STRATEGIC MINE PLANNING & PTIMIZATION

Mining Optimization Laboratory Professional Development Courses

Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility (NREF), 9105 116th St, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2W2

MINE PLANNING& SIMULATION OF MINING & MINE PLANNING & PROCESSINGSERIES DESIGN SERIES DESIGN SYSTEMS
1. MINE PLANNING AND DESIGN SERIES
Software Gemcom Gems, Whittle, and MineSched Three-week course extended over three months.
This three-week course extends over three months. It is ideally suited to those from industry who wish to gain a more in depth understanding and knowledge of modern mine planning and optimization tools and theory. The course could be taken as a combination of on-site and distance-learning. Designed for mining professionals who want to update their theoretical and practical knowledge in strategic mine planning and optimization, open pit mine and dump design, polygon modeling, mining-cut evaluation, medium- to shortterm production scheduling, and ore grade control. The course complements theory with comprehensive instructions and hands-on computer labs using Gemcom Software. Participants are expected to spend 60 hours on lecture material and 60 hours on computer labs, exercises, and project. On completion of this program, the successful attendee will have an in depth understanding of fundamental principles of open pit mine planning and design. Also they will be able to apply their theoretical knowledge by using modern mine planning software. The objectives are met through lectures, tutoring, and undertaking a mine planning project. The project starts with estimated and simulated block models and covers all the steps required to a complete open pit mine design and a monthly production schedule.

MINE PLANNING & DESIGN SERIES

Week 2 - June 4 to 7, 2013 - 4 days Open Pit Mine Design & Polygon Modeling
Open Pit Mine Design & Polygon Modeling is a comprehensive four-day program designed for mine planners, mining engineers, and geologist who are responsible for activities that require them to design and manage pits, ramps, switchbacks, slots, dumps. Prior to engaging in pit design, the course reviews principles and fundamental concepts in creating points, polylines, and triangulations; generations of plans and sections; also surface and solid modeling for the purpose of open pit design will be covered. The project starts from the final optimal pit and the intermediate pits shells generated in Whittle in week 1. It covers topics on how to choose the required parameters such as berm width, pit slope angle, and batter angle to achieve a desired pit and dump design. The project continues with creating surface triangulations from the pit design, obtaining volumes, tonnages and grades reported by bench, rock type and grade range from the designed pit. Also, an introduction to polygon workspaces that will be used as the main units of short-term production scheduling will be covered. Gemcom-Gems is going to be used for this section of the program.

1. Mine Planning and Design Series

Week 1- April 30 to May 3, 2013 - 4 days Strategic Mine Planning & Optimization Software: Gemcom-Whittle & Excel Solver Week 2- June 4 to 7, 2013 - 4 days Open Pit Mine Design & Polygon Modeling Software: Gemcom-Gems Week 3- July 9 to 12, 2013 - 4 days Medium/Short-Term Production Scheduling Software: Gemcom-MineSched

2. Strategic Mine Planning & Optimization

May 28 to 31, 2013 - 4 days Software: Gemcom-Whittle & Excel Solver

Week 3 - July 9 to 12, 2013 - 4 days Medium/Short-Term Production Scheduling

MineSched software will be used for the short-term production scheduling section of the program. This section will focus on generating monthly and weekly mine schedules adhering to the mine strategic plan. Ore control operations using polygons and mining-cut evaluations for short-term planning will be also covered. The course will go over data preparation; setting parameters: rates, delays, priorities, targets; defining mining locations; defining mining capacity truck shovel hours; defining process streams; period polygons: tonnage/grades, and reporting in and Excel, MS Project. The project work will continue starting from the long-term yearly schedule generated within the designed pit to a monthly production plan taking into account mining and processing capacities, truck-shovel hours, blending targets, and stockpiles. The participants will learn how to: schedule from block, polygonal and grid models with any number of materials and qualities; graphically sequence mining blocks while reporting tonnage and grade; incorporate mining directions, bench lags, face geometry, location limits and other mining constraints to ensure practical schedules.

3. Simulation Modeling of Mining and Processing Systems

May 14 to 17, 2013 - 4 days Software: Arena - Rockwell Automation

Week 1 - April 30 to May 3, 2013 - 4 days Strategic Mine Planning and Optimization
Whittle software will be used for the strategic mine planning week. Principles and fundamental concepts involved in strategic mine planning and design of open pit mines are presented. Subjects covered are geometrical layout design; open pit limit optimization using manual method, floating cone, and 2D & 3D Lerchs and Grossmann algorithms; production planning; mine-life estimation, cut-off grade optimization and Lanes theory; final pit limit optimization and production scheduling in the presence of grade uncertainty; risk based mine planning. The course also covers an introduction to mathematical programming for mining engineers using Excel Solver. Mathematical optimization models and case studies for long and short-term open pit mine planning are presented. The course complements theory with comprehensive instructions and hands-on experience using Whittle strategic mine planning software and Excel.

Instructor
Hooman Askari University: hooman@ualberta.ca Consulting: hooman@optitek.ca

Registration
Use online checkout registration at http://www.ualberta.ca/MOL/ Or call: +1 (780) 492-3116 Irene Ng, Program Coordinator Email: irene.ng@ualberta.ca Tel: +1 (780) 492-3158

Register Online

STRATEGIC PLANNING STRATEGIC MINE MINE PLANNING & PTIMIZATION & OPTIMIZATION
2. STRATEGIC MINE PLANNING AND OPTIMIZATION May 28 to 31, 2013 - 4 days Whittle software
The Strategic Mine Planning and Optimization course is a comprehensive four-day course designed for mine planners, mining engineers, managers, and decision makers in the mining industry. Principles and fundamental concepts involved in strategic mine planning and design of open pit mines are presented. Subjects covered are geometrical layout design; open pit limit optimization using manual method, floating cone, and 2D & 3D Lerchs and Grossmann algorithms; production planning; mine-life estimation, cut-off grade optimization and Lanes theory; final pit limit optimization and production scheduling in the presence of grade uncertainty; risk based mine planning. The course also covers an introduction to mathematical programming for mining engineers using Excel Solver. Mathematical optimization models and case studies for long and short-term open pit mine planning are presented. The course complements theory with comprehensive instructions and hands-on experience using Whittle strategic mine planning software and Excel Solver. Participants will complete a project quantifying uncertainty in production plans using multiple realizations of conditionally simulated orebodies in Whittle. Outcomes of the course include: Understand concepts of strategic mine planning. What costs should be included in pit optimization. Understand principles of Lerchs Grossman 3D algorithm. Pit limits optimization with practical mining width. Generate optimal shells, reports and schedules. Practical push back design with a minimum mining width. Complete a strategic mine planning study in Whittle. Production scheduling using contractors. Advanced techniques with mining direction control. Buffer Stockpiles and Extractive Blending. Understand principles of cut-off optimization. Cutoff Optimization Lanes Theory. Understand concepts of linear programming. Advanced simultaneous optimization of the mining chain. Multi-mine scheduling feeding multi-processing streams. Production scheduling and grade uncertainty. Case studies Iron Ore and Gold, Silver, and Copper.

SIMULATION OF MINING & & SIMULATION OF MINING PROCESSING SYSTEMS PROCESSINGSYSTEMS

3. SIMULATION MODELING OF MINING AND PROCESSING SYSTEMS May 14 to 17, 2013 - 4 days
Fundamentals of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) modeling and its industrial applications to mining and processing systems are presented. Theoretical and statistical aspects of simulation, including input and output analysis, experimental design, and variance reduction techniques are presented. Arena Simulation Environment (Rockwell Automation) is used as the primary modeling simulation tool. On completion of this course, you will have an in depth understanding of principles and methodologies, of discrete event simulation and its application to mining and processing systems. A series of labs using Arena Simulation Software are undertaken to model and optimize real world systems. The first two days of the course focuses on mining systems: A review on probability and statistics and fundamental simulation concepts. Truck-shovel simulation modeling using resources, queues, and basic animation to calculate fleet productivity. Mixed fleet truck-shovel simulation modeling using resources sets and maintenance schedules. Introduction of resource failures with defining probability distribution functions for mean time between failures and mean time between repairs of trucks, shovels, and crushers. Truck dispatching using station-route and assessing the reliability of the system. The rest of the course - two days - will focus on combined continuous and discrete event simulation of processing systems. Size classifications including sieves and hydrocyclones. Comminution operations including crushing machines, grinding, and semi-autogenous mills. Solid-liquid separation including thickeners and filtration. Gravity and magnetic separation modeling. Comminution and separation sub-models for grinding machines, separators, and classifiers. Bulk material terminal modeling including arrival of trains, stockyard cells, stockpile blending, stackers and reclaimers, and the ships loading section.

Instructor Hooman Askari

Email: hooman@ualberta.ca http://www.ualberta.ca/MOL/

Dr. Askari is an assistant professor of mining engineering in the School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. He teaches and conducts research into mine planning and design and simulation of mining systems. He is the director of the industrial research consortium, Mining Optimization Laboratory (MOL) sponsored by mining companies. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta. He offers consulting services to mining industry through OptiTek Mining Consulting Ltd. in the area of open pit mine planning and design and simulation of mining systems.

Mining Optimization Laboratory

Mining Optimization Laboratory (MOL) is an industrial research consortium directly sponsored by mining companies who exclusively receive research results. MOL research focuses on two major themes: Mine Planning and Design. Simulation Optimization of Mining Systems. MOL research focuses on using operations research and advanced analytical methods such as mathematical modeling, optimization, discrete event/continuous simulation, and intelligent agents to arrive optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex, large-scale mine planning/operations decisionmaking problems.