Surface Mine Design and Planning

LYNX Surface Engineering provides an engineering application platform for interactive design and planning of surface mining excavation limits. Excavation limits are created with reference to geological and geostatistical models of a deposit. Interactive design methods are complemented by Lerchs-Grossmann 3D Pit Optimization and the Conical Pit Expansion techniques. A range of design options allow application to an open cut, strip and open pit methods.

Interactive 3D Design Tools

background displays for any combination of geological, geostatistical, database management, mine development, or excavation information in a wide variety of formats design viewplane orientation chosen independent of deposit model orientations database facilities to specify design unit and component naming conventions, allowing wildcard sorting capabilities interactive boundary definition of excavation profiles and assignment of engineering parameters for planning template facilities for definition, positioning, scaling and rotation of excavation profiles 3D linking of boundaries to form excavation volumes interactive 3D editing of excavation boundaries into complex irregular shapes interactive sectioning at any viewplane orientation through designed volumes viewing tools in a wide range of display formats, with section or viewplane selection, scaling, zooming, coordinate tracking and snapping 3D perspective views in any orientation to assist in rapid visual appreciation of the spatial relationships of mine geometry digitizer interface to facilitate definition of large volumes of existing mine geometry information, from existing plans and sections assembly features for replicating and positioning standard excavation units analysis tools such as an interactive analyze option for instant quick views of volumes and reserves during the design process export control for printer, plotter and plot file output of all screen displays, with export of plot files in industry standard formats precise reporting of mining reserves and development quantities at any stage

Surface Design Tools surface data tools for contouring, thinning, clipping, merging, and coordinate transformation TIN surface modeling for generation of triangulated topologies at any 3D orientation TIN manipulation tools for generation of engineering surface and thickness parameters engineering surface modeling by assignment of nominal thickness for representation of cut-off walls excavation volume modeling of variable thickness engineering structures, by auto-generation of volume elements between TIN surfaces

Conical Expansion (Benched) Design

interactive definition and editing of excavation profiles slope and berm control by excavation sector and between elevation limits auto-projection of profiles between elevation limits and/or geological surfaces geological and topographical control of profile projections interactive profile editing at any design angle top-down or bottom-up design to allow excavation or dump/fill design

Lerchs-Grossmann Optimization 3D pit optimization provides an automated method for generating preliminary open pit designs based on economic criteria. The method is based on a 3D model of net $ values generated from geostatistical models of relevant grades, and taking into account key variables such as recoverable commodity values, mining and processing costs, haulage costs, metal recovery and other operating costs. Haulage costs which increase with pit depth, may be incorporated into the model. The method optimizes the total net profit from the mining operation, considering the maximum allowable wall slopes in different directions, to obtain the excavation design limits which contain the largest possible positive profit. Special profit constraining techniques allow definition of staged pits based on profitability.

Strip Mine Design Tools

facilities for design of panel, strip and block layouts design of box cuts or special excavation shapes variable orientation of design planes auto-generation of mining cuts interactive or digitizing design option strip sequencing via user naming conventions automatic triangulation of structural surfaces surface transformation into triangular 3D volumes surface manipulation via functional relationships

Excavation Analysis

• 2D/3D visualization of excavation volumes and surface structures on viewplane section or in 3D perspectives

• excavation volume reporting of any wild card selection of volumes or planning units

• excavation intersection reporting of characteristic and variable values intersected by wild-card selection of planning units