Research and Consultancy Services in the Mining Industry in Zimbabwe: A Coordinated Approach Through the Mineral Resources Centre

IMR Report.Education in the engineering fields can be considerably enhanced if it is designed to address the immediate and long-term needs of society. In this context education not only comprises the provision of basic training, but also includes the careful planning and execution of applied and fundamental research. This paper focuses on education and research institutions that provide services to the mining sector in Zimbabwe and describes a new approach to meeting high-quality teaching, research and consultancy requirements against a background of diminishing government funding. Key units within the University of Zimbabwe providing services to the mining industry include the Institute of Mining Research, The Departments of Geology and Physics in the Faculty of Science and Mining Engineering and Metallurgy in the Faculty of Engineering. Within government, services are provided principally by the Departments of Geological Survey, Metallurgy and Mining Engineering, and the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre. The major source of funding for all of these institutions is Government. There is a degree of overlap between these institutions, some of which were established more than 30 years ago with terms of reference appropriate for the time. With decreasing funding exacerbated by a harsh economic climate in Zimbabwe there is need to revisit the charters of these organizations and to review the provision of services to the mining sector. Recognition of this situation has led the Department of Geology to spearhead a new initiative to establish an alternative structure through which consultancy and research in mining related topics can be coordinated at the University of Zimbabwe. The Mineral Resources Centre (MRC) was established to facilitate fund-raising activities through consultancy services, research, postgraduate training and capital investment. By representing a group of like-minded stakeholders, the MRC can address larger projects, and thus secure more funding than individual entities will be able to obtain. The MRC is designed to be a lightweight structure that will not replace any of the existing teaching and research departments. The MRC is not be bound to any particular faculty within the university, and may even include stakeholders from outside the university. Interested parties are invited to participate on a voluntary basis in accordance with the management and quality- control guidelines laid out by the MRC. Participation is on a contract basis and will be determined for each project. Service providers that participate in the MRC agree to use their resources in the best possible way, so that services can be presented in unison. In combining forces between various departments with expertise in Earth Sciences, it is envisaged that a wider audience can be reached, a better service can be provided and a larger resource base can be tapped both within the private and the public sectors. The MRC may help coordinate capital investment, and human resource development in the various participating entities. Considering the limited availability of financial and human resources in Zimbabwe, coordination and prevention of unnecessary overlap is in itself a valuable exercise

Exploratory project 2019 - deep learning for particle-laden viscoelastic flow modelling

[extract] Objetives: explore the possibility of using Deep Learning (DL) techniques to evaluate the drag coefficient of small non-Brownian particles translating and settling in nonlinear viscoelastic fluids. The long-term objective is the development of a 3D numerical code for particle-laden viscoelastic flows (PLVF), which will contribute to understanding many advanced manufacturing and industrial operations, specifically the hydraulic fracturing process

Effects of elasticity, inertia and viscosity ratio on the drag coefficient of a sphere translating through a viscoelastic fluid

The ability to simulate the behavior of dilute suspensions, considering Eulerian-Lagrangian approaches, requires proper drag models, which should be valid for a wide range of process and material parameters. These drag models allow to calculate the momentum exchange between the continuous and dispersed phases. The currently available drag models are only valid for inelastic constitutive fluid models. This work aims at contributing to the development of drag models appropriate for dilute suspensions, where the continuous phase presents viscoelastic characteristics. To this aim, we parametrize the effects of fluid elasticity, namely, the relaxation and retardation times, as well as inertia on the drag coefficient of a sphere translating through a viscoelastic fluid, described by the Oldroyd-B model. To calculate the drag coefficient we resort to three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of unconfined viscoelas tic flows past a stationary sphere, at different Reynolds number, Re, over a wide range of Deborah numbers (< 9), and the polymer viscosity ratios. For low Re (< 1), we identified a non-monotonic trend for the drag coefficient correction (the ratio between the calculated drag coefficient and the one obtained for Stokes-flow). It initially decreases with the increase of De, for low De values (< 1), which is followed by a significant growth, due to the large elastic stresses that are developed on both the surface and wake of the sphere. These behaviors, observed in the inertia less flow regime, are amplified as the polymer viscosity ratio approaches unity. At higher Re (> 1), the drag coefficient correction is found to be always bigger than unity, but smaller than the enhancement calculated in creeping flow limit.The authors would like to acknowledge the funding by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UID/CTM/50025/2013 and POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017656

Optical and Near Infrared Study of the Cepheus E outflow, a very low excitation object

We present images and spectra of the Cepheus E (Cep E) region at both optical and infrared wavelengths. Only the brightest region of the southern lobe of the Cep E outflow reveals optical emission, suggesting that the extinction close to the outflow source plays an important r\^ole in the observed difference between the optical and IR morphologies. Cep E is a unique object since it provides a link between the spectroscopic properties of the optical Herbig-Haro (HH) objects and those of deeply embedded outflows.Comment: Accepted Astron. J., 8 files: paper, tables plus 6 figure

Variabilidade espacial de um Latossolo Vermelho Amarelo sob cultivo intensivo. I. Distribuição espacial de atributos químicos.

Este trabalho visou o estudo da distribuição espacial dos principais atributos químicos usados para avaliação de fertilidade em uma área experimental usada em trabalhos em Agricultura de Precisão. 647 amostras simples de solo foram coletadas em uma grade regular georreferenciada de 25 por 25 metros, de O a 20 cm de profundidade. Além destas, foram amostrados 5 pontos na área sob o pivô, e um próximo ao pivô, até 50 cm, coletando-se de 2 em 2 cm nos primeiros 10 cm, 5 em 5 cm de 10 a 40 cm, e uma amostra de 40 a 50 cm de profundidade. As análises químicas foram executadas na terra fina seca ao ar, sendo determinados o pH em água, alumínio trocável, cálcio, magnésio, fósforo, potássio, matéria orgânica e acidez trocável. Concluiu-se que a área em estudo apresenta uma fertilidade de média a alta em sua camada superficial, apresentando concentração da fertilidade nos primeiros centímetros da superfície. Foi observada grande variabilidade horizontal, mostrada pelos mapas interpolados e pelo coeficiente de variação dos dados. As características estudadas apresentaram dependência espacial em modelos mais complexos que os ajustados, e os resultados de validação cruzada indicam que o intepolador utilizado produziu resultados pouco confiáveis

Variabilidade espacial de um Latossolo Vermelho Amarelo sob cultivo intensivo. II. Relação de atributos químicos e produtividade.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a relação entre a produtividade do milho, gerada a partir de mapas de colheita, o status e a distribuição espacial de alguns dos principais atributos químicos usados para avaliação de fertilidade. A produtividade do milho em um sistema de produção sob plantio direto foi obtida em três anos consecutivos, a partir de dados obtidos por um monitor de colheita. Os dados de fertilidade foram obtidos a partir de amostras de solo colhidas em uma grade regular georreferenciada de 25 por 25 metros na área. Os resultados indicaram que, para esta área, não houve relação aparente entre a produtividade e as análises químicas dos principais nutrientes e matéria orgânica, em função dos níveis elevados de fertilidade já atingidos pelo sistema de manejo. A falta de correlação entre produtividades entre anos consecutivos também indicou que a produtividade neste caso deve esta sendo determinada principalmente por outros fatores, como regime hídrico do solo

Efficiency of in vivo embryo production using sorted semen in cattle.

Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Embryo Technology Society (SBTE); Florianópolis, SC, Brazil, August 16th to 18th, 2018. Abstracts