A landfill based approach to surface mine design

Surface mining operations extract a large quantity of waste material,which is generally disposed into a dump area.This waste can cause a series of environmental problems ranging from landscape deterioration to acidic water generation and water pollution.Therefore,mine waste management is a significant task in mining operations.As known,in strip mining,the overburden is not transported to waste dumps but disposed directly into adjacent strip which was mined out.This concept can be adapted for mine planning of relatively horizontal deposits through a mixed integer programming(MIP)model.The main idea behind this work is that,in one pit,production voids created in early year of mining are used for waste landfilling in late years of production.In other words,in addition to external dumping,a landfilling option within the same pit is proposed for mine design optimization.The problem is formulated as maximization of the net present value(NPV)of the mining project under the constraints of access,landfill waste handling,mining and processing capacities.A case study using a data set was carried out to see the performance of the proposed approach.The findings showed that this approach could be used in waste management incorporating a landfilling option into mine planning.As a result,material handling costs decrease,and environmental compliance increases due to less external waste quantity.

Design and manufacture of emulsion liquid membrane based on various amine extractants for separation and extraction of succinic acid from fermentation broth

The aim of this study was to design a new emulsion liquid membrane(ELM)system for the separation of succinic acid from aqueous solutions.The concentration of succinic acid varied from 20 to 60 mmol·L^(-1).The prepared ELM system includes tributylamine(TBA)as a carrier,commercial kerosene as a solvent,Span 80 as a surfactant,and Na2CO3as a stripping agent.In order to control the membrane swelling,different values of cyclohexanone were added to the membrane phase.The effect of various empirical variables on the extraction of the succinic acid such as acid concentration in the feed solution,initial feed concentration,carrier concentration,the stirring speed of the extraction,Na2CO3,surfactant,and cyclohexanone concentrations,and treat ratio in the ELM system.The best result was obtained when TBA was used as the carrier.The final acid extraction efficiency was independent of pH variations of the aqueous feed solution.The extraction of succinic acid solution with a concentration of 40 mmol·L^(-1)was improved by increasing the treat ratio 1:7-1:3,stripping phase concentration 0.5-1.5 mol·L^(-1),stirring speed 300-500 r·min^(-1)and cyclohexanone concentration in the membrane phase 1.2-1.6 mol·L^(-1).No considerable effect on the extraction rate was observed for the carrier concentration in the membrane phase.But,the surfactant concentration in the feed phase showed a dual effect on the extraction efficiency.

Experimental optimum design and luminescence properties of NaY(Gd)(MoO_4)_2:Er^(3+)phosphors

Three-factor orthogonal design（OD） of Er3＋/Gd3＋/T（calcination temperature） is used to optimize the luminescent intensity of Na Y（Gd）（MoO4）2：Er3＋phosphor.Firstly,the uniform design（UD） is introduced to explore the doping concentration range of Er3＋/Gd3＋.Then OD and range analysis are performed based on the results of UD to obtain the primary and secondary sequence and the best combination of Er3＋,Gd3＋,and T within the experimental range.The optimum sample is prepared by the high temperature solid state method.Photoluminescence excitation and emission spectra of the optimum sample are detected.The intense green emissions（530 nm and 550 nm） are observed which originate from Er3＋2H11/2→4I15/2and4S3/2→4I15/2,respectively.Thermal effect is investigated in the optimum NaY（Gd3＋）（MoO4）2：Er3＋phosphors,and the green emission intensity decreases as temperature increases.

An Expert System for the Design of Surrounding Rock Support in Mine Entries

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THE RELIABILITY STUDY OF MINE DESIGN

The method of reliability analysis of mineral reserve estimation, mining construction, mining technological system and surface mine investment in mine design is discussed in this paper. On the basis of this method, the questions, such as "whether the planned production and predicted economic effectiveness could be obtained", can be answered, and corresponding measures can be taken.

Removal of Copper Ions from Acid Mine Drainage Wastewater Using Ion Exchange Technique: Factorial Design Analysis

A factorial experimental design method was used to examine the “Cu2+” removal from acid mine drainage wastewater by ion exchange technique. Ion Exchange technique is preferred because of reduced sludge generation compared to conventional treatment techniques and better decontamination efficiency from highly diluted solutions. Factorial design of experiments is employed to study the effect of four factors pH (3, 5, and 6), flow rate (5, 10, 15 L/hr), resin bed height (20, 40 and 60 cm) and initial concentration of the metal (100, 150 and 200 mgl-1) at three levels. The efficiency of metal removal was determined after 100 min of treatment. Main effects and interaction effects of the four factors were analyzed using statistical techniques. A regression model was recommended and it was found to fit the experimental data very well. The results were analyzed statistically using the Student’s t-test, analysis of variance, F-test and lack of fit to define most important process variables affecting the percentage “Cu2+” removal. In this study , pH was thus found to be the most important variable.

Ground behaviour analysis,support system design and construction strategies in deep hard rock mining-Justified in Western Australian’s mines

Development of deep underground mining projects is crucial for optimum extraction of mineral deposits.The main challenges at great depth are high rock stress levels,seismic events,large-scale deformation,sudden failures and high temperatures that may cause abrupt and unpredictable instability and collapse over a large scale.In this paper,a ground control and management strategy was presented corresponding to the three stages of projects:strategic design,tactical design and operational design.Strategic design is results in preparing a broad plan and primary design for mining excavations.The tactical design is to provide detail design such as stabilisation methods.Operational design stage is related to monitoring and updating design parameters.The most effective ground control strategies in this stage are maintenance,rehabilitation,monitoring and contingency plan.Additionally,a new procedure for design of ground support systems for deep and hard rock was proposed.The main principles are:static and/or dynamic loading types,determination of loading sources,characterisation of geological conditions and the effects of orientation of major structures with openings,estimation of ground loading factor,identification of potential primary and secondary failures,utilisation of appropriate design analysis methods,estimation of depth failure,calculation of the static and/or dynamic demand ground support capacity,and selection of surface and reinforcement elements.Gravitational force is the dominant loading force in low-level stresses.In high stress level failure mechanism becomes more complex in rock mass structures.In this condition,a variety of factors such as release of stored energy due to seismic events,stress concentration,and major structures influence on ground behaviour and judgement are very complicated.The key rock engineering schemes to minimise the risk of failures in high-stress levels at great depth involve depressurisation and quality control of materials.Microseismic and blast monitoring throughout the mining operations are required to control sudden failures.Proper excavation sequences in underground stopes based on top-down,bottom-up,centre-out and abutment-centre were discussed.Also,the performance of a ground support system was examined by field observation monitoring systems for controlling and modifying ground support elements.The important outcome of the research is that the proposed procedure of selecting ground support systems for static and dynamic situations was applied in several deep underground mines in Western Australia.Ground behaviour modes and failure mechanism were identified and assessed.Ground demand for static and dynamic conditions was estimated and an appropriate ground support system was selected and evaluated in site-specific conditions according to proposed method for ground support design at great depth.The stability of rock masses was confirmed,and the reliability of the design methodology for great depth and hard rock conditions was also justified.

Preliminary Hydrogeologic Modeling and Optimal Monitoring Network Design for a Contaminated Abandoned Mine Site Area: Application of Developed Monitoring Network Design Software

In abandoned mine sites, i.e., mine sites where mining operations have ended, wide spread contaminations are often evident, but the potential sources and pathways of contamination especially through the subsurface, are difficult to identify due to inadequate and sparse geochemical measurements available. Therefore, it is essential to design and implement a planned monitoring net-work to obtain essential information required for establishing the potential contamination source locations, i.e., waste dumps, tailing dams, pits and possible pathways through the subsurface, and to design a remediation strategy for rehabilitation. This study presents an illustrative application of modeling the flow and transport processes and monitoring network design in a study area hydrogeologically resembling an abandoned mine site in Queensland, Australia. In this preliminary study, the contaminant transport process modeled does not incorporate the reactive geochemistry of the contaminants. The transport process is modeled considering a generic conservative contaminant for the illustrative purpose of showing the potential application of an optimal monitoring design methodology. This study aims to design optimal monitoring network to: 1) minimize the contaminant solute mass estimation error;2) locate the plume boundary;3) select the monitoring locations with (potentially) high concentrations. A linked simulation optimization based methodology is utilized for optimal monitoring network design. The methodology is applied utilizing a recently developed software package CARE-GWMND, developed at James Cook University for optimal monitoring network design. Given the complexity of the groundwater systems and the sparsity of pollutant concentration observation data from the field, this software is capable of simulating the groundwater flow and solute transport with spatial interpolation of data from a sparse set of available data, and it utilizes the optimization algorithm to determine optimum locations for implementing monitoring wells.

Optimization design of drilling string by screw coal miner based on ant colony algorithm

It took that the weight minimum and drive efficiency maximal were as double optimizing target,the optimization model had built the drilling string,and the optimization solution was used of the ant colony algorithm to find in progress.Adopted a two-layer search of the continuous space ant colony algorithm with overlapping or variation global ant search operation strategy and conjugated gradient partial ant search operation strat- egy.The experiment indicates that the spiral drill weight reduces 16.77% and transports the efficiency enhance 7.05% through the optimization design,the ant colony algorithm application on the spiral drill optimized design has provided the basis for the system re- search screw coal mine machine.

Multidisciplinary design optimization on production scale of underground metal mine

In order to ensure overall optimization of the underground metal mine production scale, multidisciplinary design optimization model of production scale which covers the subsystem objective function of income of production, safety and environmental impact in the underground metal mine was established by using multidisciplinary design optimization method. The coupling effects from various disciplines were fully considered, and adaptive mutative scale chaos immunization optimization algorithm was adopted to solve multidisciplinary design optimization model of underground metal mine production scale. Practical results show that multidisciplinary design optimization on production scale of an underground lead and zinc mine reflect the actual operating conditions more realistically, the production scale is about 1.25 Mt/a (Lead and zinc metal content of 160 000 t/a), the economic life is approximately 14 a, corresponding coefficient of production profits can be increased to 15.13%, safety factor can be increased to 5.4% and environmental impact coefficient can be reduced by 9.52%.

3D deformation effect and optimal excavated design of surface mine

The three-dimensional （3D） deformation effect of the slope engineering under the step-by-step excavation for the Antaibao surface mine was analyzed using the FLAC^3D technique. An optimal excavated scheme with a relatively steeper slope angle of 47° instead of 30° was successfully implemented at the west wall in the geological section 73200 of the mine area, where the 3D effect of the nonlinear large deformation of the slope was taken into account. Based on the above research conclusion, put forward the countermeasures of shortening mining length, excavating by different regions, timely foot backfilling to protect the excavated slope, and monitoring and feedback adjustment by studying the nonlinear effect. The results show that these countermeasures are effective in controlling maximum deformation and increasing the stability of the slope.

Harmony between Industrial Landscape and Natural Ecology—Landscape Design of the Former Area in Wangfenggang Coal Mine of Anhui Huainan

Taking landscape design of the former area in Wangfenggang coal mine of Anhui Huainan as an example,the whole thinking and specific implementations were discussed from aspects including scenic spot planning,plant landscape and characteristics of scenic spots,and created landscape in mining areas,squares and residential districts by combining section peculiarity,old building characteristics and circumstance in the landscape design of mining areas,which aimed to realize sustainable development of landscape in mining areas.

Symmetry and conservation laws for optimum design of open pit mines

The classical physics theory respectively obeys the three famous conservation laws referred to as charge conjugation, parity and time reverse, and the open pit block model is equal to a Newtonian mechanics system. Consequently, there would exist some correspondent symmetry principles and conservation laws within the 3D fixed block model of the deposit and the theory for the optimum design of the open pit mine. Reversing a series of relevant fundamental concepts, several conservation laws, which the theory for the optimum design of open pit mines should obey, as block weight conjugation, block model parity and combined symmetry of the both, were expounded. From the symmetry principle, the theoretic significance for a series of the current optimum techniques was discussed and explained, and a kind of conjugate heuristics which can check the error of itself was presented and demonstrated. Thus it is shown that the symmetry principle lays the foundations and opens up the prospects for the further research with mine design and scheduling problem.

Modular Combination Design of Mine Rescue Capsule Based on Load Simulation

Mine rescue capsule is a typical emergency equipment in a coal mine.It provides a safe and confined space for miners when mining disasters occurred.The length of the passenger survival cell is suitable to be adjusted with several predefined modular cells according to various numbers of passengers.Aiming at the shortage of guidance rules for the modular combination design of mine rescue capsule,the configuration situations of survival cells are experimented with static and impact load analysis in ANSYS Workbench.The length range of a single cell,the combination schemes of miner survival section,and the effectiveness proof of assembled rescue capsules were solved sequentially by simulated load analysis on constructed structural models.The modular combination rules of the survival section are developed for variant passenger number ranging from 8 to 20.It also provides a reference for the optimal selection of rescue capsules with the same capacity.The proposed modular rules are effective for the rapid configuration design for mine rescue capsule driven by the number of passengers.

Application of axiomatic approach to coal mine design field

Two design axioms and axiomatic approach were discussed. As an example of application, design process of a new style single prop was illustrated in term of axi- oms.

Modular Design Using Sustainable Luminescent Materials in Energy-Saving Reflective Cat’s Eyes for Public Road Safety Planning

Recently,there has been a global movement toward environmental protection and energy conservation through the design and development of new products in accordance with sustainable utilisation.In this study,rare earth luminescent materials were used owing to their active light emission and reusability.Additionally,solar lightemitting diode lights and car-light reflection were utilised to increase the recognition and reliability of reflective cat eyes.Along with carbon reduction,this can save energy and enhance road safety.This study considered the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving and a literature review to analyse the issues in existing products.Then,expert interviews were conducted to screen projects and develop product design policies.Finally,the ratio of light-storage materials was experimentally determined and the prototypes implemented.This cat’s eye addresses the shortcomings identified in previous analyses of existing products.We applied energy storage environmental protection materials,together with material proportioning(which balanced warning efficiency against cost-effectiveness)to develop diversified modular kits;these were flexible in terms of quantity and easily assembled.This study achieved four key objectives:(1)reducing the research and development costs of the manufacturer;(2)offering buyers a diverse suite of products;(3)responding to a need to improve diverse road user safety;and(4)reducing government procurement costs for safety warning products.The results provide a reference for the creative modular design of energy-saving products for public road safety planning in various industries.

Limitations and potential design risks when applying empirically derived coal pillar strength equations to real-life mine stability problems

The method of determining coal pillar strength equations from databases of stable and failed case histories is more than 50 years old and has been applied in different countries by different researchers in a range of mining situations. While common wisdom sensibly limits the use of the resultant pillar strength equations and methods to design scenarios that are consistent with the founding database, there are a number of examples where failures have occurred as a direct result of applying empirical design methods to coal pillar design problems that are inconsistent with the founding database. This paper explores the reasons why empirically derived coal pillar strength equations tend to be problem-specific and should be considered as providing no more than a pillar strength ‘‘index." These include the non-consideration of overburden horizontal stress within the mine stability problem, an inadequate definition of supercritical overburden behavior as it applies to standing coal pillars, and the non-consideration of overburden displacement and coal pillar strain limits. All of which combine to potentially complicate and confuse the back-analysis of coal pillar strength from failed cases. A modified coal pillar design representation and model are presented based on coal pillars acting to reinforce a horizontally stressed overburden, rather than suspend an otherwise unstable self-loaded overburden or section, the latter having been at the core of historical empirical studies into coal pillar strength and stability.

Applying robust design to study the effects of stratigraphic characteristics on brittle failure and bump potential in a coal mine

Bumps and other types of dynamic failure have been a persistent, worldwide problem in the underground coal mining industry, spanning decades.For example, in just five states in the U.S.from 1983 to 2014,there were 388 reportable bumps.Despite significant advances in mine design tools and mining practices,these events continue to occur.Many conditions have been associated with bump potential, such as the presence of stiff units in the local geology.The effect of a stiff sandstone unit on the potential for coal bumps depends on the location of the stiff unit in the stratigraphic column, the relative stiffness and strength of other structural members, and stress concentrations caused by mining.This study describes the results of a robust design to consider the impact of different lithologic risk factors impacting dynamic failure risk.Because the inherent variability of stratigraphic characteristics in sedimentary formations,such as thickness, engineering material properties, and location, is significant and the number of influential parameters in determining a parametric study is large, it is impractical to consider every simulation case by varying each parameter individually.Therefore, to save time and honor the statistical distributions of the parameters, it is necessary to develop a robust design to collect sufficient sample data and develop a statistical analysis method to draw accurate conclusions from the collected data.In this study,orthogonal arrays, which were developed using the robust design, are used to define the combination of the(a) thickness of a stiff sandstone inserted on the top and bottom of a coal seam in a massive shale mine roof and floor,(b) location of the stiff sandstone inserted on the top and bottom of the coal seam,and(c) material properties of the stiff sandstone and contacts as interfaces using the 3-dimensional numerical model, FLAC3D.After completion of the numerical experiments, statistical and multivariate analysis are performed using the calculated results from the orthogonal arrays to analyze the effect of these variables.As a consequence, the impact of each of the parameters on the potential for bumps is quantitatively classified in terms of a normalized intensity of plastic dissipated energy.By multiple regression, the intensity of plastic dissipated energy and migration of the risk from the roof to the floor via the pillars is predicted based on the value of the variables.The results demonstrate and suggest a possible capability to predict the bump potential in a given rock mass adjacent to the underground excavations and pillars.Assessing the risk of bumps is important to preventing fatalities and injuries resulting from bumps.

PRINCIPLES FOR OPTIMUM DESIGN OF OPEN PIT MINES

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Orthogonal experiment design of EMI of security monitoring system in coal mines

Security monitoring system of coal mines is indispensable to ensure the safe and efficient production of colliery. Due to the special and narrow underground field of the coal mine, the electromagnetic interference can cause a series of misstatements and false positives on the monitoring system, which will severely hamper the safe production of coal industry. In this paper, first, the frequency characteristics of the interference source on the power line are extracted when equipment runs normally. Then the finite difference time domain method is introduced to analyze the effects of the electromagnetic interference parameters on the security monitoring signal line. And the interference voltage of the two terminal sides on the single line is taken as evaluating indexes. Finally, the electromagnetic interference parameters are optimized by orthogonal experimental design based on the MATLAB simulation on the normal operation of equipment.