Professor Ronny Webber-Youngman, who heads up the mining engineering department, says that the VR technology offers an immersive learning experience for mining design. The VR centre started as a dream in 2011 and, in 2015 when it was completed, Webber-Youngman coined the slogan ‘Making vision visible’ and the word ‘imagineers’, which is used to describe the student engineers using the facilities.
“The VR centre enhances our students’ understanding of mining layouts, the practicalities of working mines, and underground conditions. Using virtual reality, our students can experience real-life scenarios within the risky mining environment – in a zero-risk surrounding. Instead of ‘engineering’ answers, they’re now able to visualise scenarios in a way we couldn’t have imagined before. They’re able to apply their minds, think differently, and to see the future of mining differently.”
Bongi Ntsoelengoe, Technology Development Manager at Kumba Iron Ore, says that the VR centre demonstrates the company’s commitment to using technology to improve productivity and safety, and drive down costs, at its operations. “Kumba Iron Ore has always been the innovator in this space. As the industry leader, we recognised a need to invest in tomorrow’s leaders and the next generation of mining professionals. This VR technology is our way of making a real difference, by driving value from an industry perspective.”
The success of the VR centre can already be counted in the growing number of students in the mining engineering department – up from around 70 to nearly 400 – and the faculty’s position as the higher education institution of choice for such students. Since its inception, the department has been awarded the prestigious AEL Mining Services Chair for Innovative Rock Breaking Technology. The centre has also sparked a campus-wide ambition to assimilate immersive learning across all its faculties.
Postgraduate student Jennifer Sapsford, who is working on a project that will make blasting safer, says that the VR centre makes the results of her equations real: “Flyrock is the rock debris that’s flung further than anticipated after a blast. VR allows me to actually see what will happen to the flyrock under different scenarios. Different inputs will present different outcomes, and VR makes these outcomes visual. I can watch what will happen, rather than just comparing equations.
Sapsford says that when these findings, and the resulting safety training, is taken to the mines, the knowledge will save lives. She also believes that the practical aspect that the VR centre provides will have a massive impact in the workplace.
“We can now simulate, and visualise, the entire layout of a mine,” says Sapsford. “This means we aren’t limited to a vision of one tunnel at a time - so we can conceptualise enhanced production processes and support services that are optimised across the entire mine.”
Eugene Preis, a mining engineering postgraduate student, says that the changes in the department since his first year on campus, in 2010, have been massive – but he predicts that, in just a few years, this VR technology will also incorporate augmented reality and will be available on mobile platforms industry-wide.
Ntsoelengoe concurs in a broader sense: “Through Anglo American’s FutureSmart Mining™ programme we’re looking at innovation across our value chain to find integrated solutions for various challenges like the creation of safe working conditions, ‘dry’ mining processes, and reduced energy usage across our operations. We’re thinking about innovation differently to bring about focus on safety and sustainability. But, so far, the most we’ve been doing is making candles that burn brighter, in a manner of speaking. Bringing this VR technology, and whatever comes after it, to the mining professionals of tomorrow is akin to having invented the light bulb.”