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A Reliability and Risk Framework to Support Pit Slope Design

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A Reliability and Risk Framework to Support Pit
Slope Design
Ashley Creighton Rio Tinto, Brisbane, Australia
Marc Elmouttie CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia
Maureen Hassall The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Jane Hodgkinson CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia
Oswald Marinoni CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia
Mark Bixley Rio Tinto, Brisbane Australia
Fanie Wessels Oyu Tolgoi Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Abai Juldz Oyu Tolgoi Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Derek Kinakin BGC Engineering Inc., Kamloops, Canada
John Whittall BGC Engineering Inc., Vancouver, Canada
David Wines Itasca Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract
There is considerable uncertainty associated with pit slope design. Traditionally, uncertainty and risk have been
managed via application of Design Acceptance Criteria (DAC) such as Factor of Safety determined from industry
accepted guidance. Often there is little formal consideration or quantification of the uncertainty or reliability of the
design, the reliability of design delivery, design risk and the effectiveness of the controls necessary to manage
these risks. Sub-optimum designs can result in valuable ore being left in the ground and/or slope failures that can
pose a significant risk to mining operations in terms of economic and safety risk with the potential for loss of life.
Clear and effective communication of these factors to senior management and/or regulators can also be
challenging.
This paper provides an overview of research undertaken to develop an alternative approach to achieving a design
that utilizes rigorous engineering-based assessment of risk and reward. This Reliability Based Design Acceptance
Criteria (RBDAC) approach to pit slope design was derived from developing and testing prototype reliability and
risk management methodologies. The assessed design reliability and risk rating are used to assess an appropriate
Design Acceptance Criteria via a RBDAC matrix. The proposed RBDAC approach to open pit slope design
provides an opportunity to capitalise on the latent value, in terms of cash flow and/or NPV through slope
optimisation analyses that involve understanding the residual risk implications.

1 Introduction
Rio Tinto has developed a prototype Reliability Based Design Acceptance Criteria (RBDAC) workflow, which
focusses on qualitatively and quantitatively assessing uncertainty associated with managing complexity in open
pit slope designs. This is achieved by quantifying slope design process reliability, economic and safety risks in a
transparent and defensible way to identify pit slope designs that improve value and safety outcomes. Key steps
involved in the process include:
• Assessing slope design process reliability via a rigorous and novel approach that supports the semi-quantitative
reliability analysis of the slope design process based on Subject Matter Expert (SME) assessments;
• Determining and documenting, in a defensible and transparent manner, the economic and safety risks
associated with different slope design options for a given section of wall in an open pit mine in compliance with
ISO31000 (Purdy, 2010);
• Mapping the reliability and risk outcomes to a matrix such as that proposed by Macciotta et al., 2020 to
determine a target Design Acceptance Criteria. This matrix provides an opportunity to capitalise on and
leverage off a rigorous process of assessment of risk and reward.
This RBDAC approach developed by Rio Tinto to support the assessment of opportunities is not intended to be
adopted as a routine design process. Its proposed application is to support slope design optimisation where
opportunity has been identified. How the RBDAC process fits within the mine design workflow, as determined by
Rio Tinto SMEs, is shown in Figure 1. It certainly does not replace conventional pit slope design approaches or
sound engineering judgement. However, where value has been identified, such as through pit slope steepening,
it provides an additional layer of rigour above and beyond what would be considered as conventional pit slope
design process.

RBDAC Process

Figure 1 Mine Design Workflow with RBDAC

The RBDAC process comprises five key components, illustrated in Figure 2. Each of the components are
described in more detail in the following sections. Pilot application at a Rio Tinto operation confirmed that
considerable, tangible benefits could be realised in its application to capitalise on latent value, in terms of cash
flow and/or net present value (NPV) in open pit slope design and slope design optimisation by leveraging off a
rigorous process of assessment of risk and reward.
 •A rigorous process of system (pit slope design) reliability analysis to assess the reliability of the engineered
Reliability design and capability of implementing the design via expert elicitation from all stakholders in design process
Module

Geotechnical •Stochastic based pit slope design (bench, inter-ramp and overall slope) that includes identifying the critical
Base Case & failure mechanisms and the probabilities of failure for them.
Optimised
Case Design

•A process to establish consequence (economic) of the critical, controlling failure mechanisms

Risk Module
(Economic)

•A process to establish consequence (safety) of the critical, controlling failure mechanisms and the controls
Risk Module required to manage risks to ALARP levels (Note: this will only be deployed for economically viable design)
(Safety)

•Consideration of Design Acceptance Criteria based on the consideration of the quantification and
transparency of slope design reliability and risk.
DAC matrix

Figure 2 Key Pillars of the RBDAC Process

2 Reliability Module
Reliability in the context of this paper is defined as the probability that a component or system will perform to its
specification. The nature of rock mass engineering and slope design necessitates the use of statistical sampling
techniques, quantitative and qualitative data, uncertainty quantification, and expert judgement. Traditionally, open
pit slope design uses formal reliability-based methods to determine the functional relationship of outputs, such as
Factor of Safety and uncertainty in input parameters. This process is typically achieved through analytical
simulation methods, including numerical modeling. Aleatoric uncertainty of input parameters is typically simulated
using probabilistic methods, and the analyses are conducted using stochastic techniques such as Monte Carlo
simulation to determine how the uncertainties propagate through to a distribution of Factor of Safety.
Assessing reliability of both the aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty of input data used in slope design, as well as
the reliability of the processes associated with the slope design process, has long been recognised as a
challenging task as it needs to consider complexities not normally addressed in the process, including:
• Subjectivity of engineering judgement derived from knowledge and experience;
• Assessment of the reliability of the design process itself and sub-processes (such as data acquisition
technologies, sampling biases);
• Assessment of the reliability of implementation of these processes (including capability and expertise); and,
• Qualitative data.

What is RelMod?
The Reliability Module (RelMod) describes the tools (e.g., software, spreadsheets) and supporting procedures
(e.g., expert elicitation, workflows) that support the assessment of reliability of geotechnical slope design and
design implementation processes. RelMod considers reliabilities associated with the data, processes applied to
that data and implementation of those processes.
The approach adopted in RelMod is to integrate the following:
• Slope design reliability assessed via a rigorous and novel approach that supports the semi-quantitative
reliability analysis of the slope design process based on SME assessments determined from all stakeholders
in the design process (geologists, mine planners, geotechnical engineers, hydrogeologists, mine operations);
• Adopting appropriate methodologies, including Systems Reliability Engineering, Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA)
supported by expert elicitation, and Rock Engineering Systems (Hudson J., 1992) to provide a traceable and
auditable approach to expert assessments, derivation and application of weighting schema, and aggregation
of reliability across a hierarchical representation of the slope design process;
• The slope design process, which is represented as a series of design components connected in a hierarchy,
where reliabilities are individually assessed. This assessment is accomplished using indicators, which are
parameters of the design components, for which a reliability score can be attributed by SMEs. These scores
are weighted and aggregated using MCA mathematics.

Slope design reliability hierarchy

Each step in the slope design process (otherwise
referred to herein as a component) is dependent on
the reliability of the sub-ordinate components. The
slope design process can therefore be represented
as a series of slope design components connected
in a hierarchy, whose reliabilities are individually
assessed as shown in Figure 3. Such a design
hierarchy shows the component reliabilities that
need to be considered, when analysing the reliability
of a typical slope design process (note that this
hierarchy can be adjusted to account for project
specific requirements).
By means of scoring of indicators, a reliability
assessment or ‘score’ is determined for each slope
design process (SDP) component and the overall
(hierarchy) reliability, i.e., the reliability of the
proposed slope design. The reliability of the
executable design is also assessed separately and
is the product of an assessment of the reliability of
design implementation (including for example, Figure 3 Slope Design Component Reliability Hierarchy
survey control, limits blasting, type of equipment, Applied at the Pilot Site
experience of operators).
The reliability of an SDP component is determined using a hierarchical tree-like structure with individual sub-
ordinate component scores based on indicator scoring being weighted and aggregated to achieve a reliability
score. The principle of the hierarchical structure, and the terminology used is shown schematically in Figure 4.
Each SDP component has three categories of reliability assigned, and nested as shown in Figure 5. These can
be defined as: 1. Reliability of input data; 2. Reliability of the process being applied to the input data; and 3.
Reliability of the implementation of said process.
Like SDP components, each category has its own intrinsic reliability. The reliability of any component or category
is directly influenced by the reliabilities of its sub-ordinates, consistent with systems reliability theory. Therefore,
as multiple components are combined to create the slope design process, the component reliabilities ‘propagate’
such that the overall reliability at any stage of the slope design process is reduced or ‘eroded’.
Accurately tracking this propagation, offers opportunities for optimising the slope design process and making more
informed slope engineering decisions (improving safety and productivity).
 Figure 4 Schematic of Reliability Hierarchy for the “Geotechnical Model”. For simplicity, only components
connected to the “Geology” component are shown

Process implementation (QA/QC)

Reliability of
Capability to Process Data
implement the
process (e.g. Reliability of the
QA/QC process used to
assessment by utilise data Reliability of the input Data (acquisition and quality)
Peer Review)

Figure 5. Categories of Reliability Assignment to Each Component

This assessment is accomplished through the use of indicators, which are particular parameters of the component,
for which a reliability score (ranging from 1 to 5) can be attributed. Scores are derived from a facilitated workshop
and drawing on expert elicitation. Uncertainty with respect to the scoring is accounted for by assessing
pessimistic/expected and optimistic scores for each indicator. These scores are weighted using MCA mathematics.

Reliability Weighting Schemes

Criteria such as data density, data collection and data management do not equally influence the outcomes of the
MCA results. Two weighting schemes are utilised in the RBDAC process, as summarised in:
• Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), after Saaty (1977) used for independent SDP Components other than the
geotechnical model
• Hudson Rock Engineering System, after Hudson, J. 1992 used for components of the geotechnical model
(geology, rock mass, hydrogeology, structure)
Weighting of each criterion is adopted to express the importance of criteria relative to others in the group. Setting
the weights involves a process of deliberation during which there are trade-offs between criteria - increasing the
importance of one criterion will decrease the relative importance of another.
The process recommended for weighting the majority of the RelMod components is the AHP. The components of
the Geotechnical Model are not independent and therefore not suitable for AHP. The Rock Engineering Systems
(RES) (Hudson 1992) has therefore been adopted for applicability to rock engineering problems.
Hudson’s RES primary use is to identify the most relevant variables based on the interactions between all system
variables. These interactions are quantified in the interaction matrix which, once complete, can be used to infer
weights for each variable involved. An alternate scoring schema as recommended by Hudson is used to determine
the degree of interaction.
The matrix below (Figure 6) shows a schematic example of an interaction matrix between four variables: geology,
structure, rock mass properties and hydrogeology/hydrology. An interaction value of 1 characterises a weak
interaction whereas a value of 4 denotes a strong interaction. The interactions between the variables are assigned
and read in a clockwise manner.

Cause, C

Geology 2 4 4 10

1 Structure 3 3 7

1 2 RMProps 2 5

2 1 4 Hydro 7

Effect, E 4 5 11 9 58

Figure 6 Interaction matrix for the components of the Geotechnical Model

Building the sum of each row and column will capture a variable’s magnitude for Cause and Effect within the
system of consideration. Using a variable’s Cause and Effect scores, the summed total of all causes and effects
can then be used to measure the relative contribution or the relevance a variable has on a system.
In the example above, the variable “geology” has a cause score of 10 and an effect score of 4, which gives 14.
The total of all causes and effects gives 58. Therefore, the relative contribution of geology equates to 14/58 (=0.24)
which can be interpreted as a weight of 24%.

Geotechnical Design Reliability from RelMod

RelMod is implemented as three workflows:
i. Configuration, in which SMEs establish an agreed model of the slope design process (represented as the
hierarchy) the criteria of relevance to the mine, and indicator weightings;
ii. Assessment, where SMEs assess and score the indicators; and
iii. Reporting, in which the reliability assessments are used for decision making.
SMEs engage in a facilitated process to perform the configuration and assessment processes. The independent
facilitator is engaged to assure bias is mitigated using the expertise of the assessors, and to ensure the knowledge
provided is balanced. The roles involved are defined as:
• SMEs – they are trusted to configure RelMod. This includes establishing the reliability hierarchy, criteria and
indicator selections, weightings, and other configurations. This configuration needs to occur at the Product
Group/Business Unit scale, region scale and/or site scale.
• Assessors – any user of RelMod that assesses a reliability of an indicator. They require a user interface to
inspect the criteria and indicators relevant to their work, and the ability to score these indicators based on
reliability.
• Reviewers – these people are trusted to perform implementation or QA/QC assessments (a subset of
Assessors) who may be, for example, experts based at another Rio Tinto site.
• Engineers/Managers – consumers of the reliability assessments
• Facilitator – a person with suitable knowledge and expertise responsible for ensuring the expert elicitation
sessions conform to the design recommendations
Figure 7 shows how these roles interact with the RelMod system and the functional behaviours they perform.
These behaviours are used to decompose the RelMod into these functional workflows:
• A Configuration workflow, which is responsible for gathering necessary scoring data and information to
configure the module (e.g., expert elicitation methods to support criteria and indicator weighting);
• An Assessment workflow responsible for performing the calculations to assess the reliabilities of SDP
components and how these reliabilities propagate (accumulate);
• A Report workflow responsible for communicating information to humans and the rest of the RBDAC System.

Figure 7 The three RelMod workflows – Configuration, Assessment and Reporting.

3 Risk Module (RiskMod) (Economic and Safety)

To develop a leading approach to assessing
slope design risks a number of steps were
undertaken. The first involved a
comprehensive review of literature,
followed by consultations with stakeholders
to derive the risk assessment approach that
complied with ISO31000, the International
Standard for Risk management. The
literature review identified 82 relevant
articles that discussed risk-based slope
design. Most did not cover geotechnical and
economic and safety risks in an integrated
assessment. In addition, an analysis of
these articles showed that there was
significant variation in use of terms and risk
calculation details. A summary of the
integration of leading approaches is shown
in Figure 8.
Over a number of collaborative sessions,
the authors applied and refined the leading
practice information to match the data Figure 8 Summary of leading practice in risk-based slope design
availability and modeling capability of open
pit slope failures. The outcome was the overall integrated and holistic risk management approach called RiskMod
which, as shown in Figure 9, comprises the following key components:
1. Rigorous ”high fidelity” modeling of geotechnical failures in terms of consequences and probability of failures.
2. Consequence analysis using the “What-If” scenario approach to adjust modeled outcomes to incorporate a
broader range of possible outcomes (than just the ones that are modeled).
3a. Assessment of economic risks that transposes geotechnical consequences into mine operational and/or mine
planning responses (e.g.,
changes in ore mined versus
costs of treating failures) then
costs to incorporate in NPV
analysis.
3b. Assessment of safety risks that
incorporates full bowtie
analysis to show and
document selected controls,
and quantitative risk
assessment analysis to
determine probability of
fatalities for comparison
against ALARP.
4. Mapping of assessed risks
against risk tolerability criteria
as set out in a risk matrix, the
DAC matrix, and F-N graphs Figure 9 Overview of the RiskMod Approach
(showing industry acceptance
levels).

3.1 Failure modeling

Three design options (base or existing non-optimised case, single bench optimised case, and double bench
optimised case) were assessed (refer to Table 1Table 1) and a predicted “Fall of Ground” (FoG) failure risk register
developed for the 3D geometry of the pit sector. The two optimised cases were developed from a study that
specifically focussed on optimisation of bench width.
Table 1 Option Slope Design Criteria (SDC)
Bench Face Angle Bench Width Inter Ramp Angle
BASE CASE 75 o 15.2m 38 o – 40 o
SINGLE BATTER 75 o 11m 45 o
DOUBLE BATTER 70 o 15.2m 49 o
The resulting inter-ramp and overall slope geometries were assessed for stability stochastically using FLAC3D
modeling and the Response Surface Method to derive Probability of Failure. The inter-ramp and bench scale
stability was assessed from stochastic realisations of a Discrete Fracture Network using the code, SiroModel. The
failure risk register was developed for each year of mining to show the changing risk profile over the functional life
of the slope. This failure register was used for the economic risk assessment.
In the context of assessing economic risk from slope failure, a failure threshold needs to be defined. Failure is
defined as a volume of rock that prompts a design change. For this pilot, the failure threshold was assessed from
historical Fall of Ground records, as an event greater than 6000m3. Thus, predicted failure volumes in excess of
6000m3 were used to determine economic impacts, and thus economic risk of slope failure.
Failures with volumes less than 6000m3 were incorporated into the failure risk register and used for the safety
impact assessment to determine the annualised frequency of different failure volumes hitting the ramp or pit floor
where people might be present. These decisions were based on recorded historical performance and observation,
that failures less than 6000m3 had no/negligible design impact though needed to capture everything down to
individual rockfalls that can potentially cause serious injuries and fatalities and which usually occur at higher
frequencies than large scale failures greater than 6000m3.
3.2 What-if analysis
A What-if analysis was conducted to review inputs to the safety risk assessment to check whether any adjustments
were required. It was also undertaken to test whether there were other scenarios not considered in the work
completed to date that needed to be incorporated in the safety risk assessment. The What-if analysis involved
Subject Matter Experts, the authors, operations, and mine planning personnel from the site being analysed. The
process involved reviewing the geotechnical failure risk register and asking the following focusing questions:
- What-if failure frequencies and/or volumes are different?
- What-if runout distance and/or pathway are different?
- What-if exposure numbers are different?
The failure register and exposure analysis were updated to reflect any agreed changes. Having a register that
showed year risk profiles of slopes based on their geotechnical hazards delivered informative and transparent
insights into the inherent geotechnical risks associated with slope design options.

3.3 Economic risk analysis

The adverse economic impacts of the predicted slope failures were assessed based on lost or deferred ore and
disruption it would cause to operations, as well as cost of clean up. To perform this assessment, the modeling
work identified the source location, volume, and runout of failure. Mine planning and mine operations personnel
reviewed each failure and assessed how it would be managed from an operation/planning perspective. The
economic impact was then quantified. Management responses that were costed included cleanup and processing
ore, cleaning up and disposing to waste, refurbishing slope, and abandoning area of slope. The positive impacts
of designs were determined by quantifying and valuing any additional ore extracted or any ore that was brought
forward in time. The economic risk analysis was reviewed, and the best value slope design options were then
chosen to be further analysed for safety risk.

3.4 Safety risk analysis

The safety impact analysis was conducted in accordance with the diagram shown in Figure 10. A vulnerability
analysis was performed to identify the annualised
exposure of people and assets to work areas that could
be impacted by failures. This analysis involved
determining the number of personnel that would be on
ramps (e.g., travelling in, out and around the pit) and on
the pit operating level (e.g., performing mining
activities). It also involved developing estimates of the
exposure time associated with the different mining
activities both during normal operations and at peak
times (e.g., shift change). This work was performed by
operations personnel who were familiar with the pit
being studied.
Following on from the failure modeling, what-if analysis
and vulnerability analysis, a bowtie analysis was
conducted via a workshop to identify the controls that
the site would use to manage both large scale and
small-scale failures. The bowtie analysis identified both
prevention and mitigation controls to address abnormal
movement of excavated in-pit mine slopes. Examples of
mitigation controls include excavating slopes to design
that meet target Design Acceptance Criteria, and
depressurisation. Examples of prevention controls
include catch benches and berms and wall monitoring
and pit evacuation system. After the workshop, the
controls discussed were synthesised into the generic
bowtie for abnormal, beyond design, movement of an Figure 10 Overview of RiskMod Safety risk assessment
open pit mine slope. This bowtie was constructed as per ICMM guidelines and endorsed references (Hassall, Joy
et al. 2015, ICMM 2015a, ICMM 2015b) and is illustrated in Creighton et al. 2022.
The data from the failure analysis, vulnerability analysis and bowtie analysis were then used as inputs into a
quantitative risk assessment analysis (performed by BGC, 2020) to determine unmitigated (before controls) and
mitigated (after controls) safety risks using the following formula (Whittall et al., 2022):
𝑓𝑓i = # events𝑖𝑖 𝑥𝑥 𝑃𝑃(𝐻𝐻)𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵 𝑥𝑥 𝑃𝑃(𝑆𝑆|𝐻𝐻)𝑖𝑖 𝑥𝑥 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 𝑥𝑥 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵 𝑥𝑥 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 𝑥𝑥 𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 𝑥𝑥 E𝑖𝑖
where
• 𝑓𝑓= annual frequency of fatality
• # events is the annual frequency of a given volume category failing
• 𝑃𝑃(𝐻𝐻)𝐵𝐵 is the probability that the resulting Fall of Ground (FoG) is extremely rapid (>5 m/s) (i.e. has a runout).
• 𝑃𝑃(𝑆𝑆|𝐻𝐻) is the spatial probability that the rockfall will reach the work location if it occurs;
• 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐴𝐴 is the temporal probability that the worker is in the work location when the FoG occurs,
• 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐵𝐵 is the probability that the FoG is not detected before the FoG reaches their location, and
• 𝑃𝑃(𝑇𝑇|𝑆𝑆)𝐶𝐶 is the proportion of time that the work location is occupied by the element at risk. The mine planning
team provided the estimates and basis for P(T|S)A.
• 𝑉𝑉 is the vulnerability (conditional probability of fatality) if the element at risk is impacted;
• E is the number of people at risk.
In quantifying the safety risk in this way, a
number of assumptions must be made, and
associated limitations noted. The output from
the Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA)
analysis was plotted on F-N curves that also
showed industry accepted tolerance criteria.
The output from the failure analysis was used
to estimate the maximum reasonable
consequence and the output from the QRA
analysis was used to determine annual
likelihoods which was then plotted on the
business risk matrix. The matrix and F-N plot
information was then provided to decision
makers so they could make evidence-based
decisions on slope designs and the suite of
controls required to deliver a safe and
economically valuable slope design as
highlighted in Figure 11 which shows
unmitigated risk and mitigated risks against
ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable)
criteria.
Figure 11 Example of F-N plot showing risk plotted for
different design options and levels of controls
4 Application of DAC matrix
One of the objectives of the RBDAC project is to relate pit slope design reliability to economic risk to derive an
appropriate target DAC for slope design, relative to the risk tolerance of the business. This can be achieved using
a matrix approach however, for reliability-based design, the matrix must:
1. accommodate both Probability of Failure (PoF) and an equivalent mean Factor of Safety (FoS);
2. allow the results of the design reliability and economic risk analyses to be plotted to inform where
mitigation actions are required in order to meet the target design acceptance criteria; and
3. be compatible with risk schemes used by a company.
A number of DAC matrices exist (e.g., Adams, 2015, Hawley and Cunning 2017) however challenges were
experienced when trying to apply them in a transparent and defensible manner to the RBDAC process. A
collaboration between Rio Tinto and the University of Alberta led to separate research work, sponsored by the
Large Open Pit Research Program, to develop a matrix that meets the abovementioned criteria. The matrix that
was developed is based on a defensible approach which relates target PoF and FoS for open pit slope design with
design reliability and economic risk. The result was the Macciotta et al., 2020 proposed slope Design Acceptance
Criteria for inter-ramp and overall open pits slopes (refer to Figure 12).
Thus, the slope failure economic consequence from RiskMod can be plotted on a company risk matrix to determine
the economic consequence category which then can be plotted on the Macciotta et al., (2020) matrix along with
the design reliability determined from RelMod to identify the target slope Design Acceptance Criteria. If the
predicted slope PoF exceeds the target DAC, then an intervention is necessary, otherwise it is accepted and
subjected to the safety risk assessment. An example is presented in Figure 12 where three design options over
a slope design life of 4 years were considered i.e., a base case (comprising a design derived previously), a single
bench case (comprising an optimised bench width) and a double bench case (comprising doubling the height of
the bench interval). In this example the double-bench case was discounted, as the economic risk was
unacceptable. The optimised single bench case was adopted, as further analysis indicated that the high risk in
2021 could be mitigated via implementation of a horizontal drainhole depressurisation program.
This approach leverages significant flexibility where the DAC is an outcome of consideration of the design
confidence or reliability, and the economic consequence of failure, and thus transparency over both risk and
reward.

Figure 12 Derivation of Target Design Acceptance Criteria for Design Options Based on Design Confidence
(Reliability) and Economic Consequence.

5 Discussion and conclusion

The RBDAC approach was pilot tested at an operating mine site with the aim to answer the question:
“What value can be delivered to a mining business by implementing the RBDAC process?”
The pilot testing revealed that the RBDAC process provides a transparent, defensible, and multi-disciplinary
approach to evaluating the risk and reward associated with steepening mine pit slopes. It helps decision makers
understand the significance of value that can be realised by a business where the geotechnical conditions are
conducive to pit slope steepening. It is this broader, shared understanding of the inter-dependencies of the
contributing parts, with the risk and consequence overlay, that is leveraged to realise value. This value is both in
identifying and responding to potential downside risk and in challenging more conservative aspects of slope design
to realise improved cashflows where the design and associated risk control implementation is undertaken to a high
standard, supported by a dedicated and multidisciplinary team.
Specifically, it is valuable for improving understanding of key geotechnical drivers in mine design by providing
transparent and defensible understanding of:
 - The uncertainties that exist and are interconnected, at every stage of the inter-ramp and overall pit slope design
process;
- The significance of potential geotechnical failures that emerge, remain and/or disappear across the life of the
mine for different design options;
- The potential upside economic rewards and downside economic risks associated with different mine options
which, through the collaborative and iterative analysis that involved all stakeholders, resulted in the
identification of additional value;
- The safety risks associated with a slope and the controls needed to manage slope safety risks to ALARP levels;
and, ultimately,
- The flexibility offered by a matrix-based Design Acceptance Criteria approach, with robust consideration of
design reliability and economic consequence of failure in pit slope optimisation.
The process can be applied to targeted areas of pit phases in detail for tactical decision making or applied more
broadly to support overall phase design and economic pit limit definition. In either instance, the approach leads to
an improved understanding of risk and economic consequence simultaneously, and if supported with high
standards in implementation and monitoring, will lead to improved safety and business outcomes.

6 References
Adams, B. (2015). Slope Stability Acceptance Criteria for Opencast Mine Design. 12th Australia New Zealand
Conference on Geomechanics. Wellington, New Zealand, New Zealand Geotechnical Society, 3: 916-923.
BGC Engineering (2020). Oyu Tolgoi LLC: Oyu Tolgoi Open Pit Phase 4B/5A Rockfall Impact Frequency
Assessment. Kamloops, Canada, BGC Engineering.
Creighton, A., Bixley, M., Elmouttie, M, Hassall, M., and Macciotta, M. (2022). A Reliability-Based Design
Acceptance Criteria Approach for Inter-ramp and Overall Open Pit Slopes. Keynote paper Slope Stability
conference 2022 Tucson AZ.
Hassall, M. E., Joy, J., Doran, C., and M. Punch (2015). Selection and optimisation of risk controls (ACARP report
C23007). Australia, ACARP.
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