In Memoriam - reflections on JKMRC contributors

September 2023 was a grim month for the JKMRC family who lost three of its stalwarts: first Professor Tadimetry Chakrapati (TC) Rao on the 5^th September in India; then Professor Gideon Chitombo on the 15^th and Dr Geoff Lyman on 28^th September. The three, very different in personality, shared much in common: all came from overseas, Rao from India, Gideon from Zimbabwe via the United States and Geoff from Canada; all completed PhDs at the JKMRC and all made very significant contributions in their fields and gained international recognition for their work.

Professor TC Rao

TC Rao was recruited to the then Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering by Professor Frank White. He arrived in Brisbane in late 1961and found himself assigned as a postgraduate student to Alban Lynch who began work on the legendary AMIRA P9 project at the start of 1962. The project was concerned with the modelling and simulation of comminution circuits. Alban worked on rod and ball mill models, Rao on a hydrocyclone model and David Moore, the other student with the project, on ore breakage behaviour. Over the next few years Rao was to spend countless months at Mount Isa conducting experiments on a full-size cyclone test rig. His resulting model, in modified form, remains in use today.

After gaining a PhD in 1965 Rao returned to India where he became know is as the “father of mineral processing in India’. He held senior positions at the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad and was later the Director of the Advanced Minerals and Process Research Institute in Bhopal. He remained close to Alban Lynch and the JKMRC for the rest of his life and in 2016 was recognized as the UQ International Alumnus of the Year.

Honorary Professor Gideon Chitombo

Gideon Chitombo arrived at the JKMRC in 1982 with a Master’s degree from the Colorado School of Mines. He had been spotted there by Cameron McKenzie, then the leader of the rapidly developing blasting group. Over the next 10 – 12 years Gideon travelled the world conducting blasting studies, all the while developing a reputation for blasting knowledge second to none. Almost all of his work was conducted in metalliferous mines as he did not like coal mining. His specialization became underground metalliferous operations. Gideon was awarded his PhD in 1991. Like some JK students at the time, Gideon became a staff member before completing the PhD.

In the mid 1990s Gideon’s thinking turned to cave mining. With his great friend Alan Guest of De Beers, a caving project steadily took shape. The International Caving Study began work in 1997, supported by international companies. A feature of ICS was the engagement of leading international research groups in addition to the JKMRC. Gideon had a unique ability to bring together disparate companies, people and research to work towards a common goal. Caving research was to become his passion, absorbing him till very late in his life.

In 2001 Gideon and Alan Guest were responsible for a project to develop a blasting model from first principles. It was similar in organization and operation to the caving projects, and brought together a level of outstanding intellectual capability. Only Gideon could have made such a project a success, in part because of his warm and engaging personality which won him friendships and affection across the world.

Geoff Lyman working in JKMRC

Dr Geoff Lyman

Geoff Lyman arrived at the JKMRC in 1974 as a Chemical Engineering graduate from McGill University. He joined a small team which was formed to conduct coal flotation research for the Utah Development Company at its Bowen Basin Mines. This was an important step for the JK, the first project in coal preparation and the first beyond the scope of the long-established AMIRA P9. In standard JK fashion, work was conducted in the plants. Geoff took on the task of developing a nucleonic method for determining the ash content of coarse coal. He designed and built the first coarse coal ash analyser, later commercialized as COALSCAN. This work formed the basis for Geoff’s PhD which was awarded in 1984.

For over 30 years the breadth of his research was unmatched at the Centre. Geoff had an outstanding ability to turn his hand to new problems and develop original solutions. He conducted research on many topics including: coal dense medium cyclones; a control system for commercial coal jigs; turbulence effects in coal flotation; application of geostatistics to coal washability analysis; dynamic simulation of process flowsheets; modelling of mineral textures; and the development of sampling techniques and associated analysis which he turned into a very successful consulting business after leaving UQ. Geoff was a driven perfectionist, a lover of excellent red wine and a chef of note.

Emeritus Professor Don McKee was Director of the JKMRC from 1990-96 and the inaugural Director of The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute from 2001-2007.