KuzSTU students presented solutions for the mining industry at the CASE-IN

KuzSTU continues to talk about the winners of the qualifying stage of the Student League of the CASE-IN Championship, which is held with the support of the presidential platform "Russia – the land of opportunities". The next step is the direction of "Mining".

The partner of the direction was ALROSA, the world leader in the diamond mining industry. The case study of the direction is devoted to an urgent production task — the elimination of freezes in the depleted space at the Udachny mine. The suspension of the rock mass remains one of the serious problems of underground mining: it leads to a shutdown of the technological process, increases downtime and creates additional risks during work.

The work of the participants was evaluated by industry experts and university professors: Alexey Sarafonov, Head of the Department of the Yakutniproalmaz Institute, Roman Rodin, Research Engineer, Alexey Khoreshok, Scientific Director of the Mining Institute, Igor Matveev, Head of the Technical Department, and Alexander Kopytov, Professor of the Department of Mineral Deposits Development, Alexander Maskin, Anchor Engineer at SIC-IGD LLC, and Alexander Mayorov, Professor WOUNDS.

10 teams participated in this direction, the winner was the GeoTim team consisting of Thursday year students Vyacheslav Vinogradov, Vladimir Podya and first year students Nikita Beloborodov and Sanchai Dozurash. According to Vyacheslav Vinogradov, the captain of the team, the students relied on the prevention of the problem even before the hangups appeared. 

"My mentor and I thought it was important not to deal with hovering after it appeared, but to understand the properties of the breed in advance. If you immediately know the hardness and other geological characteristics, you can more accurately design drilling and blasting operations and avoid the appearance of problematic fractions," Vyacheslav said.

The students suggested using the principle of operational geology: to obtain data on the physical and mechanical properties of the rock directly during drilling using sensors installed on the drilling rig. This data should then be processed by an artificial intelligence system that can build an accurate map of drilling and blasting operations and determine the optimal amount of explosive for each well. 

The main idea of the project is to prevent the appearance of irregularities and fragmentation in advance. Oversights are excessively large pieces of ore or rock that, if they enter the ore outlet, can block it. Fragmentation, on the contrary, occurs when there is an excess of explosives: then too small a fraction is formed, which adheres to the walls of the ore outlet, and then provokes the formation of new suspensions.

"We were singled out for being the only ones who offered to deal with freezes in advance. Many teams relied on the use of drones, but in the conditions of mine launch, this solution raises many questions from the point of view of practical application," said the captain of the team.

In the same section, the second place was taken by the Anthracite team, which included fifth—year students Maxim Pogadaev, specializing in Automation and electrification of mining production, Nikolai Myshkin and Andrey Medvedev, specializing in Mining Machinery, Equipment and Complexes. 

The third place was taken by the ZPGD team, consisting of 3-4-year students of the Mining Institute Daniil Khapilov, Alexander Sokolov and Ilya Pikulev. 

Reference. The organizers of the championship are the Reliable Change Foundation, the Non-profit Partnership Youth Forum of Mining Leaders, the Astralogica company and the presidential platform Russia – the Land of Opportunities.

A source