Abstract
SYNOPSIS Mining method selection is the most fundamental activity of a mining study, because everything else depends on it. It is a process whereby the mining method attributes are matched to the orebody characteristics. This crucial decision must invariably be made at a stage of the study when the least information is available. Method selection with Analytic Hierarchy Process (MSAHP) is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and was developed in Microsoft Excel™. It was designed to facilitate good decisions based on expert judgement and sparse data according to a systematic mathematical process. The program matches the attributes of 10 mining methods to the characteristics of the orebody under review and results in the ranking of the mining methods according to their suitability to the orebody. The underlying premise of MSAHP is that the mining method best suited to the orebody will also be the most economical. Keywords: mining method selection, orebody characteristics, Analytic Hierarchy Process.
Highlights
Mining method selection is a process whereby the mining method attributes are matched to the orebody characteristics
The mining method attributes are compared to each other, pairwise fashion, with respect to each orebody characteristic, and the relative suitability of the mining method attributes to the orebody is quantified through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
For Method Selection with AHP (MSAHP), the actual orebody characteristics are assigned weights based on linguistic descriptions such as ’very deep’, ‘steeply inclined’, ‘poor’, ‘uniform’ etc., and, where appropriate, actual values
Summary
Mining method selection is a process whereby the mining method attributes are matched to the orebody characteristics. The mining method whose attributes most closely match the orebody characteristics is the one with the highest potential for successful extraction and, by implication, should result in the best business case. This tool, developed in Microsoft ExcelTM and based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), is named Method Selection with AHP (MSAHP). The two parts of the analysis are synthesized, and this results in the ranking of the mining methods according to the suitability of each to the orebody in question
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