CASE-IN: industry to help

In March, NEFU completed the qualifying stage of the CASE-IN engineering championship. On May 30, four teams of students from PHTI, GRF and GI will present their projects at the final stage in Moscow. NU_online talked to the members of the GRF and FTI teams about their projects and wished them good luck in the upcoming competition.

Recall that International Engineering CASE-IN Championship – this is the largest practice-oriented competition in Russia and the CIS countries for solving engineering cases among university students. The purpose of the championship is to identify and support promising students of specialized universities, promote the acquisition of practical knowledge, experience and new competencies, popularize engineering and technical education and form a personnel reserve. Let's get acquainted with the projects of the finalists of the qualifying round.

The FTI NEFU Atom team.
Direction: "Electric power Industry"

The theme of the project is related to the problems of the Arctic. The team of the Institute of Physics and Technology was allocated a lot to study-the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The guys conducted an analysis of the region, the main task of the case was to improve the reliability of the power system and reduce accidents. The project provided information about the region in which the poles of the power line fell due to the melting of the permafrost and their maximum service life was a maximum of 5 years.

The Atom team decided to improve the design of the power lines themselves according to CIPR (a program for building future power grids in the district). "We studied and selected one line, which was 120 km long, and calculated that the company would benefit from our system. Our team proposed installing a seasonal cooling system on the power lines themselves, which would prevent permafrost from thawing. Thanks to this, it is possible to build fairly wide buildings. We took the minimum service life of such a support, which was 20 years. The payback period for the project, therefore, was 7 years, and the company would have received a tangible profit within 13 years. The company will receive a profit of 3.6 billion rubles from 120 km of transmission lines within 20 years," the guys from the Atom team noted.

They analyzed the technological problems of the transmission line and identified three main problems: short circuits during overlap on the support, wire breakage due to wind influences and falling supports.

"It was proposed to add ICT technologies to the power supply system itself. Automation allows you to find problem areas. We found a patent that added a new algorithm for calculating the location of damage and decided to implement this idea for the entire power system. At the moment, the location of the damage to the power lines themselves is 10% of the search. For example, if your line is 400 km long, then the team will have to search 40 km for the damage site. According to our algorithm, the place of calculation will be one hundred percent with an error of 3-4 supports from the place of damage. Thus, the algorithm makes it possible to reduce energy costs, crew costs, energy underflow, and much more. The energy system, thanks to our project, will be improved many times over.: we have increased reliability, reduced accidents by replacing the support line and upgraded the relay protection of automation."- said the captain of the team.

The NEFU Lighthouse Foundation team.
Direction: "Geological exploration"

10 days before the start of the project defense, the guys from the Mayak team of the geological exploration faculty were given a case study related to the development and operation of the Solzensky deposit, where garnet is mined. The deposit is located in the Arkhangelsk region.

In the early days, the guys drew up a work plan and calculated all the costs for the submitted project. They studied the region itself, its infrastructure, and solved the issue of transporting the necessary equipment. The main task of the case was to draw up a geological exploration project for an abrasive material, study the analogues of the deposit and find out its profitability.

"Our goal is to sort garnets into rounded (older, rounded) and uncoated (young, with sharp corners) crystals. Rounded crystals are used for grinding, while uncoated crystals are used for cutting metals. Sharp ones are more expensive than rounded ones. We have the Mscromine program, which allows you to create a 3D model of the earth's interior without the need for drilling. Thus, we will be able to see what is hidden inside the earth's rocks. We don't know exactly where and how the garnet deposits are located. That's why we create wells: the distance between the lines is 200 m, and the distance between the wells is 20-25 m."- tell the future geologists.

"The assignment of the case stated that they should create technological testing systems and eventually obtain the garnet in its pure form, with magnetic separation."

The obtained materials are subjected to gravitational separation, while minerals with high density are released. Then the time comes for the already mentioned magnetic separation, during which minerals with magnetic properties are excluded. The procedure for extracting pure garnet ends with electrical separation, when minerals with electrical properties are isolated. There are several ways of testing – mineralogical and technological. The mineralogical method of testing allows you to recognize the roundness of minerals, the size of its grains, and the technological behavior of the garnet during enrichment.

With the help of the program and drilling, the guys found out: it is planned to spend 35 million rubles on testing and drilling, 20 million rubles on related work, 1.6 million rubles on reserve. Total, without exploitation, is 57 million rubles. They estimated the profitability of the deposit at 3.37 billion rubles, after deducting all costs.

nu.s-vfu.ru