Journal of Powder Metallurgy & Mining
Open Access

Special Issue Article

Novel At-Face-Slurry Performance Modeling with Elliptical and Spherical Geometries

Raymond S. Suglo^1*, Samuel Frimpong² and Osei F. Brown³

¹Department of Mining and Nuclear Engineering, Missouri S&T, Rolla, University of Missouri, USA

²Department of Mining and Nuclear Engineering, Missouri S&T, Rolla, MO 65409, Room 226 McNutt Hall, 1870 Miner Circle, USA

³Missouri S&T & Mining Engineer, Freeport McMoran Inc, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Raymond S. Suglo
Associate Professor of Mining Engineering
Department of Mining and Nuclear Engineering
Missouri S&T, Rolla
University of Missouri, USA
E-mail: rsuglo@yahoo.ca

Received Date: January 15, 2013; Accepted Date: January 17, 2013; Published Date: January 26, 2013

Citation: Suglo RS, Frimpong S, Brown OF (2013) Novel At-Face-Slurry Performance Modeling with Elliptical and Spherical Geometries. J Powder Metall Min S1:006. doi: 10.4172/2168-9806.S1-006

Copyright: © 2013 Suglo RS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Surface mine production scheduling and sequencing are used to maximize the expected profit and investment returns from mining operations. The pit geometries and expansion rates, and the periodic volume of materials from different benches in a multi-bench, multi-face open pit mine determine the equipment requirements, which impact the maximize just-in-time (JIT) production decisions. The analytical geometric volume calculations require time lags that prevent rapid information for JIT decisions. The introduction of the novel At-Face-Slurry (AFS) oil sands method require fast, accurate and repeatable pit volume estimation using continuous flow process. The first part of this paper shows how partial differential equations (PDEs) and geometric techniques were used in modeling material volume, as well as pit layout changes with circular and elliptical geometries of an oil sands mine. The second part contains the economic analysis on the current mining system (CMS) and the cyclic excavator conveyor belt control system (CycEx CBCS).
A continuous flow process via PDEs was used to model material volume, as well as pit layout changes with
circular and elliptical geometries of an oil sands mine and compared with analytical geometric methods. PDEs were used in the modeling due to the continuous nature of the changes in the volumes of the pits with time. The geometric and PDEs values are similar for the pit configurations. This work represents the first successful attempt at using PDE in geometric calculations for open pit mines. The economic analysis shows that the NPV of the current mining system (CMS) is $3.2×1010 while that for the cyclic excavator conveyor belt control system (CycEx CBCS) is $4.06×1010. The Profitability Index (PI) for the CMS and CycEx CBCS options are 19.37 and 43.37 respectively. The IRR of the CMS option is 29.02% while that of the CycEx CBCS option is 33.37%. The DPBP for the CMS and CycEx CBCS options are 3.24 months and 1.92 months, respectively. The CMS option has an operating cost of $1.386/tonne ($2.774/barrel) while that of the CycEx CBCS option is $0.779/tonne ($1.558/barrel). The requirement for a fast, accurate and repeatable process for generating pit volumes is met by using PDEs.