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Welcome
The Internet has made it possible to welcome you as the newest member of our group of Modsim trainees. It is our aim to provide you with a rewarding and pleasant training experience. We have made this course available on a world-wide basis and we have attracted students from at least 11 different countries.We will try to promote and maintain a lively interchange among our group of licensed users throughout the course. If you are not a licensed Modsim user you are welcome to study the several Modules and view the course materials. We hope you acquire a license for Modsim soon.
What do we plan to do?
The focus of the course will be the MODSIM plant simulator. This simulation system was developed in the 1970's and I have maintained it since then, mostly as a support tool for teaching mineral processing at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Utah. In recent years a good Windows interface has been developed for MODSIM so that it can now be used conveniently by anyone who is interested in the operating performance of mineral processing plants. Throughout its life, MODSIM has also proved to be a useful tool to study industrial processing problems and we have tackled and solved a number of interesting and challenging industrial problems using the simulation method. The professional version of MODSIM is now quite widely used in industry.
The strength and reliability of any simulation system must always be the models that describe the behavior of the component parts of the system. MODSIM was designed to be completely open-ended so far as models are concerned, and new models for any particular unit operation can be added to those in the simulator at any time. This has the advantage that MODSIM is not tied to any one modeling philosophy and whenever good models appear in the literature these can be easily incorporated. I have maintained an active modeling program during the life of MODSIM which now includes over 50 separate unit models many of which have internal variants from which to choose. MODSIM now reflects an eclectic mix of many of the best modeling ideas that the mineral processing community has produced. I hope that by the end of this course some of you will have contributed some ideas for new models and modifications to existing models that will reflect your own experiences in mineral processing.
During this course model development as such will not be emphasized (this can be a tricky and painstaking job) but we want to show you how easy it is to use, in your own work, any of the esoteric models that have been dreamed up by researchers. Our focus will accordingly be on the use of the simulator. We will provide details of the models in a series of technical notes that will accompany each section of the course. You can study these in as much detail as you like.
How do we plan to do it?
We have set up 10 modules each of which covers one aspect of the simulation and modeling scene. The content and focus for each module is defined in the course outline which you should review if you have not already done so. Modules 1 and 2 are devoted just to the mechanics of running the simulator. Those of you who are already MODSIM users will find little that is new here, but we believe that we must allow adequate training material so that everyone can become really proficient with the software. For those who already have proficiency in using Modsim, just choose which module you are most interested on and start from there. All modules are open at all times. If you must start in Module 1, take your time and execute the exercises at your own pace. All subsequent modules have been preprogrammed to require between 3-5 hours to complete. The modules have been designed to use a more-or-less standard format so you should be able to tackle the exercises fairly easily once you are familliar with the structure that we are using.
If you are a licensed Modsim user, you may submit assignments for evaluation, within the support agreement between you or your company and MTII. Assignments can be submitted most conveniently using email to info@mineraltech.com. Make sure you identify youirself and your company in the email. MTII maintains a database of licensed users and their support time. Do not use your personal email to submit assignments. Use your company email. You can attach any materials that you find appropriate such as Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, Modsim packed jobs, PDFs, etc..
Once again welcome to MTII's Modsim training site. Enjoy the course and we hope to hear from you often.
You can go to the course outline page from here.
You can go to the course instruction page from here.
You can go to Module 1 from here.