Fred Chester Bond (June 10, 1899 – January 23, 1977) was an American

mining engineer Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...

. A graduate of the

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines, informally called Mines, is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, founded in 1874. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on en ...

, he worked in the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

equipment and ore milling equipment business of

Allis-Chalmers Allis-Chalmers was a U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various industries. Its business lines included agricultural equipment, construction equipment, power generation and power transmission equipment, and machinery for use in industrial set ...

from 1930 to 1964.

Bond Work Index

In the 1930s through early 1950s, Bond developed a new theory of

comminution Comminution is the reduction of solid materials from one average particle size to a smaller average particle size, by crushing, grinding, cutting, vibrating, or other processes. In geology, it occurs naturally during faulting in the upper part of ...

that introduced an index, called the 'Bond Work Index', which relates power consumption in crushing and grinding to the feed and product size distribution. His theory and index were introduced in a widely cited 1952 journal article.. Bond called his theory the "third theory of comminution", counting those of

Peter von Rittinger Peter Ritter von Rittinger or Peter von Rittinger (see styling variants at '' Ritter'') (23 January 1811 Nový Jičín / Neutitschein – 7 December 1872 Vienna) was an Austrian pioneer of mineral processing. Life After completion of legal stu ...

and Friedrich Kick as the first and second. This term and the terminology of "laws of comminution", as in "Rittinger's law", "Kick's law", and "Bond's law", are sometimes used in the field, along with those of subsequent researchers including Walker and Hukki. Whereas Rittinger's theory held that the

work Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physical work done by humans ** House work, housework, or homemaking ** Working animal, an animal t ...

done in breaking rock is proportional to the new surface area produced (that is, inversely proportional to the diameter of the product particles), and Kick's theory held that the work done is directly proportional to the reduction ratio (ratio of feed particle diameter to product particle diameter), Bond's theory held that the work varies inversely as the

square root In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or  ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because . ...

of the product particle diameters. Bond's theory and index brought a greater measure of openness to the calculations for selecting the type, size, and power ratings for ore milling equipment. Bond was inducted with its first class into the

National Mining Hall of Fame The National Mining Hall of Fame is a museum located in Leadville, Colorado, United States, dedicated to commemorating the work of miners and people who work with natural resources. The museum also participates in efforts to inform the public ab ...

posthumously in 1988, and received a Distinguished Achievement Medal by his alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines, in 1952. He received the 1965 AIME Robert H. Richards Award " r major contributions to increased knowledge of crushing and grinding processes and for achievement in industrial application of this knowledge to advancement of the milling industry."Awards
Society for Mining, metallurgy and Exploration

Career and personal life

Bond's autobiography. describes life in Colorado in the 1920s and shows some ways in which it was still somewhat

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

ing compared with today. It also describes the experience of working as a foreign engineer in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

and some of the poverty encountered, discord argued, friendships made, and mining projects worked on. An interesting account of

uranium mining in Canada For many years, North America was the largest exporter of uranium ore in the world and has been a major world producer since demand for uranium developed. In 2009 Kazakhstan took over top spot, relegating Canada to second. 20% of the world's p ...

Port Radium Port Radium is a mining area on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. It included the settlement of Cameron Bay as well as the Eldorado (also called Port Radium) and Echo Bay mines. The name Port Radium did n ...

is given. Bond and Margaret Jean Lowe were married in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, on August 29, 1925, and remained married until his death in Tucson in 1977. Margaret Jean died in 1988, also in Tucson. They had two sons, Robert F., born 1926, and Bruce F., born 1933. In addition to his vocation of engineering, Bond had an avocation of thinking and writing on metaphysical subjects.

References

Publications

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bond, Fred Chester 1899 births 1977 deaths People from Golden, Colorado Colorado School of Mines alumni 20th-century American engineers American mining engineers Engineers from Colorado