MEMBER PORTAL

Dr. Bern Klein

Bern Klein is a Professor of Mineral Process Engineering at the UBC Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering.  He has a Bachelors degree in Mining and Mineral Process Engineering.  His PhD on the subject of “Dense Media Separation” lead to his research into pre-concentration and sensor based sorting with studies at INCOs Ni-Cu operations in Sudbury in 1999.  Since then has published more than 20 papers on the subject including the chapter on “Ore Sorting” which is presently being published in the SME’s Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Handbook.  He is also co-founder of MineSense Technologies which is a technology company advancing sensor based systems for the mining industry.     His research at UBC is focussed on advancing Sensor Based Sorting with a focus on developing approaches to assess the benefits of sensor based sorting for mining operations and prospects.  Through his company OrePortal he works closely with industry to support studies aimed at assessing the potential for SBS for their operations and projects.  These projects include assessment of orebody heterogeneity, sensor evaluation, sorter system design and economic assessment of SBS for both greenfield and brownfield projects.

Dr. Klein has applied his backgrounds in both Mining and Mineral Processing to Integrated Mining and Processing Systems.  This work lead to research into Block Cave Mining that initially focussed on the New Afton Block Cave Mine.  From this work and in collaboration with Professors Malcolm Scoble, Davide Elmo and Dr. Stefan Nadolski they developed a concept paper titled “Cave-to-Mill: A Mine-to-Mill approach to block caves” and then to the creation of the International Caving Research Network (ICaRN).  His focus has been on the integration of sensors into the material handling system for sorting and grade control within block caves.  He is also involved with research in the areas of geometallurgy and energy-efficient comminution technologies.

Awards

  • Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Transactions, Best Paper Award, 2008
  • Canadian Institute of Mining Distinguished Lecturer Award, 2011
  • CEEC Medal, Coalition for Energy Efficient Comminution, Best Paper, 2013
  • CEEC Medal, Coalition for Energy Efficient Comminution, Best Paper, 2016

Publications

  • Klein, B. (2018). Assessing Bulk Sortability for Large Copper Mines. Proceedings of the 16th International Mineral Processing Symposium (IMPS 2018), Antalya, Turkey, pp. 7-12.
  • Klein, B., Erdenebat, E., Nadolski, S., Samuels, M. (2018). Assessing Ore Heterogeneity for Bulk Sorting at the New Afton Copper Mine. 8th International Conference on Sensor-Based Sorting & Control (SBSC 2018), Aachen, Germany.
  • Munkhchuluun, M., Elmo, D., Nadolski, S., Moss, A. & Klein, B. (2018). Presence of natural fracture as an indicator of operational difficulty for cave operations, in Y Potvin & J Jakubec (eds), Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, Australia, pp. 261-270.
  • Nadolski, S., Klein, B., Hart, C.J.R., Moss, A. and Elmo, D. (2018). An approach to evaluating block and panel cave projects for sensor-based sorting applications, in Y Potvin & J Jakubec (eds), Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, Australia, pp. 133-140.
  • Nadolski, S., Klein, B., Samuels, M., Hart, C. and Elmo, D. (2018). Evaluation of Cave-to-Mill opportunities at the New Afton Mine, in Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mineral Processors (2018), Ottawa, Canada.
  • Nadolski, S., Munkhchuluun, M., Elmo, D. and Klein, B. (2017). A Piecewise Linear Interpolation Algorithm to reduce the uncertainty of cumulative fracture intensity plots for Discrete Fracture Network modelling, in 15th International Conference of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (15th IACMAG), Wuhan, China.
  • Nadolski, S.,  Munkhchuluun, M., Elmo, D. and Klein, B. (2017). Characterization of Rock Mass Fragmentation for Cave Mining. In 51st US Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium (ARMA 2017), San Francisco, California, USA.
  • Nadolski, S., Liu, Y., Klein, B., Elmo, D., Scholar, J. & Scoble, M. (2016). Investigation into the Implementation of Sensor-based Ore Sorting Systems at a Block Caving Operation. In 7th International Conference & Exhibition on Mass Mining, Sydney, Australia.
  • Klein, Bern, Chengtie Wang, and Stefan Nadolski. “Energy-Efficient Comminution: Best Practices and Future Research Needs.” In Energy Efficiency in the Minerals Industry, pp. 197-211. Springer, Cham, 2018.
  • Li, Lixia, Genzhuang Li, Huaizhe Li, Gouging Li, Ding Zhang, and Bern Klein. “Bench-scale insight into the amenability of case barren copper ores towards XRF-based bulk sorting.” Minerals Engineering 121 (2018): 129-136.
  • Nadolski, Stefan, Mike Samuels, Bern Klein, and Craig JR Hart. “Evaluation of bulk and particle sensor-based sorting systems for the New Afton block caving operation.” Minerals Engineering 121 (2018): 169-179.
  • Nadolski, S., M. Munkhchuluun, B. Klein, D. Elmo, and Craig Hart. “Cave fragmentation in a cave-to-mill context at the New Afton Mine part I: fragmentation and hang-up frequency prediction.” Mining Technology 127, no. 2 (2018): 75-83.
  • Nadolski, Stefan, Christopher O ‘Hara, Bern Klein, Davide Elmo, and Craig JR Hart. “Cave fragmentation in a cave-to-mill context at the New Afton mine Part II: implications to mill performance.” Mining Technology (2018): 1-12.
  • Nadolski, S., Klein, B., Elmo, D., & Scoble, M. (2015). Cave-to-Mill: a Mine-to-Mill approach for block cave mines. Mining Technology, 124(1), 47-55.
  • Klein, B., Altun, N.E. and Scoble, M.J. (2015). Comminution: Technology, Energy Efficiency and Innovation. In Proceedings of 24th International Mining Congress and Exhibition of Turkey (IMCET2015), Antalya, Turkey.
  • Klein, B., Altun, N.E., Bamber, A. (2014). Surface Mining: Methods, Technologies and Systems. Chapter 12: A New Era in Open Pit Mining: Mine-mill Integration and Enabling Technologies. Wide Publishing. ISBN : 978-81-909043-8-8, p. 373
  • Nadolski, S., Klein, B., Kumar, A., & Davaanyam, Z. (2014). An energy benchmarking model for mineral comminution. Minerals Engineering, 65, 178-186.
  • Klein, B., Bamber, A.S., Altun, N.E. and Scoble, M.J. (2011). Towards Tomorrow’s ‘Smart Mine’ –Embedded Sensor Telemetry and Sensor-based Sorting. In Proceedings from the Second International Future Mining Conference. Victoria, Australia: The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
  • Klein, B., Energy (2011) Efficiency in Mineral Processing, Canadian Institute of Mining, Distinguished Lecturer Award, 2011