Digital technology will improve mining industry

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This is according to Dr Bekir Genc of the School of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. Genc was speaking during the opening session of the Mining into the Future conference which was recently held in Boksburg near Johannesburg.

Genc said the digital revolution is happening everywhere, and that it is soon going to happen to the mining industry - if not today, tomorrow. In recognition of this, the Wits School of Mining Engineering established a digital mine project to support the existing strategy of the mining industry to continuously improve working conditions and mine economics.

"Digital technologies are fundamental for efficient and safe mining where all systems are optimised," said Genc. "This requires clarity of multiple sources of underground data, communicated to a surface control room and back to the workplace in real time. This is not happening yet. It requires an enormous amount of work, but some parties have started trying to establish these systems."

Mock-up tunnel

In the first phase of the project, the school built a mock-up of an underground tunnel. This allows Wits to simulate an underground mining environment that can be used for teaching, learning and research. The 70m tunnel cost around R15m, and features a stope, rescue bay and lamp room.

Research is being conducted into smart surveying and mapping (visualisation) systems; climate control systems and energy savings (particularly important in deeper-level mines); smart rock engineering systems, which can monitor rock mass movement and predict seismic events; and smart data processing, which can locate people and assets and monitor their performance, recognise actions and detect abnormalities - such as recognising that someone is ill. Smart mine design, mining planning and decision-making are also being studied.

Genc expects the digital mine project to benefit the mining sector through providing access to a safe, smart mine laboratory reaching into the surrounding community on a multi-sensor GIS platform (once the lab has been developed), and providing knowledge to industry so that it can collect appropriate and accurate information to optimise mine designs and processes.

Positive impact

This will enable continuous and predictive operations, while having a positive impact on mine efficiency and security. The latter is of particular relevance to gold mines, which face dangers to both mine shafts and mine employees as a result of the activities of illegal miners.

With digitisation, noted Genc, the concept of a mine-to-order (or demand mining) becomes a real possibility, contributing to productivity, mine bottom-line and transforming the mining industry through information technology. Perhaps most importantly, a digital mine will accelerate the process of reaching the industry's zero-harm goal.