VTCA Spends The Day At Virginia Tech

Mining & Minerals Engineering

Undoubtedly the largest Mining Engineering School in the Country and arguably, the best Mining Engineering School in the County resides right in Blacksburg, Virginia. While Virginia Tech’s Mining & Mineral Engineering program may be the largest mining engineering program in the United States it is a very small engineering program at Virginia Tech.

Dr. Kray Luxbacher, Head of Virginia Tech’s Mining & Minerals Engineering Department, is focused on growing enrollment in the program and VTCA wants to help! VTCA Aggregate Producers employ so many graduates from the Virginia Tech Mining Engineering program that you can’t throw a rock without hitting one of them. It’s time to utilize this strong network to help Virginia Tech recruit prospective students in the Mining Engineering program.

VTCA has developed a directory of our member’s locations and contacts that prospective students can utilize to arrange plant visits and tours with their parents. This is intended to enable students considering mining engineering to observe a modern mining operation.

In addition, VTCA will be connecting local aggregate members with Virginia Tech for tours, experiences, and cooperatives, providing valuable hands-on learning opportunities.

Virginia Tech Mining & Minerals Engineering Department welcomes guest lecturers ;and can facilitate presentations for VTCA events and conferences. Virginia Tech can assist industry partners with research andFevaluations ranging from financial valuation of capital expenditures to process analyses. VTCA Aggregate Producer members can also connect with Virginia Tech to offer internships for mining Engineering Students.On another note, Virginia Tech Mining & Minerals Engineering will be celebrating the reopening of Holden Hall, home of Mining & Minerals Engineering, following major renovations to the facility. According to Dr. Luxbacher, they expect to be in the renovated building in early 2022 with an official reopening for the 2022 fall semester.

Renovated Holden Hall Rendition – Virginia Tech		Holden Hall Autonomous Equipment Pit – Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech Mining & Mineral Engineering has engaged with several selected industry partners to establish the Built for the Mine partnership. Built for the Mine was developed to offer leadership training and industry mentoring to students earning Mining Engineering degrees.

The Built for the Mine vision: “The mining industry has seen a shift in the advancing technology it uses. The vision of Virginia Tech's Mining and Minerals Engineering Department is to incorporate advancing technologies, such as data analytics and equipment automation, into its course curriculum, with strong support from the educational partnership program embodied in Built for the Mine.”

Several VTCA members serve as Built for the Mine partners. Professor, Eric Westman, is the point of contact for Built for the Mine. For more information, go to: https://www.mining.vt.edu/built-for-the-mine.html.

Civil & Environmental Engineering

The second half of the visit at Virginia Tech was spent ;in Civil & Environmental Engineering with Assistant Professor Dr. Alex Brand. Dr. Brand works in the Structural Engineering and Materials department, specializing in, among other interests, uses of recycled and by-product materials, concrete pavement engineering, fiber reinforced concrete and roller compacted concrete.

Some of Dr. Brands areas of interest are synonymous with product issues faced by aggregate producers. VTCA connected with Dr. Brand following a recent VDOT Research Council meeting. Dr. Brand was presenting potential research projects utilizing byproducts from other industrial processes. We discussed with Dr. Brand about potential research on new uses for quarry screenings. Dr. Brand had some ideas and as a follow-up, several samples of screenings have been submitted to Virginia Tech for research.

The visit with Dr. Brand included a tour of the Thomas M. Murry Structures Laboratory. This lab was full of interesting and unique research equipment, including a 1,000,000 lb. static load tester, an impact testing device, and a Shock Tube Research Facility that tests material reactions to explosions.

Inside the research facility, one research team was building a form for a bridge deck concrete pour to research a new fiber mesh that may reduce concrete shrinkage.

VTCA and Dr. Brand also discussed Virginia Tech assisting VTCA Aggregate Producers with research on mix designs with cement treated aggregates. VTCA Aggregate Technical Committee members will be meeting virtually with Dr. Brand on August 6 to further discuss this potential research project.

VTCA Aggregate Producer Technical and Marketing Committees are considering holding our December joint committee meeting at Virginia Tech and tour the Thomas M. Murry Structures Laboratory and discuss further opportunities.

T.M. Murry Structure Lab – Virginia Tech