Page 189 - IMPC Education Book_low res

A ROADMAP FOR MINERALS PROCESSING EDUCATION

Although lecture-based teaching approaches equip students with a
general knowledge of the individual components of a mineral processing
plant, students often have difficulty in understanding how the various
stages work together and the interrelationship between them. The current
module achieves this–not only by demonstrating the inputs and outputs
of each stage of the process–but also allowing the user to view adjacent
stages of the pipeline at any time. For example, if the user is viewing the
semi-autogenous grinding mill, they are able to “zoom out” and view the
mill, the vibrating screen, the cone crusher, and the ball mill. The adjacent
stages are represented by 3D models, with all inputs and outputs clearly
identified. Users can then rapidly jump to adjacent stages to view them in
greater detail, or move back to the bird’s eye view.

Further, the virtual reality module allows users to build a particular copper-
gold mineral processing circuit and perform a mass balance based on the
information provided. The student is initially given a basic description of
a flowsheet and key information such as feed composition, mineralogy,
particle size, reagents schemes, grinding properties, and the flow rate
of streams. They are also presented with 2D and 3D representations of
unit processes that might be used in the flowsheet. The students’ task
is to construct a plant layout using the sources available in the virtual
environment and explain the basic operation of all major components used
in the flowsheet. They must perform a mass balance for each sub-circuit
and carry out calculations to estimate the diorection and composition of
unknown stream(s).

Software and Platform

The module was developed with Unity, a powerful development platform
for creating multiplatform 3D and 2D games and interactive experiences.
All of the digital assets within the module (such as the 3D models of the
terrain, the mineral processing equipment, and any surface textures used for
®
the equipment) were created with two software packages. Foundry Modo
®
and Autodesk 3ds Max were used to construct the 3D model geometry
®
using photo references and animate the objects and/or run simple physics
simulations, respectively. The digital assets were then imported into the

Interactive Visiualasation of a 177
Base Metal Concentrator