University partnerships

Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) is a public higher education institution in southeast Brazil. The oldest university in the state, founded in 1927, UFMG is a regional leader in research and patent generation in several areas of knowledge.

The UFMG community brings together 72,000 people in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Montes Claros, Diamantina and Tiradentes, with around 77 undergraduate courses, 80 graduate programs, and more than 750 research centres.

UFMG created a Metallurgical Industrial Engineering course in 1945. This morphed into the Mining Engineering and Metallurgy course in 1966, from which the Mining Engineering course emerged.

Mining Engineer, Ricardo Fernandes from the Maptek Belo Horizonte office conducted an online training course for 20 students as part of their final year studies.

The course in July was designed to complement the students’ academic work.

Topics included the manipulation of triangulations, block models, economic evaluation with Pit Optimiser, pit design and load optimisation and fleet productivity in mine operations through the haulage profile module.

The training approach focused on ensuring that all participants gained a thorough understanding of the tools being presented.

Although this was their first contact with Vulcan, all expressed satisfaction at being able to improve their knowledge. They expect that skills in a world-leading software solution will enable them to find careers in the most important companies in the industry.

Maptek values being able to contribute to the educational community, with the sole purpose of better preparing future professionals in the sector. The course was provided free of charge for educational purposes.

Hear from the students about the highlights of their experience

‘The Vulcan streaming course was an excellent opportunity to learn more about mine planning. It was great to improve my skills in open pit design and optimisation. We learned how to make surfaces and solids, create block model sections, generate an extraction sequence, and create an operational route.

We could analyse the results and obtain a route cycle estimation and a model route calculation. Ricardo’s teaching abilities, personality and knowledge were fundamental to our comprehension.’

Maria Inêz Oliveira

‘I’m very satisfied with what I learned. The course covered a very important hot topic: a practical way of working with tailings dams. Block modelling and open pit mine design were also taught; this second one was my favourite since I can see many uses.

It was interesting to learn and practise how to use the software productively. I’d like to highlight how the focus on learning was essential to me and made me very interested in all the classes and in working with software.’

Gabriel Araújo

‘This truly relevant opportunity helped the students to learn a little more about mine planning software such as Vulcan. The facilitator, Ricardo helped us to develop important mining skills, from geology parameters, topography and drilling through to a real open pit mine optimisation.

Everything will be useful in the future not only at the university but also in industry. Despite the quarantine and homework, we did an excellent job together and I am thankful!’

Camila Nunes dos Santos