Introduction

A wide range of applications are supported by the Vulcan Open Pit menu. Both the planning and operational requirements of mine engineering are provided for by the options.

At the heart of the options is the flexible Vulcan 3D CAD environment and a mixture of specialist tools. Basic CAD design and triangulated modelling techniques provide the complete solution.

Incorporated in the Open Pit menu, you will find tools for creation and modification of open cut mine designs and dump or stockpile designs. The flexibility of the tools allows the engineer to build the mine plan according to the constraints determined by inputs, such as optimised blocks, ore/waste ratio contours, geotechnical constraints and urban planning requirements. Rapid visualisation of the design give feedback to the designer by providing the opportunity to communicate the development to other technical and non-technical people.

The specialist tools in the Open Pit design menu include:

• A range of tools for laying out strips and blocks allowing for a wide range of geometric and ad-hoc shapes to be created.
• The ability to apply different batter angles and berm widths to selected line segments of a pit or dump outline. Block model variables can also be used to apply a batter angle and berm width. In this case they will be applied to entire strings.
• An end area volumetric process that gives good check volumes and profiles of pits and dumps.
• A macro based "benching & batters" menu where a design can be projected through a series of surfaces or levels. This is typically used in coal mines where reserves on regular block/strip layouts are important.
• Options to handle block/strip layouts for selective methods, such as terrace mining.
• Section design options allowing engineers to design accurate slope angles for rehabilitation and excavation. Balanced cut and fill is automatically adjusted if required. Results from section design can be passed to slope stability code for sensitivity analysis.
• A network design option providing the engineer with a method to create EFH (effective flat haul) distances for pit road layouts. These results are passed through to scheduling as significant inputs to optimal pit layout.
• The Range Diagram and Rehandle options provide drag line planners with the tools to determine critical factors for pit design.
• Blast hole design for both seam and bench mining operations, layout blast patterns and report metres, powder factors and assistance with tie line and explosive analysis.
• Increment Design, a pre-scheduling option designed to give reserves from a block model and to provide input to scheduling. This options is also linked to the network design.
• The grade (ore) control options providing a sophisticated, customisable suite of options, to display blast samples, layout blocks, calculate reserves and provide input to the survey group for marking out.

Overall, the Vulcan Open Pit tools work as an integrated set of options that provide the tools needed and expected of a 3D software system.