A New Look a t Mining

by E. R. Borcherdt

R ECENT years have seen great progress in drill-

ing practices. The partial change from heavy
drills and stopers to lightweight airleg machines has
Pilfering and loss of the high-priced bits are prob-
lems most difficult to control. As a result of this
situation one manufacturer has designed, perfected,
had great impact on stoping and drifting methods. and applied for patent on a single-use carbide bit,
The change was sparked, of course, when the Ger- which has successfully overcome or greatly mini-
mans applied tungsten carbide to drill bits during mized these hazards. This has been accomplished by
World War 11. This invention made it possible to reducing the height of the insert to a critical dimen-
drill nearly cylindrical blastholes, with a very mini- sion too small to permit formation of a reverse taper
mum of drill steel changes, so that small fast-cutting sufficient to cause binding of the bit in the hole. It
bits* could be used without sacrifice of powder-load- is thus possible to use the bit to destruction without
Starter slzes 1 % In. and 1% In
resharpening. In some cases its footage before dis-
-
- - card compares favorably with footage obtained from
ing density at the bottom of the hole. This is one of a multi-use carbide bit with a number of resharpen-
the few instances of increased efficiency through ings.
reduction in size. Usually the opposite is true. With tungsten carbide it is also possible to use
Application of these lightweight drills and small large percussion drills in deep hole drilling. Here
bits has lessened the vibratory stresses set up in the the drill follows the bit down the hole to eliminate
drill steel rod, and rod breakage has been greatly losses in effective impact which is normally ab-
reduced. During the past several years phenomenal sorbed by the long string of drill rods and couplings
reduction in drill steel breakage has resulted from required when the drill is mounted on the surface.
the use of carburized rods. These rods are now sup- An American manufacturer has recently intro-
plied by several manufacturers, with carburization duced mounted electric hydraulic pumps. These
of both the exterior and interior surfaces of the machines employ hollow drill steel and a spade-type
hollow drill steel. The rods are heat-treated over carbide bit of 1% to 1%-in. diam. They have drilled
their entire length after the completion of bit con- as much as 22 fpm in marble, limestone, soft sand-
nections, collars, or lugs (in the case of 7/8 Hex and stone, and certain types of copper, lead, and iron
round steel). This eliminates breakage from the ores.
usual metallurgical notch existing in conventional Some experimental work is being done in this
rods-there are instances of more than 2000 f t of country with a combination rotary and percussive
drilling in hard ground before breakage. Steel rod drill manufactured in Germany, but until a mate-
failure results from fatigue checks, at right angles rial harder than tungsten carbide is available, it is
to the rod axis, progressing to a point where parting doubtful that the drill will be applicable in igneous
or breaking of the rod occurs. There are many of rocks. Its use now is confined to drilling sedimen-
these checks in a used rod. Only the most advanced taries and soft ores.
check causes the break, but with a small additional Longhole stope drilling continues to replace more
amount of drilling another check advances to the expensive methods. Percussion drills and carbide
breakage point, and most of the value of recondi- bits are widely used, even at Anglo-American Mines
tioning is lost. Since the development of carburized in Rhodesia, where diamond bits would normally
rods, the practice of discarding drill rods after the be favored. The following is the range of extension
first break may be economically justified. steel with threaded couplings that are available, to-
Chief hazards of using tungsten carbide insert bits gether with recommended sizes of rock drills and
are abuse, pilfering, and loss. In hard, dense rocks bits to be used with them:
the bit wears to a reverse taper. With continued
drilling this causes binding in the hole, and since Hexagon
Steel
Couplings
Size, B l t Size.
Rock Drill
Piston
carbide has very low shear strength, the inserts are Size. In. O.D., In. In. Slee, In.
fractured and ripped out. 3 or smaller
?/a 1 7/16 1%
1 1 25/32 2 or larger 4 or smaller
E. R. BORCHERDT is Director of Mining Research, The Anaconda 1% 28'4 2 1/4 or larger 4-in. drill
Co., Butte, Mont. 1% - 4, 4%, or 5 5 ?h-in. drill
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428-MINING ENGINEERING, APRIL 1957

 Incline Cryderman shaft
mucker with square
boom which keeps the
clam bucket in a fixed
position for easier hand-
ling by operator.

done at the rate of ten pieces per min. Timbers are hoist, compensating tower, and an automatic storage
then made up into unit loads in a mechanical stacker drum winder. It should materially increase the rate
and steel strapped. of circular shaft sinking.
Shaft Sinking: Shaft sinking operations in South With four sheaves each on the sinking stage and
Africa are most impressive. Even before the advent headframe, the weight of the Galloway stage is dis-
of efficient mechanical mucking devices, record ad- tributed over eight ropes at equal tension. Only
vances of more than 700 f t per month were made. one quarter of the weight is carried by the friction
Now the opinion of many South African engineers hoist, or about 20 tons. There are 3 2/3 wraps on the
is that the practicable limit of advance with hand hoist, reducing the required tension on the other
lashing or mucking has been reached and that side to two tons. This tension is provided by suitable
henceforth this phase of the job will be limited to weights in the compensating tower.
mechanical means. Since the length of each of the two ropes required
In regard to shaft shapes, the consensus of opin- to sink a shaft 5000 ft would be 20,000 ft, it was not
ion is that while the rectangular shaft is not en- feasible to store the rope on the hoisting drum.
tirely a thing of the past it will have application Hence storage drums of smaller diameter were pro-
only under certain conditions, which are becoming vided to take up or pay out the ropes. They are
increasingly rare. At least six elliptical shafts have automatically controlled by the position of the
been sunk in South Africa since 1945, but their weights in the compensating tower.
popularity seems to have waned in favor of circular Each of the four pairs of ropes in the shaft acts
ones. Ample working room in the shaft bottom is a as a guide for the four sinking buckets, thus doub-
most important factor in high speed sinking, and in ling the usual capacity for muck removal from the
this respect the circular exceeds both rectangular shaft bottom. It is intended to use 8-ton kibbles
and elliptical. When heavy pressures are encoun- instead of the 6-ton, which are the largest in use.
tered the circular shaft is in a class by itself. In the
December 1948 Transactions of the Chemical Metal- In connection with this development, a new de-
lurgical and Mining Society of South Africa, J. T. sign of mechanical grapple has been perfected to
MacIntyre and his colleagues say: "Consider a shaft utilize more fully the potentialities of the Galloway
with an area of inside lining of 500 square feet, stage and the Blair hoist. The grapple is suspended
from the center of the bottom deck of the sinking
which could be provided by (I.-) a circle 25' -3"
stage on a jib that can swing in a full circle to pick
in diameter, (2.-) an ellipse 36' x 18', (3.-) a rec-
up rock from any part of the shaft bottom. It is
tangle 42' x 12'. If a wall thickness of 1'6" of un-rein-
electrically controlled and its driving equipment is
forced concrete were adequate for the circular shape,
housed above the stage for protection from blasts.
then to give the same strength approximately a 10'
The grapple, jib, and operator's cage are constructed
thickness would be required for the ellipse, and 22'
strongly enough to withstand blasting shock.
thick sidewalls and 7' thick end walls for the rec-
tangle." To operate the grapple, the operator must engage
There are, of course, some disadvantages in cir- the clutch and release the brake; if he removes his
cular shafts, principally in the lower percentage of hands from the controls, the grab stops automatic-
utilization possible, although in deep warm mines ally. Similar equipment was observed at the 25-ft
requiring large amounts of fresh air this objection diam West Dreifontein No. 5 shaft where 400 tons of
is minimized. muck were being disposed of in 3 h r using a 6-ton
Wide interest has been aroused in a novel sinking bucket.
stage hoist developed by Robert Blair, consulting Shuttering, or the placing of forms for concreting,
mechanical engineer for the Anglo-American Corp. is conducted from the middle deck. It is suspected
of South Africa Ltd. This equipment utilizes two that concrete transport by pipeline will be used in-
ropes, multiple sheaves. a double-drum friction stead of lowering it in a Blaw-Knox concrete bucket

432-MINING ENGINEERING, APRIL 1957

as is the usual practice. It is believed possible to Hoisting speed of the new San Manuel ore hoists,
sink 1000 f t of circular shaft per month with this 3000 fpm, is believed to be the highest in the U. S.
equipment, and since overhead is a large part of Africa, however, has a number of hoists operating at
sinking costs the effect of high rates of advance 3500 fpm. Men are frequently hoisted at the same
providing a large divisor should result in phenomen- speed, but it should be noted that these shafts are
ally low sinking costs per foot. notably free from rough spots caused by subsidence
and also that steel guides are used. Large four-deck
North American shafts in general have been nar- cages with capacity of 68 men per deck enable one
row and rectangular with a tendency in Canada to of the large Rhodesian mines to hoist or lower 2500
wide rectangular, approaching a square. A concrete- miners in one hour. Facilities for simultaneous two-
lined circular shaft 18 f t in diam was completed in
deck loading and unloading are in use.
August by the Dravo Co. for the Intermountain
Chemical Co. at Green River, Wyo. Homestake Min- Bottom dump skips first used by U. S. mining com-
ing recently started a 19-ft diam circular ventilation panies are now in general use by Canadian and
shaft that will be sunk 5000 ft. The Hanna Co. has African mining companies.
announced plans to sink a circular concrete-lined At the Renstrom mine of the Boliden Co. in Swe-
shaft 20 f t in diam at Iron River, Mich. At Carlsbad, den 200,000 tons of low grade zinc pyrite ore per
N. M., two 15-ft circular concrete-lined shafts 1700 year are hoisted automatically. This is perhaps the
f t deep were completed last July. The maximum only installation of its kind where filling the meas-
sinking rate at these latter shafts was 10 f t per day uring pockets as well as the skips is accomplished
over a 30-day period. A Canadian subsidiary of the entirely by automatic controls so that no operating
Potash Co. of America is sinking a large concrete- crew is required a t the skip station. Underground
lined production shaft in Saskatchewan. Refrigera- crushing is applied to waste used for filling as well
tion is being used a t a depth of 850 ft to stabilize as to ore. The overall labor force both underground
the ground in certain water-bearing formations. In and on surface averages 85 men, giving an excep-
the Green River shaft the mucking was successfully tional overall production of 12 tons per manshift in
done with a caterpillar-equipped 630 Eimco loader. this cut-and-fill underground operation.
Mucking equipment in use in both the U. S. and At Nkana a large semi-automatic underground
Canadian shafts has been the well known Riddell hoist with ac drive instead of the usual dc drive is
machine, the Boland device, which is similar to the being installed. Cost of the ac hoist was substan-
Riddell, and more recently the Cryderman (MINING tially lower than its dc counterpart.
ENGINEERING, February 1957, p. 201). The Cryder- Miscellaneous: Observation of many installations
man machine consists of an extensible boom at- of centrifugal air compressors in Africa, Europe, and
tached on one end to the cage deck and on the other Canada has convinced the writer that the many
end to an air operated clam shell bucket. Directional advantages they possess can be taken advantage of
controls are accomplished by seven operating air by U. S. mining companies, especially where 20,000-
cylinders. cu f t units or larger are indicated. Compared with
Until recently no successful means had been de- reciprocating machines they are appreciably lower
veloped for the mechanical mucking of incline in installed cost per 1000 cfm, lower in cost of build-
shafts, but last year the Cryderman vertical shaft ing space per 1000 cfm, lower in maintenance cost
mucker was adapted to use in a 55" incline shaft per 1000 cfm, and only slightly higher in power con-
at the Page mine of ASARCO. Here a 5%-ft round sumption per 1000 cfm. Machines observed were
in a' shaft section of approximately 20 x 8 % f t re- designed for 90 and 100 psi and were built in Switz-
quires about 2 h r to muck out in conjunction with a erland and in Germany. Several American manu-
45-cu f t skip for muck disposal. facturers are now building or designing them.
Another interesting inclined shaft mucking oper- A very compact and efficient wet-type dust col-
ation is being conducted at Metaline Falls, Wash., lector is of general interest. This unit is an orig-
by the Pend Oreille Mines and Metals Co. This 12" inal development by the Anaconda ventilation de-
incline, 10 f t high and 18 f t wide, is being sunk with partment in cooperation with Joy Mfg. Co. It will
a 4-drill jumbo and a Model 630 Eimco mucking effectively remove dust particles of sizes down to
into a 10-ton open top skip. Advance for the first one micron and below, with high retention charac-
1800 f t averaged 300 f t per month with two-shift teristics. I n Rhodesian mines concentrator equip-
operation. ment is being used to clarify underground mine
Hoisting: Several large concrete towers to house water. The efficient removal of sludge has decreased
Koepe hoists have been completed. One of these is a wear on centrifugal pumps. In one mine sludge is
very large multiple Koepe installation a t Kiruna, put through a n Oliver filter and the resulting prod-
Sweden, which consists of eight skip units capable uct containing 6 pct copper is returned to the skip
of hoisting more than 4000 tph. One of the largest pocket. At other mines the liquid sludge, instead
Koepe hoists ever constructed is now being installed of being loaded into cars or skips for transfer to
at the No. 5 West Driefontein shaft in South Africa. surface, is pumped from a collecting sump directly
Two 2000-hp electric motors drive the Koepe sheave to surface by a Gardner-Denver high pressure mud
to lift a 14 to 16-ton skip 5460 ft. Four 1%-in. ropes pump commonly used in oil well drilling.
are used. A high-strength, lightweight galvanized pipe de-
During the past few years concrete head frames signed for use with victaulic couplings is being in-
vestigated. Manufactured in Sweden, this pipe was
have replaced steel frames in the larger Canadian
observed in use in both Swedish iron mines and
installations. They are said to be materially cheaper
African copper mines. Since its weight is less than
and more rapidly constructed than steel frames. a third that of standard pipe, substantial savings are
Only two or three are in existence in the U. S., but possible in price and cost of installation. Galvanized
the increasing adoption of Koepe hoist should ex- pipe has been standard for air and water lines in the
pand their use here. Butte mines for many years.

APRIL 1957, MINING ENGINEERIN-33