Author: grasser

mineAlloy takes part in the Australia-France Network of Doctoral Excellence (AUFRANDE Program).

AUFRANDE is offering 35 PhD fellowships in the fields of Physics, Computer Sciences, Geosciences, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Mechanics, Acoustics, Chemistry, Photonics and other related-disciplines.

Successful applicants are expected to start in October 2023. They will be part of a unique doctoral training program offering:

• Excellent employment conditions at one of the top-class 22 French Institutions participating in the program
• Up to 12 months secondments in one of our 15 Australian partner Universities
• Dual doctorates (France + Australia)
• Outstanding training aimed at fostering scientific, technical and transferable skills including workshops in both France and Australia
• Involvement of industry partners

Applications are open to candidates from all over the world who have not lived in France for more than 12 months over the last 3 years (i.e. from April 2020). The deadline for applications is 11 April 11h59 PM CET. For further information, please visit our website aufrande.eu and follow AUFRANDE on LinkedIn & Twitter.

Check out Daniel’s article on pages 24-25 in the Autumn edition of the Mining Magazine (https://miningmagazine.com.au/). Here is the direct link to the issue: https://issuu.com/monkeymediamagazines/docs/mining_autumn_2023_web/26

The article is about a case study showing design principles for better chute wear liners using Discrete Element Modelling (DEM). An important design principle is the systematic utilisation of micro rock-boxes; where wear liners temporarily lock particles and causing them to flow over themselves rather than on the actual wear surface. This fosters a less severe wear regime and significantly reduces abrasive wear. The work was conducted during Daniel’s PhD under the supervision of Associate Professor Michael Pereira, Dr Santiago Corujeira Gallo and Professor Matthew Barnett.

The Material Point Method (MPM) is a new computational tool that allows the simulation of solids, fluids and structures subjected to large deformation. This particle based method has shown high potential in the simulation of Wear such as abrasion and impact, Machining and Additive Manufacturing. The mineAlloy centre is delighted to announce the publication of a MPM reference book (Springer; 1st ed. 2023 edition (April 3, 2023), ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 3031240693 ) co-written by Dr. Alban de Vaucorbeil.

Roshan completed his industry placement with Bradken Pty Ltd in December 2022. He worked at their manufacturing plant in Bassendean, West Australia. The placement focused on industrial scale manufacturing of experimental wear resistant high-chromium weld overlays that were developed as a part of Roshan’s PhD project. During the placement, Roshan also worked closely with Bradken on the application of a robotic arm welding set-up for rapid alloy fabrication and testing. The alloys manufactured at Bassendean will be analysed and tested at Deakin University at IFM’s advanced characterisation facilities.

Roshan would like to thank Bradken, mineAlloy and Deakin’s Graduate Research Academy (GRA) for their support.

Roshan Sasi (second from the right) with Bradken team members.

Mineral mining can cause significant wear on equipment such as liners. Learn more about a Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) study by mineAlloy to improve wear resistance, design better liners, and reduce physical testing requirements. The main focus was the optimum design of wear resistant composites for chute liners based on the geometrical relationships between the size of the reinforcements (inserts) and size of the processed particles (rocks).

The DEM study was published on the ESSS Rocky website:

https://rocky.esss.co/blog/designing-better-mining-equipment-liners-rocky-dem-simulation/

The International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) is Australia’s largest mining event. This year’s IMARC hosted an expo of the biggest mining companies and conference talks in Sydney (2-4 November 2022). Hot topics were technology, finance and trends towards a sustainable future. Daniel attended IMARC and was invited as part of the Next Gen Program sponsored by the State Government Victoria.

IMARC 2022 in Sydney.

Dr Daniel Grasser.

mineAlloy researchers (Vadim Zolotarevskiy, Santiago Corujeira Gallo, Michael Pereira, Matthew Barnett) recently published their work on the impeller-tumbler wear test (Modelling of impeller-tumbler wear test with discrete element method, Wear, Volumes 510–511, 204509, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2022.204509).

Discrete element modelling (DEM) was used to model the wear of mild steel and the results were validated against the experimental results. Important quantities such as the normal and tangential force ratio and the collision energy for different particle size distributions were analysed. This helps researchers to better understand this impact-abrasive wear test, such as the occurring wear mechanisms.

The paper can be downloaded:

https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1fwzJ9q8NuTlg

Good work!

mineAlloy researchers and PhD students attended a workshop for early career researchers.

The workshop was organised by Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM) and held at the Waurn Ponds Estate. The program included highlights such as publishing in high impact journals (provided by a senior editor of Nature), presentation and media training, a grant writing workshop and networking event. Very positive feedback has been received from all participants and more workshops are planned.

mineAlloy just joined LinkedIn: mineAlloy: Overview | LinkedIn

Please feel free to join and share with your contacts. More updates to come.

Congrats to Dr. Alban de Vaucorbeil! Alban has been awarded the prestigious DECRA fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC). Truly an honour and appreciation of his contribution to the field of numerical modelling of material behaviour.

More details can be found on the ARC website: Selection Report: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2023 | Australian Research Council

The very first Industrial Transformation Research Program (ITRP) Symposium for Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research took place on the 12th-13th September 2022 in Brisbane. Business managers of the ARC funded training centres and research hubs across Australia were present. Moreover, delegates from the ARC joined in person and online. Dr. Daniel Grasser represented the mineAlloy Industrial Transformation Training Centre (ITTC) to discuss options for more efficient business procedures and increased collaboration within the training centres and research hubs. Additional important topics were research excellence, the education of future leaders and strategies to retain key talents within Australia. The symposium was a full success and more are to follow in 2023.