Computer Applications in Mining Industry

7/24/2019 Computer Applications in Mining Industry

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What is the role of computer in mining engineering?Enlist the dierent Softwares used in mining that playrole at dierent parts or levels of mine and explain anyten of them.

The development and advancement of computer technology continues at an ever

increasing rate. It is used almost in every industry today including mining.

In mining, computer is used for:

1) Reserve estimation calculation2) Geological modelling3) Layout evaluation and mine design4) Financial modelling5) Equipment Selection and sceduling!) Geotecnical in"ormation

#) $onitoring during mining

o The mine design and planning process can be greatly aided by the application of

many computer techniques. The designing and planning of mine requires a

complex blend of technical expertise, experience and subjective design criteria

implemented by the mining engineer. Currently the procedure is largely manual

and requires considerable resources to generate a single mine plan. Often three

or four people are assigned to wor in the development of a single draft layout.

!valuation of the layouts is also tedious as it requires many repetitive

calculations. The evaluation of layouts developed manually generally attempt to

derive a single economically feasible solution. Operational constraints in mining

such as manpower, time, equipments etc, do not allow the generation of more

than one alternative layout.

o "s a result, the #rst plan is generally the only one considered. "lthough recent

advances in computer graphics have provided the hardware necessary for

developing and evaluating mine plans rapidly, software those will allows the

mining engineer to mae use of the new technology. The emphasis of this study

is towards the development of a completely integrated computer$aided mine

planning pacage that integrates geological modeling, engineering design and

planning strategies with interactive on$screen graphics capabilities.

o The integrated computer$aided mine planning and design procedure will help to

maximi%e deposits recovery at greatly reduced costs. This procedure would aid

the mining engineer to develop a total mine plan from the conceptual design

stage, the analysis of bore hole data, and the drafting of a layout to the #nal

woring mine plan, mine schedule, simulation and cost evaluation.

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Some of the softwares used in "##) at dierent stages

are as under*

Surpac & Open pit and underground operations and exploration projects

Dips & 'raphical and (tatistical "nalysis of Orientation )ata.

Examine 2D & *) (tress "nalysis for +nderground !xcavations.

Examine3D & ) !ngineering "nalysis for +nderground !xcavations.

Phase2 & -inite !lement "nalysis for !xcavations and (lopes.

RocData & oc, (oil and )iscontinuity (trength "nalysis.

RocFall & (tatistical "nalysis of oc fall.

RocLa & oc /ass (trength "nalysis 0'enerali%ed 1oe$2rown -ailureCriterion3

RocPlane & 4lanar (liding (tability "nalysis for oc (lopes. RocSupport& (upport !stimation +sing 'round eaction Curves.

Settle3D & (ettlement and Consolidation "nalysis.

Slide & *) 5imit !quilibrium (lope (tability "nalysis.

S!edge & ) (urface 6edge "nalysis for (lopes.

"n!edge & +nderground 6edge (tability "nalysis.

& +EA,-ES /+ S-'A0*

o (urpac is the world7s most popular geology and mine planning software,

supporting open pit and underground operations and exploration projects in

more than 8*9 countries.

o The software delivers e:ciency and accuracy through ease$of$use, powerful )

graphics and wor;ow automation that can be aligned to company$speci#c

processes and data ;ows.

o (urpac addresses all the requirements of geologists, surveyors, and mining

engineers in the resource sector and is ;exible enough to be suitable for every

commodity, ore body and mining method.

o Its multilingual capabilities allow global companies to support a common solution

across their operations.

,he following are the features of Surpac software1

8. "dvanced 4lotting.*. (olid modeling.

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. 2loc modeling.. (urplan module.?. 'eology )atabase module.@. +nderground design module.

A. ing design module.89.(cripting and automation.88.(urveying module.

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%ipsis designed for the interactive analysis of orientation based geological data.

The program is capable of many applications and is designed for the novice or

occasional user, and for the accomplished user of stereographic projection who

wishes to utili%e more advanced tools in the analysis of geological data.

%ipsallows the user to analy%e and visuali%e structural data following the same

techniques used in manual stereonets.

In addition, it has many computational features, such as statistical contouring of

orientation clustering, mean orientation and con#dence calculation, clustervariability, and qualitative and quantitative feature attribute analysis.

%ips is designed for the analysis of features related to the engineering analysis

of roc structures, however, the free format of the %ipsdata #le permits theanalysis of any orientation$based data.

3& +EA,-ES /+ E4A"#E !2 S/+,WAE* E&amine2%is a very fast two$dimensional indirect boundary element program

for calculating stresses and displacements around underground and surfaceexcavations in roc.

+nlie the -inite !lement and -inite )iBerence methods, the boundary element

method only requires meshing around the excavation boundaries, eliminatingthe need for complex volume mesh generation.

E&amine2%provides an integrated graphical environment for data entry and

visuali%ation. " C") based modeler allows for point and clic geometry input and editing.

4opup windows allow for easy entry and modi#cation of model parameters. The simple editing tools provide a convenient method for performing parametric

studies. The graphical data interpreter oBers a rich set of tools for the convenient display

of model results.6ith E&amine2%you can quicly create and mesh a model, perform a stress

analysis, and interpret the results.

5& +EA,-ES /+ E4A"#E 32 S/+,WAE*

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E&amine3%is an engineering analysis program for underground excavations in

roc.

E&amine3%was developed mainly for stress analysis, although its data

visuali%ation tools can be applied to a wide range of three$dimensional miningand civil engineering data.

-or example, E&amine3%has been used to visuali%e micro seismic datasets

such as seismic velocity, source parameters, and event density.

E&amine3%consists of three program modules&

$ /odel generates the geometry and boundary element discreti%ation forunderground openings,

$ Compute performs the computation of stresses and displacements using thedirect boundary element method,

$ "nd Interpret, with ) animation capability, visuali%es the analysis results.

o !ach of the three modules can be run independently.

o -or example, the input data for Compute can be generated using /odel or some

other C") based program.

o (imilarly, Interpret accepts data from Compute or from some other source.

o 2oth /odel and Interpret are fully interactive and menu$driven programs.

%& +EA,-ES /+ '6ASE! / S!S/+,WAE*

o RS20'ase2A.93 is a powerful *) #nite element program for soil and roc

applications 0RS2 oc and (oil *$dimensional analysis program3.

o RS2can be used for a wide range of engineering projects and includes

excavation design, slope stability, groundwater seepage, probabilistic analysis,consolidation, and dynamic analysis capabilities.

o Complex, multi$stage models can be easily created and quicly analy%ed $

tunnels in wea or jointed roc, underground powerhouse caverns, open pitmines and slopes, embanments, /(! stabili%ed earth structures, and muchmore. 4rogressive failure, support interaction and a variety of other problemscan be addressed.

o RS2oBers a wide range of support modeling options. 5iner elements can be

applied in the modeling of shotcrete, concrete, steel set systems, retaining walls,piles, multi$layer composite liners, geotextiles, and more. 5iner design toolsinclude support capacity plots, which allow you to determine the safety factor of



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reinforced liners. 2olt types include end anchored, fully bonded, cable bolts, splitsets, and grouted tiebacs.

o One of the major features of RS2is #nite element slope stability analysis using

the shear strength reduction method. This option is fully automated and can beused with either /ohr$Coulomb or 1oe$2rown strength parameters. (lopemodels can be imported or exported between Slideand RS2allowing easycomparison of limit equilibrium and #nite element results.

o RS2includes steady$state, #nite element groundwater seepage analysis built

right into the program. There is no need to use a separate groundwater program.4ore pressure is determined as well as ;ow and gradient, based on user de#nedhydraulic boundary conditions and material conductivity. 4ore pressure resultsare automatically incorporated into the stress analysis.

o /aterial models for roc and soil include /ohr$Coulomb, 'enerali%ed 1oe$2rown

and Cam$Clay. 4owerful new analysis features for modeling jointed roc allow

you to automatically generate discrete joint or fracture networs according to avariety of statistical models. 6ith new >


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sources, including compressive strength, tensile strength, elastic properties,1oe parameters, and velocity parameters. The database can be searched and#ltered in various ways, and allows users to add their own data to the database.

7& +EA,-ES /+ /0+A88 S/+,WAE*

o RocFallis a statistical analysis program designed to assist with assessment of

slopes at ris for rocfalls. !nergy, velocity and Dbounce heightD envelopes forthe entire slope are determined by the program, as is the location of rocendpoints. )istributions of energy, velocity and bounce height are alsocalculated along the slope pro#le. )istributions can be graphed andcomprehensive statistics are automatically calculated.

o RocFallcan also assist in determining remedial measures& the material

properties of each slope segment can be changed allowing for comparison ofresults. Information about the inetic energy and location of impact on a barriercan help determine the capacity, si%e and location of barriers. RocFallalso

provides commercial barrier information. +sers can de#ne a custom barrier, orselect one of the prede#ned barriers.

o eport generation of RocFallresults is straightforward. (creen captures can

easily be pasted into word processors for fast report writing. 'raphs and rawdata can be exported to !xcel from the right$clic menu of any graph.

o To assist with determining coe:cients of restitution, RocFallincludes a large

table of coe:cients of restitution that was compiled after an extensive literaturesearch. Tables for dynamic friction and rolling friction coe:cients, as well as rocdensity, are also provided.

o oc paths can be #ltered. Eou can right$clic on individual paths to select onlythat path. Eou can also right$clic on a barrier and select, from the many impactson the barrier, paths that had the highest velocity when they contacted thebarrier. The -ilter esults dialog provides numerous #ltering options.

o RocFallallows you to create faster and easier high$quality output. 'raphs can be

exported to !xcel with 8$clic and the slope and roc$paths can easily beexported to a )F- #le for import into a C") program. The )rawing toolit hasbeen improved to include importing of bitmap #les, multi$line text$boxes that canbe auto$#lled with relevant simulation data, axes that can be dragged$and$dropped to show coordinates on a printed page and much more. In addition, thenew 4age (etup options allow users to completely customi%e the headers andfooters of any RocFall printouts.

9& +EA,-ES /+ /08AB S/+,WAE*

o oc5ab is a software program for determining roc mass strength parameters,

based on the latest version of the generali%ed 1oe$2rown failure criterion.

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o oc5ab provides a simple and intuitive implementation of the 1oe$2rown failure

criterion, allowing users to easily obtain reliable estimates of roc massproperties and to visuali%e the eBects of changing roc mass parameters on thefailure envelopes.

o oc5ab calculates roc$mass parameters such as tensile strength, uniaxial

compressive strength, global strength and deformation modulus.o In addition to the 1oe$2rown failure criterion parameters 0mb, s and a3, oc5ab

always calculates equivalent /ohr$Coulomb parameters 0cohesion and frictionangle3 for the roc mass. The best$#t /ohr$Coulomb strength envelope isdetermined over a stress range that the user can de#ne based on the application0i.e. tunneling or slope stability3.

:& +EA,-ES /+ /0S-''/, S/+,WAE*

o RocSupport is an easy$to$use software tool for estimating deformation in circular

or near circular excavations in wea roc and visuali%ation of the tunnelinteraction with various support systems. 'iven the tunnel radius, in$situ stress

conditions, roc parameters and support parameters, a ground reaction curveand a support reaction curve are calculated. The intersection of these curvesdetermines a factor of safety for the support system.

o RocSupport can be used as a tool for the preliminary design of tunnels and

support systems. It can provide valuable information about various tunnelsupport options before detailed analysis is carried out with a #nite elementprogram such as RS2.

o The program is applicable to tunnels excavated in wea roc under squee%ing

ground conditions. It is not applicable for excavations in hard roc, where failureis controlled by structural discontinuities or brittle failure.

;& +EA,-ES /+ S82E S/+,WAE*

o Slideis the most comprehensive slope stability analysis software available,

complete with #nite element groundwater seepage analysis, rapid drawdown,sensitivity and probabilistic analysis, and support design. "ll types of soil androc slopes, embanments, earth dams, and retaining walls can be analy%ed.(tate of the art C") capabilities allow you to create and edit complex modelsvery easily.

o Slideis the only slope stability software with built$in #nite element groundwater

seepage analysis for steady$state or transient conditions. -lows, pressures andgradients are calculated based on user de#ned hydraulic boundary conditions.(eepage analysis is fully integrated with the slope stability analysis or can beused as a standalone module.

o Slidehas extensive probabilistic analysis capabilities $ you may assign statistical

distributions to almost any input parameters, including material properties,support properties, loads, and water table location. The probability offailureGreliability index is calculated, and provides an objective measure of the



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ris of failure associated with a slope design. (ensitivity analysis allows you todetermine the eBect of individual variables on the safety factor of the slope.


Computer Applications in Mining Industry

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