The Adelaide Graduate Research School is partnering with BHP Nickel West to provide two research internship opportunities for our PhD students.

Nickel West is a fully integrated mine-to-market business operating in various locations across Western Australia. All nickel operations (open-cut and underground mines, concentrators, a smelter and refinery) are located in Western Australia, however, these internships will be undertaken remotely, in Adelaide.

For students interested in green energy, battery electric vehicles, sustainable mining or similar, they are seeking highly motivated and skilled PhD interns to join their team to undertake the following projects:

1. Contribute to the development of battery degradation models suitable for modelling battery capacity deterioration in harsh environmental and operational setting for heavy-duty electric vehicles in open-pit and underground mines.

The successful candidate will be responsible for developing innovative and accurate battery degradation models using existing datasets and prior work in this area, repurposed to serve the specific needs of the mining environment. The developed models will be used in their optimisation algorithms for designing and operation of electrified mining operation.

The internship will involve working closely with a multidisciplinary research team, including experts in green energy, battery technologies, computer science and sustainable mining practices. The ideal candidate will have a strong Python programming skills, and a background in electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics, data science or a related field.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct a literature review on the state-of-art battery degradation models for heavy-duty off-road vehicles with a focus on mining applications.
• Develop and validate physics-based and/or data-driven models suitable for predicting battery degradation in heavy-duty electric vehicles operating in open-pit and underground mines.
• Analyse the effects of various environmental and operational factors using real-world data (such as temperature, humidity, load cycles, etc.) on battery performance and degradation.

Expected Research Outcomes:

• Contribute to the design of a comprehensive battery degradation model in Python along with a related report

2. Conduct a comprehensive comparison between BEVs and diesel haul trucks in an underground mine setting.

The successful candidate will be responsible for conducting a comprehensive analysis comparing the energy consumption, performance, efficiency, and environmental impact of electric and diesel haul trucks in an underground mine setting using HaulSim and/or TruckSim software. A preferred candidate will have a background in mining, mechanical engineering, or related fields.

The internship will involve working closely with a multidisciplinary research team, including experts in green energy, battery technologies, computer science and sustainable mining practices. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics, data science or a related field.

Responsibilities:

• Utilise commercial software to model, simulate, and compare the performance of electric and diesel haul trucks under various driving conditions and scenarios.
• Leveraging the real-world data to analyse and interpret the simulation results to identify key differences, benefits, and drawbacks between electric and diesel vehicles with respect to productivity and charging energy requirements.
• Develop recommendations based on the findings to inform decision-making and promote the adoption of more electric haul trucks in underground mining.

Expected Research Outcomes:

• Contribute to the production of a report that compares the diesel and electric haul trucks from different aspects besides engaging in solving a real-world problem requiring a real solution in a flagship project

The selected applicant, their supervisor, and the partner organisation's focal contact person will have the opportunity to further discuss the nature of research and development activities and internship arrangements post-selection.

Eligibility:
The PhD student must be:

• within the first 18 calendar months of their candidature if commenced as full-time student,
• willing to undertake the internship for a minimum duration of 60 FTE business days,
• making satisfactory progress, and
• undertaking research in an area identified above

Application process:
To apply, please email the following documents to hdr_internships@adelaide.edu.au (HDR Internships Office) with the subject line – BHP Internship

• Resume
• Cover Letter (of not more than 2 pages) outlining your interest in the internship and describing how your background and research area align with the internship

Please note that applications will be considered on a rolling basis and the advertisement may be closed earlier if a suitable applicant is shortlisted for a particular project prior to the listed closing date. Furthermore, if shortlisted, a meeting is likely to be organised between the student, their supervisor and the organisation's focal contact person within a week of shortlisting. Students may consider discussing their internship plans with their Principal Supervisor in anticipation of that.