On 25th of May we had a pleasure and honor to have here professor Stephan Heyns from the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering of The Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa which is a leading and dynamic faculty that is one of the foremost providers of high-level intellectual capital and research in South Africa. The Faculty is renowned for its unique approach to innovation, its international status and links with industry.
It is a great honor for us that the professor contacted us and he finds that the sort of work that we have been doing in Wroclaw University of Science and Technology is very interesting and the future cooperation could be very promising. He has considered our group as a sort of role model in terms of doing practically useful work in the mining environment, in an academically meaningful way.
The topic of our meeting included exchange of experience in the broad field of mining data analysis a.o:
a) Rock-machine interface.
b) Optimisation of the use of mining equipment.
c) Optimal use of sensors and data to improve utilisation, performance and maintenance (condition monitoring) of mining equipment.
During the meeting, professor Heyns presented the area of interest of his research team. Whereas DMC members, i.e. professor Radosław Zimroz, Jacek Wodecki, Pavlo Krot, Justyna Hebda-Sobkwoicz and Hamid Shiri present the results of the work related to European projects which we are currently conducting (more about the projects in the “Projects” section). The meeting was very inspiring and there is a huge potential for cooperation.
Professor Heynz is currently the Director of the Centre for Asset Integrity Management at the University of Pretoria. His research interests are focused on machine and structural health diagnostics and prognostics based on vibration measurement and analysis and he has authored and co-authored some 150 peer reviewed journal papers, more than 140 conference papers (including various invited lectures and specialist plenary lectures), as well as 18 book chapters. He has served on the scientific advisory committees of many international conferences. He has supervised 100 completed masters degrees and 25 PhDs. He is an accredited B-rated researcher with the National Research Foundation in South Africa, as well as a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the International Society of Engineering Asset Management and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He has been very active as a consultant on various aspects of asset integrity analysis and management, and has been the author or co-author of hundreds of project reports for clients in South Africa and abroad.
