Inclined Benching with MineSight®

23rd
Annual
Seminar Inclined Benching with MineSight®
By Andy Shoemack, Metech Pty Ltd., March, 2006
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Pit Design
3. Model Data Transfer
4. Ore Control
5. Scheduling
6. Conclusions
Inclined Benching with MineSight®
An overview of the application of MineSight® to inclined benching in open pit mines
supported by Metech Pty Ltd.
1.0 Introduction
What is Inclined Benching and Why do it?
Nearly all open pit mines use horizontal benches because it provides a practical and
workable reference system. There would have to be a very good reason to depart from this,
and the reason is rainfall. In regions with extreme rainfall, mining benches can be designed
to facilitate run off and avoid pit floors becoming quagmires.
The working examples presented here come primarily from the OK Tedi and Lihir
mines in Papua New Guinea (PNG). At OK Tedi, annual rainfall is approximately 10m,
regularly 25mm per day, and at times 50mm per hour, whereas Lihir has 3.7m per year.

OK Tedi Mt Fubilan Pit

Inclines used vary from 0.6% to 2%, and a single bench may consist of a single plane or
a combination of multiple planes. Consequently, the difference in elevation across a single

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bench may be a few metres or up to 30 metres. 23rd

Which mines are using inclined benching? Annual
Metech has installed inclined bench systems at four sites. The first was Boddington in Seminar
SW Australia (currently inactive), followed by OK Tedi in 2003 and Lihir in 2004 (both in
PNG). Most recently Sepon, South Vietnam installed the system in late 2005.

Lihir mine (not raining today)

Theory
An inclined bench system requires the use of both 3-D (fixed bench) and Gridded
Seam (GSM) (variable elevation and thickness) model types in MineSight®. The initial
resource model is a 3-D model and subsequent design and production models will be
in a GSM, with one ‘seam’ representing one mining bench. Programs which ‘stack’ zone
and grade information between surfaces are integral to the process of defining the GSM
model, this being a theme common to other applications where mining does not follow a
rigid bench design.
The section below illustrates a single inclined bench comprised of several 3-D blocks
stacked vertically.

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23rd Inclined bench systems can be relatively simple in theory, but can also be fairly dynamic
(and therefore more complex) in nature when dealing with production issues.
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The different stages of an inclined bench project can be summarized as follows :
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Resource model
Standard 3-D grade model
Pit Optimization
Standard 3-D grade model
Life of mine plan
Phase design
Design of main drainage planes
Pit and phase design on inclined planes
3-D è GSM
3-D and GSM reserves
Ore Control
Blasthole layout (inclined)
Blasthole grade modelling (3-D or GSM)
Production Planning
Update mine planning model (GSM)
Generate reserves and mine plan
Reconciliations
Pit pickups will define the actual inclined bench mined, which can be reconciled
with the planned inclined bench model (GSM) and the 3-D model.
In summary the functionality required to put inclined bench mining into effect is :
• Design inclined mining benches
• Design pits to match the inclined benches
• Design blast patterns to inclined benches
• Transfer data from 3-D to GSM models
• Reconcile mined out volume, tonnes and grade between 3-D and GSM models.
Tools
There are no specific tools in MineSight® for working with inclined bench pits (the Pit
Expansion Tool works only with horizontal planes), however there are sufficient generic
tools to provide a working solution.
• Inclined pit design can be put into effect using the Extrude Tool or by rotating a flat
design.
• Single inclined plane surfaces can be created with the Edit Grid
• Multiple inclined plane surfaces can be created from a Grid Set.
• Multi-plane surfaces can be created by interesting groups of surfaces
• Mining benches are stored as ‘seams’ in a GSM.
• Python and MineSight® Grail are used for custom programming
2.0 Pit Design
Pit design is a combination of defining the inclined planes for each bench and integrating
those planes with phase or final pit designs with ramps and design slopes. The result is a
geometry object in MineSight® that defines the toe and crest on each mining bench.
The Pit Expansion Tool in MineSight® does not work with inclined planes, so the
only option is to use the Extrude Tool for toe to crest slope definition and design
ramps manually.

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Two approaches will be illustrated: a single inclined bench as used at OK Tedi and 23rd
multiple inclined bench as used at Lihir.
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Design of Inclined Mining Benches at OK Tedi
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Below is a conceptual bench design for OK Tedi and the same overlain on the pit pickup.

OK Tedi – intended design

Intended design overlain on pit pickup

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23rd In practice it was decided this would be too difficult to implement and so a simpler, one
inclination model was decided on.
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Resultant design in practice

Resultant design overlain on pit pickup

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Pit Design process at OK Tedi 23rd

For the main pit at OK Tedi, it has been decided to implement a single inclination, which Annual
is a 1% gradient rotated from a fixed northing and fixed elevation. Design work is carried
out on horizontal planes, then rotated and vice versa, pit pickups are rotated in a negative
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fashion to be used as reference for the design work.
The flat working coordinate system has been termed Drainage Relative Elevation, or
DRL as opposed to the true or REAL coordinate system. To help avoid confusion between
the two sets of coordinates, the number 420,000 is subtracted from REAL northings to
convert to DRL northings, so that 421,234.00 becomes 1,234.00.
Transfer scripts have been written in Python, using MineSight® Grail Embedded, to shift
and rotate geometry objects between the two coordinate systems.

Transfer and rotation script panel

Pit Pickup after transfer to DRL coordinates

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Pit Design in DRL coordinates

In the above example, the outside blue line is the toe of the pit pickup and the new
design is top-down inside this. On completion, the final design is transferred back to REAL
coordinates.
In this case, design work is done with the Pit Expansion Tool, so care must be taken
when specifiying slope angles to take into account the rotation to REAL coordinates.
Design of Inclined Mining Benches at Lihir
The inclined bench system at Lihir is more complex with single benches having more
than one inclination.
The surfaces are created from grid sets. In the case of benches that have two orientations
(e.g., slope changes mid-bench), a grid set can be created for both orientations and a
surface can be created by combining grid sets. These surfaces are then clipped against each
other to generate the correct geometry.
Because the coding of the model is done between surfaces, the surfaces must always
extend beyond the extents of the pcf or the model will not code properly.
The intention is to create surfaces as MineSight® geometry objects.
Each phase of mining at Lihir has its own unique grid sets, surfaces, pcf and models.
Bench names no longer refer to the elevation of the bench because the benches have
variable elevation.
In practice
The user should create a new grid set for each phase. The naming convention is in the
format PHSXX-BYYYY-BZZZZ where XX = phase number, YYYY = lowest bench name
(toe) and ZZZZ = highest bench name (toe).
It is important to remember that bench names no longer refer to toe elevation because
the bench will have varying elevations according to the dip of the bench.
An example of a valid gridset name would be PHS07-B0740-B1040 which means the grid
set is for phase 7, and has grids between bench 740 and 1040.

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The grid set should be inclined, therefore ‘non-orthogonal’ with azimuth and dip
defined, the number of grids required and how far apart they are to be spaced in elevation.
Also, the location or hinge point of the grid set in 3-D space must be specified.
In the example above, the grid set was created with an orientation due North (000
degrees), with 2 degrees dip to the West. The origin (bottom left) is at 8750 East, 3000
North and 700m Elevation.
Grid sets must be created larger than the pcf extent, to ensure all model blocks will be
covered by the surfaces.
Below is a grid set with correct names and sorted

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23rd Surfaces are created from the grid set as below

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This process produces a single geometry object with multiple surfaces. In order to
work with the surfaces, each one is required as a single object and a special script is run
for this purpose.
Special case – multiple inclinations
Sometimes more than one inclination is required for a phase, as shown below.
In this case, two surfaces must be created, intersected, cleaned up, and merged, as
shown below.

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The resultant surface is shown below, being merged.

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23rd Special case – variable thickness benches

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In this case, the user must create surfaces from 6m grid sets as if creating 6m surfaces,
then move the relevant portion of 6m surface to the same location as the 12m surface
immediately above it, effectively creating a zero thickness bench.
Pit Design and surface modification
Generic MineSight® tools are used for design and surface modification and in all cases
the result must be a surface. The Extrude Tool is most commonly used, with the Edit Grid
and or plane surface created from grids.

Extrude Tool being used for toe and crest

3.0 Model Data Transfer from 3-D to GSM

Transferring Surfaces into a Model
Once the surfaces have been defined as geometry (dtm) objects they will be used as
references for creation or updating of the mining GSM model.
There are three phases in the design process of benches:
• Long-term
• Short-term
• Ore control
Long-term planning engineers will do the first design, followed by short-term adjusting
to weekly and monthly requirements, and finally by ore control personnel who will have
the ability to adjust each individual blast.
At Lihir, the ore control model is used as the ‘control’ model for bench surface definition.
Surfaces are loaded into the ZBOT of the respective level of the GSM for the phase and it is
assumed that the top of a bench is the bottom of the bench above.

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Model Transfer Processes 23rd

Each level in a GSM has a variable top and bottom, whereas a 3-D model block has a Annual
fixed top and bottom. Both block models will preferably have the same column and row
definitions, so that the block rationalization is only in the vertical sense. Transferring from
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3-D to GSM is a relatively straightforward process involving calculation of the amount of
each 3-D block in each GSM level and summing.
There would not normally be a requirement to take a GSM model and load the
information back to a 3-D model. However, for reconciliation purposes, there is a
requirement to take a mined out volume, between pit pickups, and report the tonnes and
grade from both the GSM and 3-D model. Standard reserve reporting programs can be
used for this.
Lihir Model Transfer
At Lihir, each phase (there are currently 10) has a different set of inclined benches. It was
decided that the best way to manage this was to have a GSM model for each. Because the
number of benches and their names would require the ability to change, it was therefore
only practical for each model to have it’s own PCF.
The Lihir exploration model is 20x20x6m and the ore control model is 5x5x6m.
In the procedure below, the user defines the exploration model, ore control model, and
the benches to be updated.

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23rd Below is the selection panel for grade calculation:

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The items in this case are extracted from the model and the user has to select what
type of calculation to apply when transferring into the inclined block model. The options
are Ignore (it is not calculated), MWAvg which is a mass weight average, Accumulate,
Majority for integer items, and SG. Only select one block sg item.
The 3-D model in this case, is uniform conditioned and therefore contains multiple
parcels at different cut-offs with the added complexity of a trend distribution to be applied
to the 5x5 blocks from the 20x20 blocks. Splitting these blocks at random elevations creates
its own mathematical intricacies.

3-D model section

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Same section with GSM overlaid

4.0 Blast Pattern Layout

The Blast Pattern Editor has the ability to project design collars and toes onto surfaces
(defined as geometry) and can therefore handle either flat or inclined designs easily.
Ore control models at both OK Tedi and Lihir are GSMs and each blast must have its
geometry floor merged with the plan to produce a final surface.

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Individual Blasts

5.0 Short-term Planning

The mine planning models will be GSMs with design surfaces. In a typical daily or
weekly planning routine, the first operation is to update the planning model from the ore
control model. The update procedure will take the 3-D blocks that have been drilled and
interpolated, summarize the information between mining surfaces, and write the resultant
information into the planning model.
Benches in the GSM will usually be referenced by names rather than an elevation, as
shown below in the OK Tedi update panel.

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GSM Planning model view – OK Tedi

When using MineSight® Interactive Planner (IP) with a GSM, behaviour is
essentially the same as with 3-D except that the model view must be open on the
bench that is being scheduled. Changing the plane in MineSight® will not change the
active bench, only changing the range tab on the model view editor will change the
bench for IP Tool cut creation.

MineSight® IP with
the GSM – OK Tedi

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Multiple model views at Lihir – one per pushback

Each pushback has a material set

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Typical end of period shell with cuts as solids

Long-term Planning
MineSight® Strategic Planner (SP) is a non-graphical scheduler that works with reserve
files. Although designed for use with 3-D models, it is possible to produce reserve files
from GSMs that look like 3-D reserves, and this is what Metech has recently done at Lihir.
The user needs to be more aware than usual of the limits and spatial relationships between
mining benches.
Conclusions
Advantages
Drainage controlled
Superior operating conditions – therefore higher production, lower costs etc.
Disadvantages
Operational technical complexity increased – all work done by surveyors, geologists and
mining engineers has another level of difficulty. The load on MineSight® support services
also increases.
With current high mobility of mining professionals in the industry, retaining the specific
site knowledge necessary to run more complex processes is difficult and therefore a
drawback to implementation. This is especially difficult in developing countries.
In Practice
The challenge for Metech and the site personnel has been to design and implement
systems that are simple to understand and that will work error free on a day-to-day basis,
which is why Metech encourages the more simple approach.

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23rd The Future for Inclined Benching

Annual There is a consistent demand for this mining method from parts of the world with high
rainfall. Many sites have expressed interest in the method but have not implemented it
Seminar because of concerns over the operational complexities.
MineSight® technology can be improved with the addition of inclined plane ability to
the Pit Expansion Tool.
MineSight® implementers are gaining more experience with the method and with the
ongoing improvements in MineSight® Grail will be able to simplifying operation of these
systems.
Educating users is a vital part of the process that will also improve as systems become
easier to operate.
It seems logical that as MineSight® advances technically then the more difficult processes
such as inclined benching will be easier to implement and therefore used more widely in
the industry.

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