WP2: Mining and Rock Engineering
WP leader: Daniel Johansson
Some of the challenges for the mining industry are deeper mines, safety, reduction of production disturbances, improving the ore recovery and reduce the dilution. Therefore, the scientific understanding of the constituting elements and the whole mining system has to be improved.
Examples of activities within the respective areas are:
Digital Mining and Autonomous Mining Equipment
The aim is to reach the vision of fully autonomous mining with no human exposure at the production face by overcoming obstacles for automation and replace information based on human senses by automated systems. The work focuses on identifying and overcoming obstacles for automation and to improve resource knowledge and productivity limitations by smart use of automated data from underground equipment.
Short-and medium term mine planning
The work aims to simplify and improve the continued underground mine scheduling, and enable a lean mining operation thus optimising the use of mining resources. Discrete event simulation models are developed and used as a digital twin of the mine, enabling further development of a scheduler and optimised use of resources.
Development of Data driven Mine Capacity Assurance Framework and Program
The main purpose of the project is to develop a framework to identify equipment related factors/issues introducing uncertainties in achieving planned volume in the mine production system with special focus on the deployed equipment and installed infrastructure considering both the back end and front end processes.
Ventilation and air conditioning
The main goal of the project is to formulate strategies to combat ventilation and air conditioning issues in deep underground mines in Sweden by assessing the feasibility of combining Ventilation on Demand (VOD) and Controlled Partial Recirculation (CPR), and review strategies used to combat the same issues in deep underground mines in Canada.
Basic research on energy transmission from non-ideal detonations to rock
There is a need for a fundamental understanding of non-ideal detonations as in emulsion explosives, to develop improved models to describe the physics behind this phenomenon e.g., shock front curvatures, energy transmissions and chemical compositions. Improved and efficient explosives could then be developed which are designed both for individual rock types and varying conditions.
Development of algorithms for automatic waveform processing and source parameters
The investigations of mining induced seismicity usually require processing of large amount of data from thousands of seismic events. Manual processing is time consuming and expensive. Therefore, automatic processing is necessary. The aim of this project is to develop algorithms for different types of processing that can be adapted to mining seismicity.
Response of underground openings, the ground surface and the rock support to deep mining conditions
Deep mining ground control problems in Sweden are typically caused by mining-induced seismicity or failure of weak altered ore contact zones. The research aims at improving the understanding of the response of underground excavations, and its rock support, to seismic and static loading and to improve the design of ground control measures.
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