KuzSTU students presented case solutions at the "CASE-IN" Engineering Championship

Students of Kuzbass State Technical University took part in the qualifying stage of the IX International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN".

This year, the new format of the event is full–time and part-time, some experts and participants have connected remotely. They were greeted by Vice-rector for Academic Affairs Alexander Bakanov.

The theme of the championship is "Sustainable development". The students performed not only in the fields of "Electric Power Industry" and "Mining", but also for the first time in the field of "Petrochemistry". In total, 21 teams defended their technological solutions for industrial cases to the experts, which, according to the terms of the championship, were received just ten days before the defense.

The future miners were solving a case study on optimizing the cost of ventilation of the Udachny underground mine in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). In the case, the questions were clearly posed, the answers to which should be present in the decision of the teams. But the most important task of the engineers was to reduce the cost of ventilation of the underground mine. Any creative and non-standard solutions that meet the set goal were adopted.

Mining experts: Denis Malofeev - technical specialist of the Micromine mining and geological information system, Alexander Pavlov - Chief Specialist of the Evraz Occupational Safety and Industrial Safety departments, Yuri Anoshin - Chief Ventilation Technologist of Promugleproekt JSC, Denis Cherentaev - chief expert of the Office for maintenance and development of repair activities of the apparatus Management of the ALROSA Joint-Stock Company (PJSC), Evgeny Kuzin - Head of the Scientific and Technical Development Department of the KuzSTU branch in Prokopyevsk, Alexey Selyukov - Head of the Department of Open-pit Mining at KuzSTU, Stanislav Uvakin - Chief Engineer of the project for subsurface use facilities at Prokopyevsky Mining and Design Institute LLC.

"Our team was partially formed in 2019 to participate in the championship for the first time. They did not think about the name for a long time, they took the name of the district of the city of Prokopyevsk, where the university branch is located – Targan, which means "Mountain of Winds" in Shorsky, – says Anastasia Sokhoreva, under the "command" of a third-year student specializing in Open-pit Mining, the case was solved by Zhavokhirbek Yadgarov, also an "open-pit worker", and Ilya Soft, a student of the Automobiles and Automotive Industry training course. – To facilitate the solution of the case, a national team was assumed, where all participants represent different mining specialties. But in our case, the team gathered diverse students: a motorist, an athlete and "just a beauty" who took the initiative to show their abilities and gain experience."

Evgeny Kuzin, a lecturer at the Department of Technology and Integrated Mining Mechanization, mentored the team, helped and supported them throughout the way of solving and defending the case.

"In our decision, there were several proposals to optimize the cost of ventilation. First. The operating mine has powerful main ventilation fans that consume a large amount of electricity (the cost of electricity in the Mirninsky district, where the mine is located, is high due to the distance from the Vilyuyskaya HPP). We calculated the amount of air needed to ventilate the mine workings, without taking into account some factors, and suggested installing less powerful fans, but capable of providing the mine with the necessary amount of fresh air. Second. To reduce the loss of supplied air through the ore-rock cushion, we proposed to cover the walls of the workings with a special polymer compound that prevents cracks from opening. And the third. To reduce air resistance and load, air heaters were installed on the main fan unit, heating the air both on the surface and in the mine. This solution is economically efficient and can be used in other mines with difficult climatic conditions and deposits."

During the course of solving the case, the KP-21 team carefully went through all possible and impossible options. The "backbone" of the team are senior year students of the specialty "Underground mining of reservoir deposits" – captain Vladislav Selyantsev, took part in the calculations and proposed the main solution to the problem; Anastasia Sukhorukova calculated the necessary data, put forward ideas; Ksenia Aksenova, calculated the costs of the project, economic benefits; Polina Soshnikova, made a presentation, looked for ideas for the project.

"The curator of the group, teacher Sergey Tsibayev, told us about the cases., – Vladislav says. – During the analysis of the assignment, we consulted with the teachers of our department, as well as the Department of Aerology."

In search of a better solution, the students searched for and discussed many options: they refused to modernize the ventilation system, considered replacing the VMP on the horizon, offered to put a wind turbine in an area with air leaks, "but the savings would be only 10%, and there were no such wind turbines in production"; they wanted to replace the type of fuel for heating the air, but the issue of fuel delivery and cost arose.

The team has set itself the task of achieving the greatest possible savings in financial costs – about 20%. After analyzing the cost of one kWh in this region, the students realized that the mine needs its own energy source. But in Yakutia, the wind is weak, there is almost no sun. Therefore, it is pointless to install wind turbines and solar panels. The guys began to think about nuclear energy, found and studied the technical characteristics of the USSR Mobile NPP project, but it was closed, production was stopped. At some point, the options ran out.

"Here we recall nuclear submarines and icebreakers, there are also nuclear reactors installed there that generate electricity for engines., Vladislav Selyantsev continues. – We start looking for at least some data and come across the Rosatom page, where we find projects for the production of low-power nuclear power plants that meet our criteria – environmental friendliness, ease of installation, occupies a small area and, most importantly, the disposal of spent fuel is not provided. We begin to calculate the economic factors. And then it turns out that with an investment of 2.5 billion rubles for the construction of a nuclear power plant, it will pay off in just ten years. We look in the case at the service life of the mine. 15 years. We recalculated the figures for this period and it turned out that the savings would be 45%. We choose this solution as the main one. And most importantly, it turns out that having this 6.4MW plant, we completely abandon the purchased electricity, its capacity is enough for us not only to ventilate the mine and heat the air, but also to fully supply the enterprise with electricity!"

The organizer of the qualifying stage in the electric power industry was Roman Belyaevsky, Deputy Director for Scientific and Innovative Work at the Institute of Energy of KuzSTU, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the REA, Head of the Kemerovo Regional Branch of the REA. He noted that the championship is expanding its boundaries, with more and more senior and freshman students among its participants each time.

Eight teams of students from the Institute of Energy have developed competitive sites and architecture options for the AEC, an active energy complex, for Kuzbass. It acts as one of the mechanisms that allow consumers to reduce their electricity bills by reducing their workload at certain hours of the day.

The first–year students in the Fantastic Four team – Yaroslav Avdeev, Ekaterina Arkhipenko, Anna Dvorovenko and Captain Anastasia Ustyuzhanina - chose the thermal power plant in Jurga for the AEC.

"We are replacing gas boilers with gas turbines, thanks to which the AEC operates with the highest energy efficiency, as it is practically a replacement for old equipment, therefore, it will last longer. The Yurginskaya CHPP was chosen because it is located just a few meters from the Kuzbass Valley (our "consumer"), which also has obvious advantages. In fact, we connect directly to the consumer. This is where the main technical advantages are expressed. We will also be able to sell excess electricity, i.e. make a profit from our AEC. It is economically advantageous that we pay off in six years and "go to the plus".

The team of third-year students from Extreme Space suggested using innovations. Alexey Svetagor, Alexander Tizovatov, Lev Trubnikov and Captain Egor Todorov relied on the introduction of blockchain and IoT (Internet of Things) technology.

"Blockchain technology and IoT act as a new innovative solution to the problems of technical monitoring and the complexity of forecasting the economy and technology. We have calculated the company's electricity consumption and the approximate payback time of our energy complex, and we are confident that our solution will be able to reduce the cost of electricity and provide the company with a source of cheap thermal energy for indoor heating, which, in turn, can reduce the company's costs and allow it to invest more money in its development."

The proposals of the students were evaluated by experts from among the teachers of KuzSTU and representatives of the branch of JSC SO UES Kemerovo RDU, the Kuzbass branch of LLC SGK, the branch of PJSC Rosseti Siberia – Kuzbassenergo – RES, LLC Laboratory of Interactive Energy (Moscow).

The debutants in the championship are students of the Institute of Chemical and Oil and Gas Technologies. The organizer and moderator of the qualifying stage was Andrey Ushakov, Associate Professor of the Department of HTTT, Candidate of Technical Sciences. According to the terms of the case, future chemists have formed a system of indicators to assess the contribution of one of the product lines of PJSC SIBUR, the largest integrated petrochemical company in Russia and one of the most dynamically developing petrochemical companies. The experts in this area were the teachers of IHNT and representatives of PJSC SIBUR.

First-year students Yana Morozova (captain) and Kristina Sheludko, along with third-year student Grigory Nikolaev and undergraduate student Evgeny Kuzhelev, in the Erudite team, highlighted the chemical-catalytic method of gas processing in their decision.

"From the products of PJSC SIBUR, we chose propane-butane technical, which was created for municipal and technical needs. We proposed to process the gas by chemical catalysis. This method is environmentally friendly and effective. As a result, mechanical energy can be obtained, as well as an important component for synthetic oil."

A non-standard solution for the sustainable development of the enterprise for a long time was proposed by the "4 People" team. Third-year students Boris Morozov, Kirill Stepanenko, John Skokov and Captain Stanislav Shishkin focused on rationing the working day.

"We are offering a six-hour working day, because this experience has already been applied in practice in other industries. In some foreign enterprises, an experiment was conducted to optimize working hours, which in most cases showed positive results not only in the economic but also in the social sphere. In our country, this experience was practically not carried out. We believe that the implementation of this standard can lead to high product quality and a high concentration of staff on work tasks."

After the end of the defense, the participants of the Petrochemistry direction answered the quiz questions from SIBUR. They concerned both the sustainable development of the company and its history. The best students were Anton Dosaykin and Evgenia Ivleva, students of the KHNM-191 department, as well as Elena Ushakova, Associate Professor of the HTTT Department, Candidate of Technical Sciences.

A new championship format has been introduced this year. The best teams of the qualifying stage will meet in the semi-finals of the "CASE-IN". The final is scheduled to be held in Moscow in May. It will bring together the leading teams of universities in Russia and the CIS countries in each field. The format of the championship (full-time or remote) will depend on the epidemiological situation in Russia.

The winners will receive valuable prizes, the opportunity to participate in All-Russian industry summer forums, and advantages for admission to graduate and postgraduate studies. 20 partner universities of the championship They will also be able to complete internships at leading companies in the country.

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