Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
Issue link: https://emj.epubxp.com/i/239773
O P E R AT I N G S T R AT E G I E S tions, the interactive Stope Designer tool allows underground engineers to create practical mining shapes quickly. By stepping back and forth through a series of planes to digitize a desired outline on each plane, any number of reference solids, surfaces or block models can be used to guide the design process. The polygons on each plane can be quickly evaluated using the block model, which allows for rapid refinement of the designed shape. Once the polygons on all planes have been designed, the volume, mass and grade of all material types are calculated and assigned to the designed solid for reporting and analysis. Stope Slicer enables underground mine designers to produce practical mining shapes quickly by dividing any solid into smaller solids that represent the stoping units to be mined. By allowing multiple scenarios to be considered, this tool allows the optimal design to be identified for use in downstream planning and scheduling activities to satisfy mining objectives. Once produced, resultant solids are organized, named and tinted to distinguish stopes from pillars and crown pillars, which can then be used in Geovia's MineSched long-term and short-term scheduling product. In addition, the company released GEMS 6.6, which introduces a range of new tools designed specifically to help underground mine planners. Geovia noted that the introduction of a new ramp design tool in the Tunnels Module improves the current ramp design Geovia says the introduction of a new ramp design tool in the GEMS Tunnel Design Module simplifies the current ramp design process by eliminating many small repetitive tasks. process, eliminating many small repetitive tasks by rolling them into one step. Users will also benefit from the ability to make changes throughout the design process, eliminating the need to start again when changes are necessary. With the introduction of the ramp design tool in the Tunnels Module, GEMS 6.6 now offers a set of dedicated tools that roll multiple repetitive tasks into one step. With the ramp design tool users can: • Specify entry and exit points of ramps, both together or individually, avoiding manual calculation of positions. • Save time by selecting the most commonly used ramp styles from a range of preconfigured templates. Designed solid after using Surpac 6.6 Stope Slicer showing stope solids only. www.e-mj.com • Rapidly evaluate and schedule resource extraction, enabling quicker overall mine design. • Complete mine development design faster when the resource model changes as a result of volatility in commodity prices or additional exploratory work. GEMS 6.6's line regrade feature, available as part of GEMS core, allows specified grade parameters to be preserved when moving lines or segments to new positions, eliminating the need to recreate them from scratch. The process of checking coordinates and manual calculation of gradients is also eliminated, enabling even more time savings. Regrade allows for rapid redesign or design modifications when changes in level height are necessary without the need to start from scratch. The new gradient smoothing feature removes the need to manually digitize incrementally changing segments. It provides the ability to merge intersections with existing tunnel centerline so that line segments transition smoothly, as well as smooth the gradient of a tunnel centerline based on equipment tolerances. Additional enhancements to GEMS include licensing changes to enable multiple dongle use on the same machine; new view options (XY, YZ, XZ buttons), which allow the user to quickly navigate to axisoriented views; a new file export format for solids that utilizes the extended character name introduced in GEMS 6.5; and a number of small defect corrections. JANUARY 2014 • E&MJ; 65