Abstract
SYNOPSIS Underground mining operations tend to have higher operating costs than surface mines. When metal prices decrease, profitability is jeopardized due to the high costs. Therefore, mining management harnesses new practices that increase operational efficiency. One way to manage this challenge is to invest in new mine planning practices. Stope layout optimization as a part of underground mine planning aims to identify a portion of the orebody in the form of production volumes (stopes) to maximize profit under roadway and stope dimension constraints. In this paper we propose a novel approach based on identifying ore-rich areas of the deposit and prioritizing their extraction through an iterative heuristic clustering approach. The proposed approach is compared with and validated by an exact method through a small mining example. The heuristics produced nearly identical results in a very short time. Finally, a case study was carried out using a larger data-set. The cluster-based iterative approach generated near-optimal stope layouts in a computationally effective manner. Keywords: underground mining, iterative optimization, stope layout planning, sublevel stoping.
Highlights
Surface mines have long constituted the majority of worldwide mining operations
(2) S urface operations are more selective, resulting in less dilution and loss (3) S urface extraction techniques usually involve fewer safety concerns compared to underground mining
Underground mining is considered as being governed by rock mechanics constraints, with no room for optimization, the recent prevalence of underground mining techniques increases the importance of computer-aided tools for planning and layout optimization, in order to maximize the profit and minimizie the environmental impact
Summary
The main reasons are that (1) T he new excavation and slope monitoring technologies allow the surface mines to go deeper due to the lowered overburden removal costs (2) S urface operations are more selective, resulting in less dilution and loss (3) S urface extraction techniques usually involve fewer safety concerns compared to underground mining. Underground mining is considered as being governed by rock mechanics constraints, with no room for optimization, the recent prevalence of underground mining techniques increases the importance of computer-aided tools for planning and layout optimization, in order to maximize the profit and minimizie the environmental impact. Sublevel stoping is an unsupported underground mining technique that is typically used when the orebody is massive, steep, thick, and large in size (Hartman and Mutmansky, 2002). The minimum and maximum stope length, width, and height are determined by the geological engineer according to the rock characteristics
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