Anglo American uses the latest digital twin technology at Quellaveco
Anglo American claims it has applied cutting-edge technology to Quellaveco copper mining in Peru. This allows it to create a virtual replica of the process plant that can replicate everything that occurs in the mine. With this, digital mining specialists are able to perform predictive tests that help reduce security risk, optimize the use and improve performance of production teams.
Digital twins enable virtual reproductions of equipment and infrastructure. They display information about technical characteristics and operation using IoT with the same data that is provided by sensors in the mine.
The brain of Quellaveco, the Integrated Operations Center is responsible for controlling the digital twins. There are twins for the grinding system and flotation. These machines are capable of learning from real-world failures and making recommendations for optimizing time and costs.
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Cinthya Lozano is the Superintendent of Anglo American’s Integrated Operations Center. “Digital twins allow us to have higher performance, but also increase safety by reducing errors rates which means a new standard in efficiency in the mining sector,” she says. We can, for example, place a parameter into a pump to see how it reacts.
She adds that if it doesn’t function properly, we can change the parameters as many times as necessary and once we have the correct data, we can just take it to real life.”
Quellaveco was the first mine to use digital twin technology to increase efficiency in its mineral processing plants. It has taken advantage of the connectivity, sensitisation and other benefits that make it the first digital 100% mine in Peru.
The COMOS platform of Siemens is what underpins the Anglo American Quellaveco digital twin. It integrates Siemens’ process control system Simatic PCS-7. This controls, among other things, the gearless driven conveyors as well as the grinding circuit. The integrated COMOS software solution allows you to consolidate automation data from different control systems.
Siemens claims that the system guarantees optimal collaboration, continuity and consistency across all disciplines involved in plant operation and engineering. This is possible by consolidating data from many sources. The automation digital twin of COMOS software allows for the extraction of process data from the process control system.
This data can then be imported to COMOS to be displayed graphically, consolidated and made available to further engineering. COMOS uses this data to support the creation and maintenance of the digital twin of the plant, as well as a quick and reliable migration and update to the process control software.
