critical for current and future civil engineering work. The main objectives of this study were investigating the spatial variability of soil through variograms and then predicting the values of soil properties at unsampled locations using SGS method. In this study, some geotechnical index parameters including percentage of fine grained material, plasticity index, and liquid limit have been employed as input data. A database including the data of 1750 boreholes was built and the hard data were transformed into normal scores in order for them to be applicable as input data in SGS modeling. Maps related to the average of all realizations along with Coefficient of Variation (CV) were provided for each variable as well. Then the maps were interpreted according to Mashhad City sedimentary environment.

Shear wave velocity (Vs) data are key information for petrophysical, geophysical and geomechanical studies. Although compressional wave velocity (Vp) measurements exist in almost all wells, shear wave velocity is not recorded for most of elderly wells due to lack of technologic tools. Furthermore, measurement of shear wave velocity is to some extent costly. This study proposes a novel methodology to remove aforementioned problems by use of hybrid adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) with ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) based on fuzzy c–means clustering (FCM) and subtractive clustering (SCM). The ACO is combined with two ANFIS models for determining the optimal value of its user–defined parameters. The optimization implementation by the ACO significantly improves the generalization ability of the ANFIS models. These models are used in this study to formulate conventional well log data into Vs in a quick, cheap, and accurate manner. A total of 3030 data points was used for model construction and 833 data points were employed for assessment of ANFIS models. Finally, a comparison among ANFIS models, and six well–known empirical correlations demonstrated ANFIS models outperformed other methods. This strategy was successfully applied in the Marun reservoir, Iran.

Tires represent a critical spare part in mines. There is a shortage of medium and large tires. In addition, with increased mining activities and the creation of new mines, the demand for tires has increased significantly. Thus, it is particularly important for mining engineers to identify tire characteristics and correctly manage the spare part inventory. Spare parts management is critical from an operational perspective, especially in asset intensive industries, such as mining, as well as in organizations owning and operating costly assets. A knowledge of the tires’ behavior (historical data) must be considered together with the operating environment conditions (covariates). This study uses multiple regression analysis based on Cox’s regression model to incorporate machine operating environment information into systems reliability analysis to estimate spare parts. It considers a proportional hazard model and a stratified Cox regression model for time independent and dependent covariates. Based on the results, the study develops a mathematical model for spare parts estimation at the component level for non-repairable parts (tires). It validates the outcomes using a case study of loader tires in Sungun mine in Iran. There is a significant difference in the results of spare parts forecasting and inventory management when considering and not considering covariates.

A new method was introduced for frothing characterization of flotation frothers. Method uses water recovery to develop a new frothability index named water recovery index (WRI). New index was determined for some commercial frothers and results were compared with dynamic frothability index (DFI). Results showed that water recovery index values follow the order of A-65 13016 s/mol > DF-250 6292.4 s/m > MIBC 1240 s/mol > Isoamyl alcohol 343.2 s/mol > Butanol 144.87 s/mol, also observed DFI order was achieved as A-65 437,080 s.dm3/mol > DF-250 197,271 s.dm3/mol > MIBC 39,427 s.dm3/mol > Isoamyl alcohol 10,517 s.dm3/mol > Butanol 1977.3 s.dm3/mol. The new method offers many advantages over conventional froth height measurement; the experimental set-up developed for water recovery measurement is more compact and easy to use. Moreover, special design of set-up also eliminates the wall effect of flotation container and increases the reproducibility of measurements.