Browsing by Subject "Duluth Minnesota"
Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Alternative Technology for Sediment Remediation(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2000-11-02) Wu, ChuyingDuluth-Superior is a major port of the Great Lakes located at the extreme southwest end of Lake Superior in the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The harbor area occupies roughly 32 square miles and has 100 miles of waterfront. The harbor and lower St. Louis River have a history of water quality problems resulting primarily from municipal and industrial discharges in and upstream of the harbor. As a result, the harbor has been listed by the International Joint Commission as an Area of Concern (AOC) within the Great Lakes ecosystem. The 1995 progress report on the Remedial Action Plan (RAP) for the area identified sediment contamination as the major cause of many impaired uses in the St. Louis Estuary. Contaminants of concern include ammonia nitrogen, phosphorus, metals, oil and grease, PCBs, and PAHs. Contaminated sediments are thought to have detrimental effects on water quality, the diversity and abundance of aquatic and benthic organisms, human health, and disposal options for material dredged during harbor maintenance. The dredged material is stored in the Confined Disposal Facility (CDF) at the Erie Pier in Duluth. The CDF is nearing its capacity, and additional space is required for storage of dredged materials either by construction of a new facility or by extending the life for the one currently used. The Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory (CMRL) of the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) has, in the past, conducted several research programs to evaluate the construction of a sediment treatment plant at the Erie Pier CDF as an effective way of extending its life. CMRL is currently contracted by the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) to develop and engineer a plant to treat the sediment contained in the CDF. This study is being conducted in response to Section 541 of the Water Resource Development Act of 1996, initiated by Congressman Jim Oberstar, which states: "The Secretary shall develop and implement methods for decontamination and disposal of contaminated dredged material at the Port of Duluth, Minnesota". Various agencies including USEPA, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MNPCA), and NRRI conducted numerous research and survey projects. The sediments in the federal channels were analyzed as part of Dredged Material Management Plant (DMMP), and analyses revealed that metal concentrations in the sediments of all management units were comparable to those found in the regional soils, and that PCBs, pesticides, and PAHs were generally non-detectable. No PCBs and only low levels of PAHs were found in a survey study in Erie Pier CDF conducted by NRRI in 1997. Due to its relatively low contamination level, it is safe to study a number of variables before implementation of the technology to the other highly contaminated areas. The treatment plant should generate data on the effectiveness of using mineral processing technology for separation and decontamination of the sediments. In some cases, the separation products could be cleaned and used for other purposes such as brick manufacturing, landfill cover, beach nourishment, construction fill, and/or habitat enhancement.Item Alternative Technology for Sediment Remediation Demonstration Plant(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2000-11) Benner, Blair R; Wu, Chuying; Zanko, Lawrence MDuluth-Superior Harbor is a major port on Lake Superior located between the cities of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. The harbor and the lower Saint Louis River that discharges into the harbor area have a history of water quality problems resulting primarily from municipal and industrial discharges in and upstream of the harbor. The port is a major debarking point for grain shipments overseas and for taconite pellets for the lower Great Lakes ports. To allow navigation, the shipping channels must be dredged annually. The dredged material has been stored in a confined disposal area developed at the Erie Pier location in Duluth. This facility is nearing its capacity and other methods for handling the dredged material must be found. The Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory, a division of the Natural Resources Research Institute of the University of Minnesota - Duluth, has been studying the application of mineral processing techniques for treating contaminated soils. The laboratory sampled the Erie Pier site and designed a demonstration plant to treat about 50 tph of material from the site. Based on the previous work and the plant design, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded the laboratory a contract to construct and operate the demonstration plant. The plant consisted of a feeder followed by a grizzly screen to remove large rocks and miscellaneous junk. The grizzly undersize was conveyed to a double deck screen equipped with water sprays. The screen undersize flowed to a sump and pump. The slurry was then pumped to an agitated tank. Material from the tank was pumped to two cyclones to make a size separation. Cyclone overflows were collected and channeled to settling ponds to allow the solids to settle and to provide water for the plant. Cyclone underflow was stockpiled as a sand product. In addition to sending the cyclone overflow to the settling ponds, a belt filter press was tested for about two weeks to treat a portion of the overflow to produce a cake that could be easily handled and a clear filtrate that could be recycled. The objective of the program was to treat different types of materials found at the Erie Pier site to produce a coarse product (cyclone underflow) that contained less than 12 percent by weight particles finer than 200 mesh (75 microns). The underflow should be free draining so that it could be moved by loaders. The distribution of solids, water, inorganic compounds and organic compounds would be monitored. The settling characteristics of the cyclone overflow would be determined. A total of four separate samples were processed in the plant. Sample 1 was a sandy feed containing between 13 and 32 percent in the passing 200 mesh fraction. Sample 2 was a finer material that was removed from the site during construction of the settling ponds. Sample 2 contained between 30 and 52 percent in the passing 200 mesh fraction. Sample 3 was a fine sample dug from the north end of the site where the finest material should have been. Sample 3 was only run for one day due to a break down of the front-end loader used to transport the feed to the plant. The fourth sample was the drained cyclone underflow from the processing of samples 2 and 3. Maintaining a consistent feed to the plant was a continual problem. Clay material in the feed was difficult to disagglomerate and the material tended to form balls, which rolled down the screen decks. Additional water sprays and belting on the top screen deck improved the break up of the clay material but did not eliminate the problem. Another feed problem was the amount of vegetation in the feed. This material tended to bridge in the feeder and to plug the two screen decks, reducing screening capacity, at times significantly. Compounding the feed problem was the loss of the variable frequency drives on the two pumps. Loss of the drives effectively eliminated the ability to make any significant changes in the flowrate to the cyclones and, hence, the ability to affect the cyclone split. Attempts were made to control the cyclone feed by installing a by-pass line to return some of the cyclone feed back to the cyclone feed sump. These attempts were unsuccessful and on numerous occasions resulted in overloading the cyclone feed pump motor causing the motor to stop. Samples of the cyclone feed, overflow and underflow, as well as belt filter press cake and filtrate, when operating, were taken hourly. These samples were saved for future analysis. In addition to the saved hourly samples, a grab sample of each stream was taken hourly and made into a daily composite. The daily composites were filtered with a portion of the filtercake being used for size analysis and the remainder being air dried for chemical analysis. Sample 1 was processed at feed rates up to about 63 tph with no loss in performance. In all tests with Sample 1, the cyclone underflow contained less than 10 percent in the passing 200 mesh fraction. Weight recovery to the underflow ranged between 73.3 and 92.6 percent. In general, the heavy metals and organic material were concentrated in the cyclone overflow, but since the total weight recovery in the cyclone underflow was high, the majority of the heavy metals and organics in the feed remained with the cyclone underflow. The processing of Samples 2 and 3 were more difficult due to the large amount of vegetation contained in the feed. Plant feed rates were generally between 7 and 14 tph. The low feed rates were caused by the vegetation problem and by the need to feed the cyclone a low percent solids to try to make the desired size split. But even at the low percent solids in the feed, the cyclone underflow contained between 18 and 29 percent in the passing 200 mesh fraction. Weight recovery to the underflow ranged from 55 to 72 percent. Despite the high minus 200 content, the cyclone underflow was easy to dewater and formed into a steep sided conical pile. As with Sample 1, the heavy metals and organics were concentrated in overflow sample, which, due to the higher weight recovery, contained the majority of the heavy metals and organics from the feed. Since the cyclone underflows from Samples 2 and 3 still contained too many fines, the cyclone underflow pile was reprocessed through the plant. Resultant cyclone underflow contained between 10.9 and 14.7 percent in the minus 200 mesh fractions and recovered over 90 percent of the feed weight. Again the heavy metals and organics concentrated in the cyclone overflow. Performance of the belt filter press was very impressive. The resultant filtercake was very easy to handle by conveyor belts and would be very easy to haul by truck. The filtercake was almost dry to the touch. Filtrate from the belt filter press was very clean, with turbidity measurements less than 5 ntu. To produce these results required about 1.5 pounds of polymer flocculant for every 3900 gallons of cyclone overflow treated. Analysis of the filtrate indicated no residual polymer in the water.Item Applied Time Series and Duluth Temperature Prediction(2017-06) Wan, XiangpengAutoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) has been one of the popular linear models in time series forecasting during the past three decades.The Triple Expo- nential Model also can be used to fit the time series data. This project takes Duluth temperature predictions as a case study, finding the best statistical model to predict the temperature. I collected 30 years of Duluth monthly maximum temperature data, from 1986 to 2016, and I fi t 29 years of them into di erent models including Triple Exponential Smoothing model, ARIMA model, and SARIMA model. Then I predicted the last year's temperature in those models, and I compared them to the true value of last year's temperature, which gave me the SSE value for each model so that I could find the best model.Item Changes in the Fluidity of Coordination with Curling Experience(2016) Bernier, Kyle; Segler, Emily; Hessler, Eric EThis study examined the effects of experience in the sport of curling by comparing different movement tasks of curlers of varying levels of experience. We predicted that curlers with more experience would demonstrate greater amounts of flexibility in their movements, which is consistent with past studies on movement and experience (Bernstein, 1967, Vereijken, van Emmerik, Whiting, & Newell, 1992). Curlers from the Duluth Curling Club were tested on both hit and draw shots while turning their wrists in either a clockwise or counterclockwise movement. Their movement was recorded using an Optotrak Certus device which uses infrared sensors to pick up on slight differences in movement. We found that participants with more experience showed greater amounts of flexibility while performing the motion tasks. Results from this study can be used by curlers trying to make improvements to their game. Further research can be conducted to improve upon our findings.Item Demonstration of Hardwood Trusses in Residential Construction Projects(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2002-01) Brashaw, Brian K; Vatalaro, Robert J; Ross, Robert J; Wang, XipingThe hardwood lumber industry is a key component of the forest products industry in the Lake States and Northeast regions of the United States. Two of the primary lumber species include sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and red maple (Acer rubrum). High grade lumber from these species has an extremely high value, often exceeding $1,500/thousand board feet (M bdft). Lower grades of maple including pallet lumber usually sell for $200 to $275/M bdft. A cooperative Lake States research team developed the technical and economic background necessary for using low grade maple as structural components in metal-plate trusses and prefabricated wood I-joists. Specific projects that have been completed addressed the following research topics: lumber yield and recovery, lumber properties, acce\erated drying schedules, truss plate fasteners, truss fabrication and testing, I-joist fabrication and testing, and :financial assessments. An important step prior to implementation was the development of several demonstration projects using structurally graded maple lumber. A relationship was established with the Duluth Chapter of Habitat for Humanity International and a demonstration project was developed to use the red maple lumber in trusses for two houses with attached garag~s that were to be built during the summer of 2001. To minimize concerns oflumber length and s_pecies, we chose to use red maple as truss webs with spruce-pine-fir (SPF) chords in the house section and red maple for both the truss chords and webs in the attached garage. Red maple cants were obtained, sawn into 2- by 4-in. dimension lumber and dried using an accelerated kiln schedule. Structural grading was completed using an E-computer with visual overrides for #2 a11d #3 grade lumber. Truss designs were completed and sealed by a professional engineer and the trusses were manufactured by Kylmala Truss in Duluth, Minnesota. Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) personnel were involved in the setting of the trusses. There were no specific problems noted from the use of red maple in either the house or garage trusses. A second demonstration project was designed to use sugar maple lumber as web stock in a standard storage truss in a garage built in rural Duluth, Minnesota. Kiln-dried hard maple remaining from earlier projects was graded using a commercial E-computer. The lumber was then provided to Kylmala Truss for use in manufacturing a 6:12 pitch garage truss that spanned 26 ft. The trusses were set by NRRI personnel and covered with oriented strandboard (OSB) sheathing. There were no specific problems or challenges identified from using hard maple in the trusses, although it was difficult to hand nail siding to the hard maple web on the gable end trusses.Item Erie Pier Dredge Material Beneficial Use Study Final Report February 25, 2013(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2013-02-25) Patelke, Marsha Meinders; Levar, Thomas E; Zanko, Lawrence M; Oreskovich, Julie A; Maly, Craig CA two-year (2011-2012) study was undertaken by the University of Minnesota Duluth Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) to conduct lab and field demonstrations – as well as concurrent testing and monitoring – related to the beneficial use of federal navigation channel dredge material removed from the Duluth-Superior Harbor and stored at the Erie Pier facility in Duluth, MN. Much of the groundwork for the 2011-2012 study was done in prior years, but especially in 2009 and 2010, through ongoing collaborative efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Detroit District, its Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, MS, its Duluth Area Office, and public and private entities in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Examples of the latter include: the Duluth Seaway Port Authority; the Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Interstate Council (DSMIC); the Harbor Technical Advisory Committee (HTAC) and its members; city, county and state officials and agency personnel; engineering firms and contractors; and Minnesota taconite mining operations.Item Federal Prison Metallurgical Project: Optical Inspection of Spot Weld(University of Minnesota Duluth, 1986-11-24) Power, Barry; Hauck, Steven AThis report examines the quality of the we'tded joints in wire postal baskets being made at the Duluth Fedenal Prison Camp. The report also addresses probable causes for the defects and possible solutions. The done wor k h,as at the nequest of ilr. Thomas stabe of the Federa't prison camp.Item Land Application of De-Inking Residue(University of Minnesota Duluth, 1996-04) McCarthy, Barbara J; Monson Geerts, Stephen DPulp facilities which recycle office waste paper generate a large amount of waste by-products in the process of producing high-grade pulp. The paper-like substance, called de-inking residue, was evaluated for use as a soil amendment on land used for crop production in northeast Minnesota. Research plots were established in the fall of 1993 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The 10- by 20-foot plots were arranged in a randomized block design with 3 replications consisting of 3 levels of de-inking residue, 3 nitrogen rates, 1 manure rate, and 2 crops commonly produced in the region, for a total of 19 treatment combinations. Thirty-six lysimeters were installed to monitor changes in subsurface water quality. Soils were evaluated to determine impacts of de-inking residue on soil chemical properties. Crop yields and plant nutrient levels were determined in the late summer and early fall of 1994. De-inking residue was not a significant source of plant nutrients and cannot be classified as an Agricultural Liming Material (ALM). De-inking residue had a minimal impact on the chemical properties of soils and on subsurface water quality. The highest alfalfa yields typically occurred with the application of the following treatment combinations: 1) only nitrogen fertilizer, 2) nitrogen fertilizer with manure, 3) nitrogen fertilizer, manure, and 10 ton/acre de-inking residue, 4) 150 lb/acre nitrogen with 10 ton/acre de-inking residue applied in the fall, and 5) 300 lb/acre nitrogen with 10 ton/acre de-inking residue applied in the spring. The highest corn silage yields occurred with the application of the following treatment combinations: 1) no nitrogen, manure, or de-inking residue, applied in the spring, 2) only nitrogen fertilizer, 3) nitrogen fertilizer with manure, 4) spring application of 300 lb/acre nitrogen fertilizer with 10 ton/acre de-inking residue, 5) nitrogen fertilizer, manure and 10 ton/acre de-inking residue, and 6) 150 lb/acre nitrogen with 10 ton/acre de-inking residue applied in the fall. The alfalfa and corn plant analyses indicated that both nutrient and metal levels were within published sufficiency ranges, with few significant differences due to treatment effects.Item Mineland Reclamation using Office Waste Paper De-Inking Residue(University of Minnesota Duluth, 1994-03) McCarthy, Barbara J; Monson Geerts, Stephen D; Johnson, Kurt W; Malterer, Thomas J; Maly, Craig CPulp facilities which recycle office waste paper generate a large amount of waste by-products in the process of producing high-grade pulp. The paper-like residue, called de-inking residue, was evaluated for use in the restoration of vegetation on coarse taconite tailings in NE Minnesota. The mineland reclamation rules specify that a 90 percent vegetative cover shall be established on tailings after three growing seasons, however this level of cover on coarse tailings has not been consistently achieved in Minnesota using standard restoration practices. Research plots were established in 1992 at Eveleth Mines arranged in a randomized block design with three replications using five levels of de-inking residue, five levels of fertilization and two plant mixes. A total of twenty-five treatment combinations were assigned to 2.5m- by- 4.0m plots and lysimeters were installed to monitor changes in sub-surface water quality. Coarse tailings were evaluated to determine the effects of de-inking residue on their chemical properties. Vegetative cover was measured in July and September in 1992 and 1993 and nutrient levels were determined in plant samples. Fertilization and de-inking residue amendments had significant effects on the vegetative cover of both introduced and native plant species. De-inking residue had a minimal impact on the chemical properties of coarse tailings at rates up to 80 dry ton/acre and on sub-surface water quality at a depth of four feet. Vegetative cover for introduced species increased from no cover, to 49 percent the first growing season, to 90 percent at the end of the second growing season on tailings fertilized at the highest level and amended with residue at 10 ton/acre. At the same fertilizer and de-inking residue rate, vegetative cover for native plants increased from no cover to 7 percent the first growing season, to 69 percent at the end of the second growing season. Alfalfa had lower levels of boron, magnesium, and manganese on residue amended plots in 1992 and 1993. Bluestem had higher levels of calcium and zinc, but lower levels of magnesium and manganese on residue amended. plots. Cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, and zinc in alfalfa and bluestem did not accumulate to toxic levels. Deinking residue appears to have benefited vegetative growth after two growing seasons using deinking residue applied at 10 dry ton/acre with fertilizer applied at 160 lb/acre of nitrogen and 359 lb/acre of phosphorus.