Scientific, research, developmental, innovational and engineering creative – designing activities of the Mining Institute are oriented towards extraction and mineral processing, rock and soil mechanics, mine ventilation, protection of living and working environments, reclamation and rehabilitation of degraded landscapes, thermodynamics and fuel combustions, mining facilities and infrastructure, electric power supply, mining geology, hydrogeology, system engineering, supervision, control and management of mining processes, computer integrated technologies and mining economics.
The Institute is state-owned, and generates income by selling research and engineering creative services on the domestic and foreign markets, and, to a smaller degree, by participating in scientific and innovational projects financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.
The Institute was the leading Yugoslav, nowadays Serbian, internationally respected institution for mining sciences and engineering. Over 5000 projects have been done at the Institute for the needs of mines and industry, over 50 scientific and research projects have been realized, and 11 technologies and procedures have been patented. More than 70 mines have been opened in Serbia and abroad in accordance with project solutions of the Institute, over 40 plants for mineral processing and coal cleaning have become operative, along with more than 20 waste and tailings disposal sites and ash and slag landfills.
The Institute is a significant publisher of periodicals and publications in the fields of mining, geology, mining economics, geostatistics and systems sciences. It is the publisher of the oldest scientific magazine in the Balkans for the field of mining, “Mining Gazette” (1903).
Profile
As the leading Yugoslav and Serbian school of mining engineering, the Mining Institute created numerous top scientists, researchers, university professors, designers and bearers of the most responsible operational tasks in mines. It surpassed and still surpasses in research, development, reaching and implementing new mining technologies, experimental, laboratory and measurement methods, new solutions and approaches in research and designing.
The criterial commitment of the Institute, directed at continual increase of efficiency and work results, measurable according to the most developed mining economics, is achieved through certification, i.e. implementation of international standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and 18001, and by accrediting laboratories. The integrated management system, established in this way, presents part of the Institute’s business policy, whose final goal is promoting the quality of business and the level of scientific, research, and engineering-creative activities and services.
ACTIVITIES
- Research
Founded six decades ago at the initiative and using the means of the mining industry, the Mining Institute is scientifically, development-research and in a designing sense, the framework of construction, technical-technological and production ascension of the Yugoslavian and Serbian mining in the second half of the XX century. Through hiring of the top scientific and engineering experts, the Mining Institute has become a sort of an engineering school that provided the best researchers, designers, university professors and bearers of the development of the mineral-ore complex of our nation. The contributions of the Mining Institute are not only the successfully realized scientific, development-research, innovative and industrial projects, but the development and application of new mining technologies, testing, laboratory and measurement methods, new mathematical-model approaches in engineering of mining etc.
In this sense the following should be mentioned: development and application of analogue models of mining ventilation networks (1969); Procurement of the digital computer Hewlett Packard 9810 (1973), introduction into regular experimental and engineering procedures of the mathematical-model and simulation methods; Later on the development and application of photo-elastic models in the analysis of the amperage – deformation states of the rocky masses, application of geo-statistics in analysis and designing, the development of the “Sol” package for basin processing and designing of the open pits etc.
- Designing
For the needs of Yugoslav, Serbian and foreign mines, the Institute has done over 5000 conceptual and executive designs, studies, investment programs, technical and technological design documents.
More than 70 mines have been opened in accordance with project solutions of the Institute, over 40 plants for mineral processing and coal cleaning have become operative, and more than 20 waste and tailings disposal sites and ash and slag landfills have been built.
- Laboratory researchs
Researching the enrichment and processing of mineral and waste resources, wastewater purification, physical and chemical testing of the living and working environments, testing physical and mechanical characteristics of rocks and soil, researching solid fuels and the products of their combustion are all performed at the Institute by specialized accredited laboratories for the protection of living and working environments, for geomechanics, for solid fuels, and the Laboratory for mineral processing, unique in its abilities for conventional and semi-industrial complex testing and experimental research, which functions organizationally within the Department for mineral processing and designing.
- Field investigations and measurements
Expertise, competence, training and equipment present the basis for integrated participation of the Mining Institute’s experts in field work, taking samples, recording, assessing, mapping, monitoring of the process, industrial measurements, testing, calibrating, experimental testing, exploratory drilling, controlling the accuracy of installations and measurement systems, technical supervision, recovery, categorization and classifying facilities according to state, risks and dangers, technical acceptance of facilities, processing and elaborating field data, etc. Within the geodetic activities are surveying, controlling, observations, tracing, marking, positioning, monitoring of the slope stability, and create a geodetic basis.
