By using oral history as the primary research method, the aim of this thesis is to document and analyse the experiences of women woollen textile workers in the mid-twentieth century. The thesis contains a critique of oral history as a research method in general and the feminist practice of oral history in particular. In order to locate the women in the study in a particular place, there is description of the development and eventual collapse of the woollen textile industry in the Huddersfield area of West Yorkshire. Tape recorded interviews were carried out with 17 women. The key findings from their experiences fall into two main areas. The first relates to the experiences the women describe about the daily routine within the woollen mill, especially for new recruits and the tasks they had which were unconnected with their job. The second relates to the descriptions of the actions the women took during the collapse of the industry. This thesis contributes to the wider body of work on working class women and offers original insights into the experiences of women who worked in an industry which has all but disappeared.

No description available.

Master of Science

M.S.

Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2014

no abstract provided by author / Master of Science

In previous studies, the analysis of ball mill operating parameters and their effects on breakage phenomena has been limited to homogeneous materials. Though these studies have proven to be an asset in predictions of product size distributions and mill scale-up, they have not addressed the primary role of grinding, i.e. liberation. The present investigation analyzes the effect of ball mill operating parameters on the breakage rates of both liberated and composite material. The operating parameters studied include mill rotational speed, ball size, mill charge, and wet versus dry grinding. Breakage rates have been determined experimentally utilizing a SEM-IPS image analyzer. The mineral sample used was acquired from ASARCO's Young Mine which is located in Jefferson City Tennessee. It was a binary ore consisting of sphalerite and dolomite. Batch grinding experiments were conducted to provide breakage rates for the various composition classes. Breakage rates were then normalized with respect to energy to see if the changes in breakage rates associated with mill operating parameters were due to changes in breakage kinetics, or simply a function of energy input. The energy normalized data indicates that the free dolomite breakage rates tend to normalize with respect to energy in the case of varying interstitial fillings. Furthermore, changes in mill rotational speed tend to provide energy normalizable breakage rates for both free dolomite and sphalerite. In all other cases, analysis of the breakage rates and energy-specific breakage rates indicate that a change in breakage kinetics may be occurring. In general, particles containing a high proportion of sphalerite are more apt to break under impact conditions. On the other hand, particles containing a large proportion of dolomite were found to prefer attrition breakage conditions. / Master of Science / incomplete_metadata

Water powered mills were a very important part of life in early America, and Augusta County, Virginia had an abundance of milling activity. Excellent records of milling activity, farm production, and road and farm locations for the period of 1880-1885 allowed a geographic information system (GIS) database to be formed so that spatial patterns could be verified and identified in the Riverheads district of the county. Service areas of 21 mills were identified by using a GIS to calculate the shortest road distance to surrounding farms. It was found that wheat, the main crop, was most likely shipped from the 369 farms to the closest mills. A correlation was also found between wheat production and distance from the mill, thus farmers closer to a mill were more likely to grow wheat. The study also demonstrates the usefulness of GIS analysis and computer cartography in historical, geographic research which has traditionally used theoretical approaches or lacked adequate data for GIS analysis. / Master of Science

The research conducted in this thesis is concerned with the study of a two-stage production process existing at the Standard Register's (previously Burroughs Corporation) Paper Products Division plant in Rocky Mount, VA. The objective is to develop a mathematical programming based model and algorithm to allocate and sequence work orders in order to improve the plant's productivity and reduce the labor and material costs. The proposed algorithm is based on Lagrangian Relaxation and Benders' decomposition techniques, which exploit the inherent generalized assignment and travelling salesman problem substructures in the model. The algorithm is computationally intensive and generates (near) optimal solutions with a reasonable amount of effort. Heuristic algorithmic procedures for the generation of good solutions for large-sized problems is also proposed. / M.S.

Low-grade pyrolusite manganese ore from the Paint Bank deposits of Virginia was prepared for flotation by grinding to different degrees of fineness. The coarsest size was a 28 Tyler Mesh and the finest was 100 Tyler mesh. Under size products of the grinding were as fine as minus 200 Tyler Mesh. Flotation tests were run on the ore in a Denver Sub-A Flotation Cell of 500 gram capacity. Each run was made with an amount of ore closely approximating this capacity. The flotation reagents were added in a definite order allowing three minutes between each addition. A conditioning period of fifteen minutes followed the addition of the reagents in each case. Crude tallol was tested as a collecting agent for the manganese dioxide in the ore, with auxiliary reagents. Runs were made varying the amounts of tallol, pine oil, frother, sodium silicate silica depressor, and the hydrogen ion concentration was varied with either sulphuric acid or hydrated lime. Crude oleic acid from tallol was also tested as a collecting agent for the manganese dioxide in the ore, with auxiliary reagents. Runs were made varying the amounts of crude oleic acid, sodium silicate depressor, and the hydrogen ion concentration was varied with either sulphuric acid or hydrated lime. Sulphonated tallol was also tested as a collecting agent, but the preliminary results did not seem to justify continuing with an extensive investigation. The grade of concentrate was fairly high but the yield of concentrate was less than two per cent of the original head sample. The crude oleic acid was found to be a better collector than the crude tallol, although neither one had much effect on the grade of the concentrate obtained. Sodium silicate had no beneficial action on the grade of concentrate, and with the crude oleic acid, it had a definitely deterrent effect. It was indicated that this was due to its coating the silica with a film of manganese dioxide, thus causing the silica to be collected as a particle of manganese dioxide. The sodium silicate was found to be useful in increasing the per cent recovery of concentrate. Pine oil, while not having any affect on the grade of concentrate, was effective in increasing the yield of concentrate. In general, an acid medium was found conducive to obtaining high grade concentrates, but this was more than offset by the low yields encountered. An alkaline medium was found to give the best overall recovery of the manganese dioxide. It was also indicated that the ore should be crushed through at least 35 mesh, and preferably 65 mesh, in order to obtain the greatest recovery. / Master of Science