1. Introduction This tutorial is designed to introduce users to the Surpac Underground Design module. It is constructed as a self-learning document and will take readers through the process of creating a relatively simple conventional underground mine development layout. The second part of the tutorial shows the user how to use the Reporting functionality in Underground Design to analyse and interpret the results of the development schedule created in MineSched. Datasets are provided for the entire process so, if the reader does not have a copy of MineSched to run, they can simply use the dataset provided.
Tutorial for Surpac Advanced Underground Design V1.3 Index Introduction 2 Underground Design Concepts 3 Conventional Underground Design 4 3.1 Overview 3.2 Getting started 3.3 What is needed 3.4 Step by step illustration Reporting 38 4.1 Overview 38 4.2 What is needed 38 4.3 Step by step illustration 38 Introduction This tutorial is designed to introduce users to the Surpac Underground Design module It is constructed as a self-learning document and will take readers through the process of creating a relatively simple conventional underground mine development layout The second part of the tutorial shows the user how to use the Reporting functionality in Underground Design to analyse and interpret the results of the development schedule created in MineSched Datasets are provided for the entire process so, if the reader does not have a copy of MineSched to run, they can simply use the dataset provided Requirements Prior to proceeding with this tutorial, you will need: Surpac 6.0 or greater installed The data set accompanying this tutorial (This is part of the underground design standard installation) Objectives The objective of this tutorial is to introduce you to the Underground Design module in Surpac through a simple conventional development design exercise Underground Design Concepts Overview To create an underground mine design using Surpac requires an understanding of underground mining terminology and concepts This section will cover some terms used in this manual and some basic concepts of underground mine design Requirements Prior to performing the exercises in this chapter, some experience in underground mine design is helpful, but not required To create a practical/ optimum mine design and schedule in any software, extensive experience is required as inputs to the design process and throughout the design process, either by the user and/or by management, control personnel and the project team Mine Planning Software must enable mine planning personnel and cannot replace them Terminology Centreline – a line which represents the centre of a drive The centreline can be used to create solid models, or outlines for plan view plots Note that wall period polygons created in Minesched is created using the height and width or string profile specified in the profile definition Drive – a tunnel excavation, also known as a drift which is usually on strike or over the length of the ore body from where access can be established to the ore body Crosscut – Usually refers to the development required to access the ore body from a drive or other regional access development Stope – a 3-dimensional excavation (usually ore) which is to be mined or caved, depending on the planning scenario Stopes in reef and tabular type mining methods are usually relatively consistent in the height of the mining cut or excavation over large areas A single stope where a single mining crew works, can also be referred to as a panel Travelling way – For men access and could sometimes be used for material or ore handling if men movement can be isolated effectively Underground Mine Design Concepts in Surpac There are many different scenarios where underground mine designs are to be created In this tutorial, we will use: 3D dtm models of the ore body reference contacts A decline access point representing the location on the surface which is an entrance to the underground mine The data for the above is created in Surpac and then referenced and utilised in the Underground Design module Summary You should now be familiar with the concepts and terms used for the underground design process in Surpac Please review this chapter or consult the Online Reference Manual if you are unclear about the definitions used in this section The next section demonstrates the steps involved in creating an underground design Conventional Underground Design 3.1 Overview This is a basic example of a conventional breast mining method that is used in relatively flat tabular type ore bodies Flat ore bodies are usually at zero to 20 degrees dip although this definition could vary worldwide The mining height on these tabular ore bodies vary from a minimum planned height of 0.8m to about 6.5m maximum per cut Extra low profile, low profile, semi mechanised and conventional mining equipment must be selected in conjunction with the ore body geometry and constraints More than one cut can be taken when secondary mining of the floor or roof is done This is done if the total height falls outside the safe operational constraints of the selected mining equipment or mining environment The logic of the design will be outlined in the design chart itself Note that Underground Design can be used for any underground ore body and has already been successfully applied to: Narrow reef / seam conventional mining Narrow reef / seam mechanised mining Conventional long hole open stoping Mechanised retreat long hole open stoping Cut and fill operations Sub level caving Block caving Whilst we will be building up the design in this tutorial, you can view the finished design in the „undergrounddesign_demo\conventional‟ directory 3.2 Getting started To begin using Underground Design, you will need to start Surpac and then select the “advanced underground design” profile Once you have selected this profile, you will need to click on the “Underground Design” button (circled below) to activate the module, which will appear as an autohide slide bar docked onto the right hand side of the screen There are two slide-out panels that make up the content of the Underground Design module and both are used in conjunction with each other The Property Pane is used to display the characteristics of the highlighted item in either of the two panels Solution Explorer Design Flow Chart Properties Window 3.3 What is needed The minimum data needed includes a valid surface file (.DTM ) of the ore body dipping typically from to approximately 25 degrees Drives to gain ore body access on strike for this mining method are required In this case these drives are on waste and 20m below reef with a vertical interval of 50m A minimum of drives are needed to enable the connect function that we are using to create raises from one level to the next This data is found in the „undergrounddesign_demo\conventional‟ folder of the demo data directory 3.4 Step by step illustration Once Surpac and Underground Design are running for the first time, no solutions are available to open Create a new solution by clicking on the first icon that says „New Solution‟ We will call the new Solution „Demo1‟ Once the solution is displayed in the progress map, right-click on the solution and choose to add a project from the context menu This will activate the „New Project‟ form Enter the name of the project and the browse for the working directory by clicking on the browse button That will open the „Browse For Folder‟ form By clicking on the „OK‟ button, the progress map is populated with a project node containing „Profile Definitions‟, „References‟, „Design Charts‟ and „Dataset‟ nodes Before the design logic can be established, we first need to define the structure that we are going to use to allow for an effective naming system Naming conventions are very important for use in Minesched to allow for easy and practical resource allocations Furthermore good naming conventions enable the user to extract usable and well structured information from these schedules The naming convention could include various text and number fields to distinguish development in certain areas and even development within sub-areas, Open the drives in Surpac graphics and click on the button on the main toolbar of Underground Design above the progress bar to graphically assign the name of the segments currently in graphics In this case we only have drives, so we enter the word „drives‟, press apply and then graphically select all the drives Since this would be the first element in our design flow chart, it is important that we define which segments the design would be based on Note that the point markers of the segments you selected are displayed as you select them Then press escape to exit out of the segment selection The next step is to identify the areas, or in this case the different levels Click on the button to graphically assign the levels one at a time In the picture to follow, I entered level 1, and therefore I will only click on level in graphics Once all the levels are defined, we can now report them separately after the schedule has been created and we can connect design elements between the format and data in rows Note the column headers appearing in row and Our first step is to identify the column names and numbers and whether they contain the information of the heading name We specify the CSV column names by clicking on the CSV Columns property browse button that will open the Collection Editor form This form allows us to add and remove the CSV Columns‟ details Click on the „Add‟ button to add the first column (This will be the Period Number) Note that the column number is and the „Heading Name‟ property is set to false The second column is the Start Date This is field is not compulsory and will not be used again for this exercise Then the End Date This is field is not compulsory and will not be used again for this exercise Then the Heading Name Note that the „Heading Name‟ property is set to „True‟ It is important to specify the heading names because filters and formulas would be applied to heading names Now add the rest of the columns and make sure that the „Heading Name‟ property of all of the columns is set to false, except for the „Heading Name‟ column The „First row number of data‟ property refers to the actual row number that contains the first design element or data record In this example, the actual data only starts at row number 14 The report file (CSV file) refers to the CSV report file generated in MineSched Browse for the minesched_bm_period_detailed.csv file in the demo_data\undergrounddesign_demo\ReportingPr oject\ dir The „Design File‟ property refers to the string file that was used to schedule and create the report file in Minesched This file is used to retrieve the height and width of the individual development types from the standard d3 and d4 description fields This file is optional, but if it is left blank, the height and width of the development types would have to be added manually The next step is to identify the various development types created in this demo dataset Click on the browse button of the „Development Types‟ property of the dataset That would open a Collection Editor form that allows you to add, remove and edit development types Click on „Add‟ to add the development type to the tree view on the left The first Development Type is a „Draw Access‟ The properties on the right include: Filter This is a string containing wild card characters (* only) and other alpha-numeric characters to identify all the headings in the CSV file that qualify as this development type To see a list of all the development types in the CSV file that qualify as this development type, click on the „Test Filter‟ button A filter of *draw_access* would include the following headings Height and Width This is a constant value that refers to the height of this development type This value can be entered manually, or retrieved from the design or schedule file by clicking on the „H and W‟ Name The name of the development type, e.g „Draw Access‟ Here are the properties of the second development type (Crusher Chamber) Add the development types as they are listed on the left Make sure that all the development types return at least one value If no rows are found, change the filter until the correct match is found It is important to know your naming convention and how you want your data grouped in the report Also note that the Height and Width properties should not be for any development type If it cannot be retrieved from the str file, add these manually Once all the development types are added, the assumptions can be added by clicking on the „Assumptions‟ property of the dataset and then click on the browse button These are constant values that can be used in a formula to calculate additional column values that will be added in the next step and are included in the final results as a list to ensure audit ability A typical example of one would be dilution, over break, under break, geological losses, block model adjustment factors, mine call factors etc These assumptions are added by clicking on the „Add‟ button Our first assumption is the Mining Loss Note that these values are numeric values Care must be taken in the formula definition to interpret assumptions correctly It is not recommended to use percentage values but fractions (20% would be entered as 0.2) Our next assumption is SG (Density) Then add the Dilution (Fraction or meter units) Over break (Fraction or meter units) Press the „OK‟ button to return to the dataset properties Next we specify the groups of columns that we are going to add to the report These are the user Groups and Columns to be added to the new report that will be generated By clicking on the browse button of the „Groups‟ property the Collection editor form will appear In this exercise we will add groups Add groups by clicking on the „Add‟ button and name the groups „Dilution‟, „Geoloss‟, „Mining Loss‟, „Waste‟, „ROM‟ and „Ore‟ respectively Under each group we will add columns (Volume, Tons and Content) Do this by clicking on the Columns node or on one of the columns under the group that you would like to add the column to and press „Add‟ Each Report Column has properties displayed in the property grid Content is usually metal or mineral content in a weight unit First we change the name of the first column to „Volume‟ and then change the colour It is advised that you keep the colours the same for every column in the same group The reason is for easy recognition in the output file in Excel format The reason why dilution, geological loss and mining loss have been defined in this example is to keep the formulas simple and to effectively isolate each of these elements The Run of Mine (ROM) volumes, tons and content would then just be the reef/ore minus geological loss plus dilutions Therefore the dilution formulas would determine the tons and content generated as dilutions only and the geological losses would be tons and content lost as geological losses By adding the columns of Volume, Tons and Content to each group, formulas are kept simple and final ROM and Waste groups have simple adding and subtracting functions Note that all the development types are automatically added below the column This ensures that every development type can have a unique formula for every Group – Column combination Now add the columns (Volume, Tons and Content) to all of the Groups Now we are ready to add the formulas for every development type under every column To add the formula for the Dilution Volume for the Draw Access, Click on the node in the tree view and then browse for the formula editor in the formula property The formula editor form displays the current column and development type on the top and has windows The top windows are all the elements available to the user to use in the formula in the formula text box The user can drag these elements (or double-click) into the formula text box at the bottom of the form to form a formula to calculate in this case the Dilution Volume for the Draw Access The formula is: {DevType : Width} * {DevType : Height} * {MineSchedReportColumns : HeadingLength} * {Assumption : Dilution} Use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Dilution (just for this example defined as off reef), leave these formulas blank The next column is the Dilution Tons Click on the Draw Access Development Type under the Dilution Tons in the tree view and then on the formula browse button to display the formula editor Note that the column previously added (Dilution Volume) can now be used in the formula In this case the Dilution tons of the Draw Access is: {Dilution : Volume} * {Assumption : SG} If densities were available in the geological model and were reported in Minesched, the densities would have been one of the Minesched pre-defined columns and would have been read from the fourth column in the formula editor Use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Dilution (just for this example defined as off reef), leave these formulas blank The next column is the Dilution Content Click on the Draw Access Development Type under the Dilution Content in the tree view and then on the formula browse button to display the formula editor Note that the column previously added (Dilution Tons) can now be used in the formula In this case the Dilution Content of the Draw Access is: {Dilution : Tons} * {Assumption : DilutionGT} Use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Dilution (just for this example), leave these formulas blank Now we will calculate the Geoloss Volume Click on the Geoloss Volume tree node and browse for the formula editor Drag the nodes into the formula text box to create the following formula: {MineSchedReportColumns : HeadingVolume} * {Assumption : MiningLoss} Also use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Geoloss (Off-reef), leave these formulas blank Now we will calculate the Geoloss Tons Click on the Geoloss Tons tree node and browse for the formula editor Drag the nodes into the formula text box to create the following formula: {Geoloss : Volume} * {Assumption : SG} Also use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Geoloss (Off-reef), leave these formulas blank Now we will calculate the Geoloss Content Click on the Geoloss Content tree node and browse for the formula editor Drag the nodes into the formula text box to create the following formula: {Geoloss : Tons} * {MineSchedReportColumns : AuModifiedAve} Also use the above formula for the Reef Drive as well as the Drawpoint Reef As the rest of the Development Types under this column has no Geoloss (Off-reef), leave these formulas blank The final formula set up is for Waste and Ore Groups For each of the development types, the formula for Ore would be for ore only, which would be the development height in ore and the width and Minesched lengths for volume, times density for tonnes and times grade for content The final set up is for ROM which would be merely: (ore – geolosses – mining losses + dilution) for volume, tons and content To check the output of the report, click on the reporting toolbar button to generate the report Sheets are created in the Excel output file The first sheet is the Assumptions as specified above the progress map The second Sheet is identical to the MineSched report as an unchanged input And the third sheet contains the newly generated report Note that the added columns (Coloured) on the right and the formula displayed in this case for the Dilution Volume for the Draw Access development type Your dataset is not set up and can be used over and over again when running scenarios on your schedule Results are now created in detail with the push of a button using exactly the same formulas and assumptions This makes auditable and repeatable reporting possible This tool can be applied as a mine wide or companywide reporting template to ensure all operations/ mines/ shafts are using the same, accepted estimation practices It is important to recognise that the formulas used in this example are only for illustration of the principle The formulas for the user‟s commodity and mining method must be well thought through and should not be new to the planning process on the mine Estimation practices should be accepted and signed off by the mine competent person or MRM manager [...]... the logic of our design Add a design Chart by right-clicking on the Design Charts node in the progress map When a design chart is selected or added, the Design Chart window pops out on the left Click on the Auto Hide icon to keep the Design Chart visible Note that the name of the design Chart can be changed in the Property Grid Now to add the top level node to our chart, ie where our design is going... would cause the element to designed at the „Bearing Degrees‟ angle relative to the element it is designed on Executing the design chart should have the design look like below: The raise is a connection from the end of the stepover on the one level to the end of the stepover on the level above Start by adding a profile for the raise Note that profiles can be re-used for different design elements The only... file) has been selected from the drop-down Now execute the design chart by clicking on the „Execute‟ button on the main toolbar The picture below represents the solids of the design and the triangles is that of the DTM: Now execute the design chart by clicking on the „Execute‟ button on the main toolbar In the picture below I created solids of the design and the triangles is that of the DTM: Next we add... each heading of the design to be created On the left is the available elements and the right is the elements to be used Move these left and right and up and down to get the desired order The naming Convention in this case will be „Text1_LevelNumber_BlockNumb er_DesignElementName‟ Any naming convention is possible and it is advised that the naming convention currently being used on the mine be used when... operations were done in graphics Going back to the progress Map in Underground Design, click on the name of the project It will be the node just above the „Profile Definitions‟ This will then display the Project Properties below the Progress Map in the Properties window: The properties include the Default Naming Convention Collection, The Input String Design, The Name, The Naming Delimiter and the Working Directory... convention that we specified The next element to be drawn will be a travelling way that will be design from the end of the xcut at a dip of 45 deg until it intersects the reef Now in order for Underground Design to reference the correct DTM file, we have to add the DTM file as a reference Do this by right-clicking on the References node in the progress map and choose „Add Reference‟ from the context... „Add Profile Definition‟ from the context menu In this case the height and width of the travelling way is 3m x 3m Now the travelling way node can be added to the design chart, by clicking on the „Draw Line Node‟ toolbar button above the design chart and dragging it onto the xcut node Note that the line node is square and has slightly different properties than that of the curve node Because we are... er_DesignElementName‟ Any naming convention is possible and it is advised that the naming convention currently being used on the mine be used when doing strategic designs This facilitates reconciliation with existing shorter term mining plans The Input String Design is the str file with the drives Browse for this file by clicking on the browse button in the property grid Now we can add the profile for the drives... assigning a Minesched priority of 2 to all of the xcuts and the profile of the xcuts we added earlier These crosscuts are then created as shown below The output file is similar to the input file with an added „_‟ to the end of the filename Note the naming convention displayed here is in line with the convention that we specified The next element to be drawn will be a travelling way that will be design. .. for the raise Note that profiles can be re-used for different design elements The only values used here in the actual design is the string number, the height (d4) and the width (d3), so all elements with the same dimensions can use the same profile Drag the „Connect Line Node‟ from the Design Chart Toolbar (as indicated) onto the stepover to create the node A connect line node has 2 lines on either side