Pit Optimisation

In this release enhancements have been made to the analysis and the optimisation of pit shells.

Pit Shell Analysis

The Flag Pit Blocks by Period options that were formerly available on the Report tab of the Pit Shell Analyser form have been relocated alongside the By Period input mode option on the Input tab of the form.

This is more intuitive, since those options cannot be selected unless the input mode (on the Input tab) is set to By Period (and the input is either a pit shell points file or a block model file).

Pit Shell Optimisation

The conventions for naming the output pit shells when running nested pit optimisation have been improved to provide more flexibility and clarity:

• If the Use revenue adjustment factors option is selected on the Nested Pits tab of the form: the optimal pit will be generated using the Revenue Adjustment Factor (RAF) values you have defined for one or more intervals.

  Each pit shell will be named using the Name specified on the Pit Shells tab of the form, plus a suffix which corresponds to the Revenue Adjustment Factor of that pit. If the Name field is set as “Pit” and the RAF increment is set to 0.1, for example, the pit shells will be named Pit_1.0, Pit_1.1, Pit_1.2, etc.

• If the Generate option is selected on the Nested Pits tab of the form: pit shells will be generated every n th bench (where n is the number of Benches you have specified.

  Each output pit shell will be named based on its Pit Number, plus the Revenue Adjustment Factor of that pit (which will always be 1.0 in this mode), for example: 1_1, 2_1, 3_1, etc.

When you run Pit Optimiser | Optimise you can now auto load the generated pit shells in Vizex.

Adjust Pit Design Strings to Optimised Pit Shell

Pit shells provide the basis for more detailed pit design and for long-term scheduling. Using an optimised pit shell in conjunction with the Auto-Build pit tool allows you to fast-track the pit design process and eliminates the need to manually modify the pit strings on each bench.

When the Adjust to Optimised Shell Boundary option is enabled on the new Optimised Shell tab of the Pit Design form, the projected pit design strings are automatically adjusted to match the limits of an optimised pit shell.

A Loose (Polynomial Approximation) smoothing method smooths the shell boundary based on a smoothing tolerance that controls the length of a "moving" path used to calculate new vertices. The curve does not pass through any of the vertices of the original strings or segments, except the first and last.

Specific Pit Parameters can be incorporated into the design, for example double benching.

Note: Pit roads will be retained unless modifying the strings will lead to the loss of a road point. In such cases you will be given the option to continue to build the pit, or pause the process to add a new road point and then continue to build the pit.

The tool will prioritise the use of design parameters specified in the Pit Parameters grid, followed by any specified on the Variable Constraints tab. The default parameters (including the ones on the toolbar) have the lowest priority of use