OPTIMISATION OF UNIT OPERATIONS IN SURFACE MINES

A Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of Degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
In
MINING ENGINEERING
Under the guidance of
Dr.M.Aruna and Dr.Suprabha.K.R

By
K Shashibhushan(15MN13)
Karthik R Shetty(15MN14)
S Vasuki(15MN34)

DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KARNATAKA,

SURATHKAL,MANGALORE-575025
APRIL,2019
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The satisfaction and euphoria that accompany the successful completion of this report
would be incomplete without the mention of the people who made it possible whose
consistent guidance and encouragement my effort with success.

We consider the privilege to express our gratitude and respect to all those who guided
us in the completion of this report. We express our gratitude and deep sense of
indebtedness to our project guides Dr. M. Aruna, Associate Professor and Dr.
Suprabha K. R, Assistant Professor and Dr. K Ram Chandar, Head of Department,
Department of Mining Engineering for their involvement, guidance, support and
constant encouragement throughout the tenure of this project work.

We express our sincere thanks to all faculty and staff members of the Mining
Engineering Department for their help during the preparation of this dissertation.
 ABSTRACT
Surface mining is a broad category of mining in which soil and rocks
overlying the mineral deposit are removed. The main objective of surface
mining is to achieve the required production with minimum costs. Based
on the requirements various unit operations like drilling and blasting,
transportation and mineral processing are
carried out.

Drilling and blasting are the controlled use of explosives and other
methods such as gas pressure blasting pyrotechnics, to break rock for
excavation. Mineral processing, also known as ore dressing, is the
process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores.
The transportation cycle consists of loading the
material, conveying it to the transfer point and unloading the material at
the transfer point. These operations should be studied carefully to
optimize and reduce the overall mining cost.
The unit operations can be optimized by redesigning a few parameters
which in-turn would reduce the cost related to their operability, by
improving the efficiency of the process or changing their costing
approaches. In this project an attempt has been made to optimize the
parameters of the unit operations in order to reduce the costs related to
them and improve their effectiveness.

Classical optimisation techniques like linear programming and integer

programming as well as operations research techniques like queuing
models and network models have been extensively used in mines. A
model was developed using C programming for the blast optimisation
and truck transportation optimisation. The computer model is tested
with field data to determine its applicability for all kinds of
requirements and constraints.
 TABLE OF CONTENT

CONTENT PAGE NO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (i)

ABSTRACT (ii)

CONTENTS (iii)

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. OBJECTIVES 2-3

3. COMPUTER MODEL FOR BLAST OPTIMIZATION 4-10

4. COMPUTER MODEL FOR TRANSPORTATION OF ORE USING 11-17

TRUCKS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 18

6. CONCLUSION 19

7. REFERENCES 20
 OBJECTIVES
6

● To study and analyse the unit operations in

surface mines, primarily drilling and blasting and
transportation.

● To develop a computer model for minimizing the

blasting cost based on optimum powder factor.

● To develop a computer model for optimisation of

shovel-truck combination.
 Need for Optimization
7

● Optimization is the process of increasing the

effectiveness of an operation.
● With increasing technology, strict requirements by the
customers and the ever increasing cost, optimization is
a must in mining operations.
● Optimization will enable the mine manager to make the
best use of his allocated resources, improve productivity
of the mine, enhance his decision making prowess and
ensure all activity is carried out at the least possible cost
 Computer Model for Blast
8
Optimization
● A computer program in C programming language was
written to simulate the optimization of blast.
● In the first program bench height(in m) was taken as the
input with the diameter of the blasthole(in m) depending
on it.
● The rock strength of rock(in MPa) was another input
parameter and the optimum powder factor(in
kg/m3)related to it was determined.
 Computer Model for Blast
9
Optimization
● The input parameters taken for the result of the program is as follows

Parameter Value
Bench Height(m) 10
Rock Strength(Mpa) 150
Cost of Explosives per Kg(Rs) 100
Number of Holes 100
 Computer Model for Blast
10
Optimization
● The output of the program is as follows
 Computer Model for Blast
11
Optimization
● In the second program as well the bench height(in m)
was taken as the input with the diameter of the
blasthole(in m) depending on it.
● Here Uniaxial Compressive Strength (in MPa) of the
rock was considered with the burden and spacing
changing with the type of explosive being used.
 Computer Model for Blast
12
Optimization
● The input parameters taken for the program were as follows

Parameter Value
Uniaxial Compressive 150
Strength(MPa)
Bench Height(m) 10
Explosive Used ANFO
Explosive Cost per Kg(Rs) 450
Number of Holes 10
Length of Explosive 2
Cartridge(m)
Weight of one Cartidge(Kg) 5
Length of Charging Column(m) 6
 Computer Model for Blast
13
Optimization
● The output of the program is as follows
 Computer Model for Truck
14
Transportation
● A computer program was written in C programming
language to optimize the ore transportation by using
trucks in a mine.
● A hypothetical case was considered where in a mine
produces X tons of ore everyday which needs to be
hauled everyday.
● It is assumed that there is only one shovel and only one
dumping site. All the trucks travel along the same path.
● There is a fleet of trucks with different operating
parameters of which the mine manager has to choose
the most optimum combination to operate.
 Computer Model for Truck
15
Transportation
● The input parameters for the program are as follows

Input Truck 1 Truck 2 Truck 3

Parameter
Hourly Rate of 10000 7500 5000
Truck (Rs)
Travel 8 6 4
Time(min)
Loading 3 2 1
Time(min)
Unloading 3 2 1
Time(min)
Average Load 100 75 50
of Truck(ton)
 Computer Model for Truck
16
Transportation
● The output for parameters of Truck 1 is as follows
 Computer Model for Truck
17
Transportation
● The output for parameters of Truck 2 is as follows
 Computer Model for Truck
18
Transportation
● The output for parameters of Truck 3 is as follows
 Computer Model for Truck
19
Transportation
● The final output of the program is as follows
 Results and Discussions
20
 Conclusions
21
● Programming language can be used extensively to
develop models to optimize unit operations in mines
which enables the simulation of different requirements
enhancing the decision making prowess of the mine
manager.
● In the blast optimization models the optimum powder
factor and the quantity of explosive required was
calculated which in turn impact the cost of blast. The
model can be adopted by the industry and enhanced
further by incorporating greater number of parameters
and testing it on different data sets obtained from the
field.
 Conclusions
22

● In the truck transportation model a program was

developed to dynamically allocate the trucks of varying
capacity from the truck fleet in order to dump the ore.
The cost of truck to dump one ton of ore was also
determined.
● The model developed here is a basic one which can be
adopted by the industry to extend it to various other
input parameters and also to other ore transportation
methods like belt conveyors.
23

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