Size reduction processes, particularly fine grinding systems, in mineral processing and cement production plants constitute a great portion of energy consumption and operating costs. Therefore, the grinding systems should be designed properly and operated under optimum conditions to achieve productive and cost effective operations. The use of simulation based on kinetic mathematical models of grinding has proven useful in this respect. The kinetic models contain two essential parameters, namely, breakage rate and breakage distribution functions, that are to be determined experimentally, and preferably in laboratory, or by back-calculation from the mill product size distribution for a given feed size distribution. Experimental determination of the breakage parameters has been mostly carried out in laboratory batch mills using one-size-fraction material. The breakage rate parameter is obtained from the disappearance rate of this one-size-fraction material, while the breakage distribution parameters are estimated from the short-time grinding of the same material. Such laboratory methods using one-size fraction material, however, are not truly representative of industrial continuous mill operations where the mill contents have a distribution of particle sizes. There is evidence in the literature that the size distribution of the mill contents affects the breakage parameters. This thesis study was undertaken with the main purpose of investigating the effect of the size distribution of the mill hold-up on the brekage parameters of quartz and calcite minerals in lockedcycle dry grinding experiments. The locked-cycle and one-size-fraction experiments were performed in the Bond ball mill instrumented with a torque-measuring device. Different closing screen sizes were used in the locked-cycle work to produce different size distributions of the mill hold-up, and the operating conditions were changed in the one-size-fraction experiments to obtain different power draws. Particle breakage parameters were assessed for these changing conditions. Prior to the experiments related to the main purpose of the study, preliminary experiments were conducted for two reasons: (i) to find the power draw of the Bond mill in relation to the operating conditions with the intention of eliminating the use of costly torque-measuring devices by others / and (ii) to find the most accurate estimation method of breakage distribution functions among the three existing methods, namely, the &ldquo / zero-order production of fines&rdquo / method, the BII method, and the G-H method. The G-H method was found to be more appropriate for the current study. The locked-cycle grinding experiments revealed that the breakage rate function of coarse fractions increased with increasing proportion of fines in the mill hold-up. Breakage distribution functions were found to be environment-dependent and non-normalizable by size in one-size-fraction and locked cycle grinding experiments. It was concluded that the cumulative basis breakage rate function could sufficiently represent the breakage characteristics of the two studied materials in a wide range of operating conditions. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to evaluate the breakage characteristics of materials ground in ball mills by linearized form of the size-discretized batch grinding equation using single parameter instead of dealing with two parameters which may not be independent of each other.

ABSTRACT DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION OF MINING AND ENVIRONMENT LAWS OF TURKEY WITH REGARD TO EU LEGISLATION Turkey is trying to become a member of the European Union. Within this frame, studies are proceeding for harmonization of the Turkish legislation with the EU legislation. European legislation might have positive or negative impact on the mineral extraction industry and national mining law. Since there is no title directly related to mining policy in the EU legislation the mining policy of EU was evaluated especially under the titles&ldquo / energy&rdquo / and &ldquo / environment&rdquo / . In this thesis, the Turkish mining regulations and the environmental aspects of the mining activities have been investigated and discussed in comparison with those of EU. The latest developments about mining sectors of Turkey and EU have been evaluated and the comparison between EU directives and Turkish laws and regulations about mining have been made. In this study, modifications that should be realized in laws and regulations and measures that should be taken by Turkey as a candidate country for EU discussed and some proposals have been made.

In this study, an attempt has been made to hydrometallurgical extraction of cobalt and nickel by atmospheric pressure sulphuric acid leaching and a pug-roast-leach process using two stage roasting for lateritic ore. The ore used in the study was obtained from &Ccedil / aldag Lateritic Ore, Manisa, Turkey. The metal contents of the ore are 2.1 % Ni, 0.12 % Co, 32.45 % Fe, 1.01 % Mn, 2.58 % Cr, 0.78 % Mg and 1.01 % Al. The reserve of lateritic ore deposit is approximately 40 million tonnes. In the study, first sulphuric acid leaching was applied at atmospheric pressure for leaching the &Ccedil / aldag lateritic ore. The effect of various parameters, such as leaching time, leaching temperature, particle size, pulp density and acid strength on Ni and Co extractions were determined. By leaching at 80oC for 40 wt % H2SO4 addition of ore, 1/3 pulp density, Ni and Co extractions were found 44.49 % and 53.03 % respectively, yielded a pregnant solution containing 3.11 g/L Ni and 0.12 g/L Co. But the result of atmospheric pressure sulphuric acid leaching was considered insufficient from the recovery point of view. In the pug-roast-leach process, which is consisted of a two stage roasting followed by water leaching, decomposition temperature differences of sulphates of cobalt, nickel and iron are exploited. In this process, amount of acid, sulphatization and decomposition temperature, sulphatization and decomposition time, leaching temperature and time, solid/liquid ratio, and the effect of water addition during pugging were optimized. Under the optimized conditions (sulphuric acid: 25 wt % of ore / moisture: 20 wt % of ore / sulphatization temperature: 450oC / sulphatization time: 30 minutes / decomposition temperature: 700oC / decomposition time: 60 minutes / leaching temperature: 70oC / leaching time: 30 minutes and solid-liquid ratio: 1/4 by weight), Co and Ni extractions were found 91.4 and 84.4 percent, respectively. A pregnant solution containing 3.084 g/L Ni and 0.185 g/L Co was obtained. These results were considered sufficient for the leaching of lateritic nickel ores.

In this thesis, coal-water mixtures (CWM) with &Ccedil / ayirhan lignite were prepared to optimize the parameters of CWM having an ideal behavior which means that at maximum coal loading, relatively stable at static and dynamic conditions and exhibit low viscosity. For this purpose, the effect of the parameters such as pulp density, amount of chemical agents, particle size distribution, addition of methanol and pulp pH were investigated. Results showed that increasing pulp density negatively affects viscosity and allowable maximum pulp density was obtained as 60% when the particle size distribution has a d50 value of 22.82 &micro / m. The optimum amount of chemical agent was found as 0.9%, having 10% Na-CMC (Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose) and 90% PSS (Polystyrene Sulfonate). Minimum viscosity was achieved when the pulp pH was in natural conditions (pH=6.85). Addition of methyl alcohol increased the viscosity of CWM.

Dilution and ore recovery/loss have an important role in calculation of mineral reserves. Each percent increase in dilution and decrease in recovery negatively affects economic value of the reserve. These parameters are mainly controlled by the quality of the mine design and stoping practice. This study provides an approach developed for dilution and recovery/ore loss calculations. The contribution of mine design software (MineSight) and the recent survey technique called Cavity Monitoring System (CMS) were presented in this study. The purpose was to compare the new approach with the old system where the calculations had been done according to some assumptions and to optimize mineral reserve estimation process. Results indicate that the new approach used in reserve estimation process gives ~1.6% closer tonnages to the actual numbers and the grades are both ~1.6% closer to the actual values numbers when compared with the old system.

In this study it was aimed to analyse refining processes such as decreasing reducible oxide content of ladle slag with affecting parameters in low carbon aluminum killed grades and for the research Erdemir low carbon steel grades 7112K and 7110K are selected. There was a negative correlation between reducible oxide amount in ladle slag and desulphurization capacity of ladle slag with metal-slag reaction and steel internal cleanliness. To refine these properties of slag, aluminium dross, which was aluminium production discard and has a metallic content around %30-35 was used and after ladle treatment operation, decrease in reducible oxides such as FetO, MnO, SiO2, P2O5 was analysed. After the study it was observed that 653 kg. of converter slag leaked during tapping of steel and SiO2 ve P2O5 content of ladle slag had negligible change after ladle treatment. According to the results, it is observed that initial %10-12 (FetO + MnO) content was reduced to % 4.5-5.0 (FetO + MnO) after ladle treatment with use of aluminium dross. Beside of this, in order to see the effect of this slag reduction on steel cleanliness, low carbon aluminium killed grades were compared with ultra-low carbon aluminium killed grades having (FetO + MnO) content of %16-17 in slag. It was seen that reoxidation of aluminium (loss of dissolved aluminium) during continuous casting for ULC (ultra-low carbon) gradesis 144 ppm but for LC grades it was 94 ppm and it was being expected that ULC steel group would have higher inclusion content after casting.

In drilling technologies, Na-bentonite-water mixtures are used as drilling mud. As the reserves of sodium-bentonite decline, calcium or low-quality bentonites are activated with inorganic salts and/or treated with different types of polymers as an alternative to Na-bentonite. The quality of such bentonites, commonly referred to as extended bentonite may deteriorate under severe drilling conditions, such as / bacterial activity, high temperature etc. It was considered that borates could prevent the deterioration of extended bentonites due to their well known bactericide properties. This study involves the use of Na-Borate as an activating agent for bentonites in place of the commonly used Na-carbonate. The effects of Na-borate on the rheological and filtrate behaviours of two different bentonites, namely, Edirne Bentonite (E-Ben) and &Ccedil / ankiri Bentonite (C-Ben) were investigated. The results were evaluated based on API standards and in comparison to those of Na-carbonate activated bentonites. It was found that Na-borate could be used as a bentonite activator, although somewhat higher dosages (3,78% Na2O equivalent for E-Ben and 0,76% Na2O equivalent for C-Ben) than Na-carbonate (2,90% Na2O equivalent for E-Ben and 0,58% Na2O equivalent for C-Ben) are necessary to obtain the same rheological properties. In terms of aging, it was determined that aging had no adverse effect on v the rheological and filtrate properties of bentonite treated with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and polyanionic cellulose (PAC), but rheological properties of bentonites treated with xanthan gum were found to deteriorate upon aging. The presence of Na-borate in the mud appears to alleviate this adverse effect.

Trona ore located in Beypazari is extracted by solution mining method with well pair connected by directional drilling technology. This thesis covers the determination of the dimensions of the initial (vertical) caverns formed in underground by use of a computer modeling (trademark: WinUbro/Poland) on the basis of horizontal and vertical leaching rates. The leaching rates were determined using the trona core samples from the ore deposit. The effect of insoluble content and the thickness of trona layer and solvent temperature on the initial cavern dimension were studied. The outcome of this study showed that the better the trona layer quality from the point of view of thickness and insoluble content, the wider the vertical cavern size is. In 1 m thick trona layer with 20% insolubles, it is possible to develop caverns of 6 m width, which is the minimum size for well pair connection. On the other hand, it is determined that the effective leaching time depends mainly on solvent temperature.

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the principles of laboratory-scale particle bed comminution in a piston-die-press. The feed materials used in this investigation are quartz and calcite which were stage-crushed and dry screened to produce 3.35 x 2.36, 2.36 x 1.7, 1.7 x 1.18, 1.18 x 0.85, and minus 0.85mm size fractions. First, these narrow size fractions (excluding minus 0.85mm fraction) were comminuted under different pressures to determine the baseline for energy utilization. Then, these size fractions and minus 0.85mm size fraction were proportionately mixed to produce feeds of three different size distributions having three different Gates-Gaudin-Schuhmann (GGS) size distribution moduli (m=0.5, 0.7, and 0.9), and comminuted under different bed pressures of appropriate magnitudes to generate a reasonable range of specific breakage energy inputs. As a result of the experiments carried out, it can be concluded that higher amounts of fines were obtained from calcite samples than quartz at all narrow-range size fractions and distribution moduli. Furthermore, experimental results showed that the feed material having the widest size distribution (m = 0.5) showed more resistance to size reduction when compared with narrow-size fractions, which led to increase in energy consumption due to the presence of higher amounts of fines. Tests samples with distribution moduli of 0.7 and 0.9 showed higher resistance to size reduction than narrow-size samples, but the reduction ratios achieved with the size distributed samples were higher than those achieved with the narrow-size samples. In addition, by using t-curves (t50 and t10) the amounts of breakage of different samples were compared. Consequently, the distribution modulus of 0.9 gave better breakage results in terms of expended energy and amount of breakage than all narrow-size fractions, especially for the relatively soft mineral calcite.

Carbonate rocks contain most of the world&rsquo / s proven hydrocarbon reserves. It is essential to predict flow properties and understand flow mechanisms in carbonates for estimating hydrocarbon recovery accurately. Pore network modeling is an effective tool in determination of flow properties and investigation of flow mechanisms. Topologically equivalent pore network models yield accurate results for flow properties. Due to their simple pore structure, sandstones are generally considered in pore scale studies and studies involving carbonates are limited. In this study, in order to understand flow mechanisms and wettability effects in heterogeneous carbonate rocks, a novel pore network model was developed for simulating two-phase flow. The constructed model was composed of matrix, fissure and vug sub domains and the sequence of fluid displacements was simulated typical by primary drainage followed by water flooding. Main mechanisms of imbibition, snap-off, piston like advance and pore body filling, were also considered. All the physically possible fluid configurations in the pores, vugs and fissures for all wettability types were examined. For configurations with a fluid layer sandwiched between other phases, the range of capillary pressures for the existence of such a layer was also evaluated. Then, results of the proposed model were compared with data available in literature. Finally, effects of wettability and pore structure on flow properties were examined by assigning different wettability conditions and porosity features. It was concluded that the proposed pore network model successfully represented two phase flow in fissured and vuggy carbonate rocks.