Open Pit menu contents

Introduction

This section gives an overview of the Open Pit system.

Open Pit Solids

This section describes the tools available to edit open pit triangulations by attribute.

Open Cut Design

This section describes the tools available for the creation and modification of open cut mine designs and dump or stockpile designs. The tools are for straight projections only. Mine designs with ramps or haulroads are handled by the Ramps module.

Ramps

This section describes the tools available for the creation and modification of open cut mine designs, dumps or stockpile designs with ramps and haulroads.

Phase Design

This submenu combines some existing Open Pit tools and introduces new ones that allow you to create open pit phases or push back strings in a simple and fast manner. From these pushback strings, you will be able to create solid triangulations, which can then be used to calculate reserves from a block model.

Pit Layout

This section describes the options that allow you to define mining blocks or strips, edit and name them. These blocks can be used for scheduling and further mine design work.

Terrace Mining

This section describes the block reserve options for selective open cut coal mines where the coal seams are steeply dipping, and the mining method involves the creation of horizontal or near-horizontal benches to access the coal.

Benching and Batters

This section describes how to model flat or undulating deposits using 2D surfaces such as grid meshes or triangulations. This module is used primarily in the coal mining sector.

Batvol

This section describes the block reserve options for flat or undulating deposits using 2D surfaces such as grid meshes and triangulations. The module is used in conjunction with the Benching and Batters module.

Dump File Reporting

This section describes the options that allow you create dump file reports.

Pit Volumes

This section describes how to create sectional profiles of two surface triangulations, for example, a topography and a pit design, and then to calculate the contained volume using the end area section method.

Bench Volumes

Use the Bench Volumes option to calculate the cut and fill volumes (volume changes) between two open-cut mine designs on a bench by bench basis and optionally subdividing by polygon in each bench.

Haulage Profile

This section describes the options that allow you to calculate truck haulage routes based on a series of user-defined input parameters.

Stratigraphy

This section is designed to allow users to create the whole or a part of an open pit from a starting object. It also defines a series of benches where the pit strings will be projected to.

Section Design

This section describes the options that allow you to perform design work in section, generate profiles of surfaces, and to calculate the end area volumes between surfaces. This module is used extensively in rehabilitation.

Hole Design

This section describes the options that allow you to generate drillholes between two surfaces. The first surface, that is, the collar surface, must be a triangulation. The other, that is, the target surface to which the holes are being projected, may be a triangulation or grid mesh model.

Blast Hole Layout

This section describes the options that allow you to generate blastholes between two surfaces. The first surface must be a triangulation. The other, that is, the target surface to which the holes are being projected, may be a triangulation or grid mesh model. Up to 4 intersecting surfaces may be specified. The module is primarily used in the coal mining sector.

Blast Design

This section describes the options that allow you to generate interactively a 2D blast hole pattern for overburden and interburden blasts. You can continue on and generate the 3D blast holes and survey peg locations from the 2D blast pattern and produce a blast hole report.

Blast Design Bench

This section describes the options that allow you to design bench blast patterns where the bench top and toe are defined as nominal planes at specified elevations. This is in contrast to the Hole Design module which defines the bench top and toes using triangulated or gridded surfaces.

Explosive Analysis

This section describes the options for reporting and plotting hole information generated in the Blast Design Bench module. Explosive usage and tie-in information may also be generated.

Increment Design

This section describes the options that allow you to calculate reserves based on a mining pit containing a number of benches. The benches are split into mining blocks.

Monitoring

This section describes the options that allow you to calculate, view, manipulate and plot samples of data values obtained from monitors. Monitors are devices that record information over time. This includes measurements from total stations survey systems to monitor slope movement in pits and pollution monitoring devices to record varying pollutant levels. Data obtained through monitors is referred to as _time series data_. The Monitoring module is fully integrated with the other Vulcan modules such as the Animation module for 4D visualisation and the Statistics module for statistical analysis of the monitors. The module is used in the geotechnical or environmental area as well as in open cut mining for bench movements.

Dozer2000

This section describes the options under the Dozer2000 submenu, which allow you to transfer/convert Vulcan data, such as design objects and a triangulation or grid file, so that it can be directly imported into Leica Geosystems' Dozer 2000 application.

Dig Limits

This section to apply geostatistical techniques to the block information to measure the profit of the blocks in the dig limit, in comparison to a penalty based on the mining equipment constraints. This module is designed to obtain a quality line for grade control maximising the economic benefit from a blast material classification.

Oilsands Options

This section to apply various block model, dilution, and ring procedures as they apply to Oil Sands.

Appendix A

This section lists the file naming conventions and provides examples of files used by the Open Pit module.

Appendix B

This section describes the various sections that may appear in the.smp parameter file. This file is used by the Sampling module (found under both the Geology and Open Pit menus), and the Blockout and Grade Control modules (under Open Pit). The Grade Control module is client specific.

Appendix C

This section explains the types of commands that may exist in a macro file (used by the Benching and Batters module) and provides a list of available commands together with any qualifiers.

Appendix D

This section provides a detailed description of the datasheet used by the Grade Control module, as well as information on how to utilise date stamping in the Grade Control module.