AMIRA P9: translating leading research into industry excellence for the past 50 years

The AMIRA P9 project launched in 1962 with the aim of implementing mathematical modelling and computer simulation in mineral processing.

Half a century later and the most recent iteration of the project – AMIRA P9Q – has just wrapped up.

AMIRA P9Q was a three-year collaborative research project that translated years of individual mineral processing advancements into an integrated, industry-ready package.

Led by the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, the project brought together five universities, 11 industry partners and the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction (CRC ORE).

Standing on the shoulders of giants

The importance of the original AMIRA P9 Project ‘The Optimisation of Mineral Processes by Modelling and Simulation’ is difficult to understate.

Commencing in 1962 at The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Experimental Mine Site, where JKMRC researchers work to this day, the aim of project was simple: implement mathematical modelling and computer simulation in mineral processing, a field that was lagging behind most industries.

The industry-changing outcome of the adoption of these new technologies and principles is well understood by modern mineral processing engineers, just as its potential was clearly understood by the project’s founders.

“By implementing mathematical modelling and computer simulation, AMIRA P9 revolutionised the practice of designing and optimising mineral processing,” said Associate Professor Mohsen Yahyaei.

“Prior to it, mineral processing plants operated on a rule-of-thumb and intuition as there was no real way of measuring operating variables and process understanding was poor.

“There is quite a famous photo of Emeritus Professor Alban Lynch at JKMRC, sitting in-front of the one computer that had just arrived at the site back in the 1960s – it really was a cutting-edge approach to mineral processing.

“With computer simulation and modelling, engineers could finally use models to understand things like material movement, which is fundamental now but was a step-change at the time. 

“It is from that advancement that the AMIRA P9 series was able to develop some of the massively influential outputs that you see today, such as JKSimFloat, JKSimMet, JKSimBlast, which you still see at sites around the world.

“Industry was so enthusiastic about the results of the original project that the sponsors basically agreed to do another round, and that success has been emulated every few years with P9A, P9B, P9C and so on."

A model of industry-academia collaboration

A hallmark of all AMIRA P9 projects has been a mutual-beneficial collaboration between industry and academia. P9Q is no different, with an array of mining and mining-adjacent companies from around the world supporting the project.

“There are plenty of other programs out there that have developed models, but without a close working relationship with industry they end up with no users.

“In P9Q, the mutually beneficial nature of that relationship is clear, because a significant part of the project was the training and technology transfer that happened throughout 2017 to 2020 – it is a satisfying task.

“Part of the scope of the project was always to translate the research into outcomes that were applicable to industry, so we spent a significant amount of time in Sponsors Review Meetings, face to face and online training workshops, and producing training materials, practical examples, and documentation of process models.

“Ultimately, the aim was to enable industry to effectively implement the models in practice, reduce the time and effort required for utilising models to facilitate faster and easier simulation of various operating scenarios.

“The materials we created, which really are quite detailed and extensive, will also continue to be available to the companies through the AMIRA website, so they will enable quite a bit of self-learning in the future.

“As part of technology transfer, the project technical team provided continuous support to sponsors on the application of IES and Models regarding the implementation of the project models, testing the models in practical applications, collecting sponsors’ feedback on models and the IES platform.

“The whole project was so successful that, despite the fact this was marked as the final project in the P9 series, there is some talk of continuing the work with P9R.