Mining Engineering Mock Interview Questions & Practice

What is strip mining, and for what type of deposits is it commonly used?

Key points to cover:

• Removes a strip of overburden to expose the ore, mines it
• Then moves to an adjacent strip, often backfilling the previous one
• Commonly used for flat, tabular deposits like coal seams

What is room-and-pillar mining, and how does it work?

Key points to cover:

• Extracts ore by creating a grid of open rooms
• While leaving pillars of unmined material to support the roof
• Commonly used for relatively flat, tabular deposits

What is burden and spacing in blast hole design, and what do they refer to?

Key points to cover:

• Burden: distance from a blast hole to the nearest free rock face
• Spacing: distance between adjacent blast holes in the same row
• Both critical parameters affecting fragmentation and performance

What is the difference between forcing (blowing) and exhausting (extracting) ventilation systems?

Key points to cover:

• Forcing: a fan pushes fresh air into the mine
• Creating positive pressure
• Exhausting: a fan draws air out, creating negative pressure

What is gas monitoring in underground mining, and what types of gases are typically monitored?

Key points to cover:

• The continuous or periodic measurement of gas concentrations
• In mine air
• Methane, carbon monoxide, oxygen, hydrogen sulfide

What is topsoil management in mine reclamation, and why is it important?

Key points to cover:

• Carefully removing, storing, and later replacing topsoil
• During mining and subsequent reclamation
• Topsoil contains organic matter/microorganisms needed for plant growth

What is Hooke's Law, and within what range of deformation does it apply?

Key points to cover:

• Stress is directly proportional to strain
• Proportionality constant is the material's modulus of elasticity
• Applies only within the elastic limit

What is a bending moment diagram, and what information does it provide?

Key points to cover:

• A graphical representation of bending moment along a beam
• Provides the location and magnitude of maximum bending stress
• Essential for beam design

What is stress concentration, and what commonly causes it in a machine component?

Key points to cover:

• A localized increase in stress at a geometric discontinuity
• Well above the average stress in the surrounding material
• Commonly caused by abrupt changes in cross-section or geometry

What is hydrostatic pressure, and how does it vary with depth in a fluid?

Key points to cover:

• Pressure exerted by a fluid at rest due to the weight of fluid above
• Increases linearly with depth
• Proportional to fluid density, gravitational acceleration, and depth

What is the Reynolds number, and what does it indicate about a flow?

Key points to cover:

• A dimensionless ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces
• Used to predict whether a flow will be laminar or turbulent
• With a critical value marking the transition

What is cavitation in a centrifugal pump, and what conditions promote it?

Key points to cover:

• Local pressure inside the pump drops below the fluid's vapor pressure
• Vapor bubbles form and then collapse violently
• Promoted by insufficient suction head or excessive pump speed