Bruna Maria Cruz Fernandes, a graduate student at the Institute of Geosciences (IG), received the “ABGE Júnior Award” during the opening ceremony of the 17th Brazilian Congress of Engineering and Environmental Geology. The award is intended to recognize recent graduates and their course completion work (TCC) on engineering and environmental geology topics. In her TCC, defended at the end of 2019 and guided by the professor of the Department of Geology and Natural Resources Ana Elisa Silva de Abreu, Bruna Fernandes dealt with a challenging subject for geotechnics in mining: the adequate classification of rock masses to guarantee safety and optimization operation in open pit mines.
In Brazil, the issue represents a great challenge, as it requires the adaptation of traditional methods to the reality of massifs that are affected by high rainfall and temperatures, which accelerates weathering processes in rocks. The geologist compared three rock mass classification methods in an open pit for copper extraction at the Chapada Deposit, located in Goiás. “Based on these three ways of calculating the RMR (Rock Mass Rating), 3D models were made with the LeapFrog® program, one for each classification method, and it was evaluated how much each mass class changed in percentage between the models. The calculation based on the Aw correction proved to be the most conservative and, therefore, the safest for application in open pits in tropical regions”, explains Bruna.
According to supervisor Ana Elisa, “to obtain the input data for the three models, Bruna Fernandes collected and reviewed the geological-geotechnical description data from drilling cores and mappings of the pit's cut slopes, dealing with a large volume of data. In addition to the specific results of the comparison between the three methods, the work also has the quality of valuing national techniques for operationalizing processes”.
Currently, the IG graduate works as a geologist in the geotechnical team at the mine where she developed her TCC, in Goiás. “In my daily life, I see how the applicability of the study is important for the operationalization of a mine, whether underground or underground. open sky, and that’s why I was proud of the prominence that the topic received”, she says. For her advisor Ana Elisa, the award is recognition of the good work developed in the area of Engineering Geology at Unicamp. “The role of the advisor, in addition to supporting undergraduates in developing the technical part of their work, is to motivate them to get involved with geotechnics, an area of knowledge that appears to the student only in the last year of their degree. The geotechnical market is very hot at the moment, especially in mining, and it is important that our students are well prepared to take up jobs in this area”, reflects the teacher.
Awards like the one received by Bruna certainly add value to the CV of professionals who are entering the job market. Bruna gives guidance to those who are still in their undergraduate studies: “if you have the opportunity, develop the TCC related to the place where you do your internship. It is very important to align the expectations of both the company and the person who will perform the work, ensuring that they will have access to all the data to develop their TCC, in addition to having the freedom to publish them with the company's consent”, explains the geologist. She also remembers the importance of having a supervisor present and willing to provide constructive criticism for the development of the project and, if possible, a co-supervisor from the company where she is interning.
For supervisor Ana Elisa, “the award is the consequence of work carried out by a capable and motivated person, who realized the opportunity to carry out a study that would contribute significantly to the technical community in which he intended to join. It’s an achievement that came naturally and of which Bruna can be proud for the rest of her life.” It was the teacher who presented the award to the former student. “It's always good to see the value of people and what they do being recognized, especially when you've followed this person's journey and know how hard they worked to get there”, concludes the teacher.
