Irkutsk Polytechnic students - silver and bronze medalists of the CASE-IN championship

Irkutsk Polytechnic students successfully performed in the finals of the IX International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN". The IRNTU Noble Minerals team became the second in the Student League in the Mining field, and the Lagrange Theorem team took the third place in the Oil and Gas Business section. Case defenses and awards were held on May 31 – June 2 in Moscow.

Let's remind that "CASE-IN" is one of the projects of the presidential platform "Russia − the land of opportunities". In 2021, over 600 students and employees of industry companies from 40 regions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus competed for the victory. The leitmotif of the season was "Sustainable development". 10 days before the final, the contestants received cases from the production staff. They presented the final technological solutions to the experts.

The Noble minerals team was represented by future miners Sergey Aghajanyan, Stepan Stepanov, Nikolai Bocharov and Anastasia Gavrilova, who studies innovation. The students worked on a case study related to optimizing the cost of airing the Udachny mine in Yakutia (ALROSA).

According to Anastasia Gavrilova, Noble minerals proposed to introduce a digital ventilation management system based on VoD (on-demand ventilation) technology at the enterprise. An important element of the complex are sensors of the mine atmosphere, an automatic power regulator and a frequency converter.

"Using this system, it is possible to achieve a 20% reduction in costs. The topic of modernization of ventilation of underground workings is highly focused and relevant. Firstly, this process involves ensuring occupational safety at work. In addition, ventilation is considered one of the largest items of expenditure in the cost structure of the product. Therefore, all mining companies are interested in optimizing the cost of ventilation. For our team, which consists of students of the Open-pit Mining specialty, this project has become a real challenge, an opportunity to immerse themselves in a new field of knowledge in a short period of time.", - the student noted.

As a reward for the second place, Noble minerals received an invitation to practice at the diamond mining company ALROSA, as well as valuable prizes.

Third-year students from the Lagrange's Theorem team, Evgeny Rudykh, Viktor Kovrizhnykh, Mikhail Semykin and Sergey Kobylinsky, study at the Department of Oil and Gas Engineering at the Institute of Subsoil Use. The bronze medalists got the case of PJSC Tatneft. The young people had to choose and justify a method of increasing oil recovery at field N using industrial gases, the source of which is a nearby thermal power plant.

According to Evgeny Rudykh, Tatneft joined the UN global compact in 2019, under the terms of which the company undertakes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. This should be done by 2030.

"The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. It is part of the flue gases from a thermal power plant. Based on this, we proposed extracting carbon dioxide from the flue gases of the CHP plant, as well as pumping it into the reservoir. We have selected technologies for extracting, transporting, storing and injecting CO2 into the reservoir. This will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and increase oil recovery by 13%. All modern enterprises of the fuel and energy complex strive to reduce their carbon footprint, so our project has great potential for scaling. We are pleased with the achievement, as we have been working towards success for a long time. Last year, the team reached the finals of the championship. At the qualifying stage, the university took the second place, were the best in the semifinals among 13 teams of the Siberian Federal District, and were the third in the final.", - Evgeny reported.

It should be noted that Irkutsk Polytechnic University was also represented at the championship by four teams that had previously led in the semifinals - Star Volts, Union of Mining Engineers, Energy and Dichlorodiphenyltrichloromethylmethane.

In addition, Konstantin Suslov, Head of the Department of Power Supply and Electrical Engineering, participated in the championship.  He acted as an expert in the special league of PJSC "T Plus", a speaker at a master class on the experience of organizing qualifying stages in universities. The professor sincerely congratulates the students on their success at one of the main technology competitions among the youth of the Russian Federation.

"For more than a year, all events were held in a remote format. For the first time in many months, we finally met friends, like-minded people, and our favorite students from all over the country. The students of IRNTU performed well, winning two awards. In addition, the future power engineers made it to the superfinal and entered the top six.  And this is a wonderful result and the merit of all the polytechnic students involved in the organization of the "CASE-IN". The Engineering Case Championship in 2021 will be remembered for an abundance of interesting events, including meetings with employers, master classes, presentations, and scientific discussions. For three days, we shared our experiences with each other, looking for opportunities to make this project even more ambitious and vibrant. The championship has once again shown that we (university staff) are a unified team working effectively to train specialists in the domestic fuel and energy sector.",- Konstantin Suslov shared his opinion.

According to the results of the previous championship, two IRNTU teams were among the winners. Representatives of the Union of Mining Engineers became the champion of the Student League in the field of Mining, and the guys from ABCN took second place in the Electric Power Industry.

A source