The four latest nominations to www.im-halloffame.com are Bob Moorhead for his inventive cyclone designs;  John S. Frater’s internationally renowned pump designs; Jeff Whittle for his strategic mine planning software and James Calquhon for pioneering the processing of porphyry ores. You still have until September 20 to nominate your personal favourite innovator. Remember the college of voters needs a good explanation of why any person or team is being nominated, the technology for which they are being nominated and the importance this has been to the industry. Please include pictures of the people and the machines.

Moorhead has “made a remarkable contribution to the mining industry. He has been a major contributor to the design of the current line of Krebs Heavy Media Cyclones.  Unique to this design is the use of a removable ceramic acceleration wedge within the inlet; this allows the end-user to alter performance and/or capacity without having to change required flow split.  The new design provides greater capacity and is more efficient than previous designs due to careful correlation between the open area of the inlet, vortex finder and apex orifices.”

You know you have made a difference in the world when your family name becomes a verb. That name is Whittle and the man who has made a revolutionary impact on the mining industry is pioneering strategic mine planning expert Jeff Whittle. For well over three decades, his innovative thinking has made an impact on the vast majority of mining companies and mining professionals involved in the evaluation of mining deposits and the planning of mining operations. Several years after his first foray into the industry in 1979, Jeff and his wife Ruth founded Whittle Programming Pty Ltd, and soon wrote the Whittle software strategic mine planning software. Over the next sixteen years he developed a series of mining optimisation packages, including Whittle Four-X,  Opti-cut (inspired by Ken Lane’s – also nominated – theories on cutoff grade optimisation) and the Milawa algorithm (a creative solution to the difficult non-linear mine scheduling problem).

Frater’s designs “have made an extraordinary contribution to the mining industry worldwide. He left Warman and invented the Orion Pump and started the Orion Pump Co in 1981.  The patented pump pioneered the design to allow adjustment of running clearances at both the front and back of the impeller.  The company was subsequently purchased by Denver Equipment.  This acquisition would lead to his position as Pump Product Manager at Denver Equipment, which soon after would be purchased by Metso. In 1996 John invented what to this day remains a revolutionary pump, the millMAX pump.  The patented suction side sealing has changed the way the industry looks at wear on the suction side liner and pump adjustment overall.  The design uses a wear ring to seal between the suction liner and impeller.  Further it allows the adjustment of the wear ring to maintain the sealing while the pump is operating.  This was a first for any slurry pump.  John sold his company to FLSmidth Krebs in 1999 and since that time has served as Pump Technical Director.”

James Calquhoun, of the Arizona Copper, nominated for pioneering treatment of porphyry ores. He did this successfully by one of two methods: 1-mine pyrite and burn it to produce an impure sulphuric acid, use the acid to leach what was then considered low grade copper oxide and precipitate the copper on scrap iron.  2- for the sulphides (ores running 2-3%), he concentrated them by jigs and vanners.