Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling

Typical mine planning process includes creating a mining block model, applying the ultimate pit limit analysis and creating mining cuts for production scheduling. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) has been used extensively for optimal mine production scheduling of open pit mines. One main obst...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ren, H., Topal, Erkan
Other Authors: Paul Hagan
Format: Journal Article
Published: The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34260
_version_ 1848754174021337088
author Ren, H.
Topal, Erkan
author2 Paul Hagan
author_facet Paul Hagan
Ren, H.
Topal, Erkan
author_sort Ren, H.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Typical mine planning process includes creating a mining block model, applying the ultimate pit limit analysis and creating mining cuts for production scheduling. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) has been used extensively for optimal mine production scheduling of open pit mines. One main obstacle for large scale mine scheduling is the size of the problem. In large scale open pit mines, the number of blocks are too numerous to allow an optimal solution to be developed in a reasonable amount of time frame. However, the problem can be simplified by aggregation of mining blocks to create the mining cuts. The objective of this research is to analyse and validate a clustering algorithm for mining block aggregation. Popular cluster algorithms are reviewed and compared for the effectiveness of clustering for production scheduling purposes. Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) cluster method is used to partition mining benches and it is tested against the efficiency and practicality of mine production scheduling. The block aggregation algorithm is validated with a case study of a copper deposit. The net present value (NPV) of the production schedule which is created by using clustering algorithm is $2.25 M higher than the traditional pushback based production schedule.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T08:36:13Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-34260
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T08:36:13Z
publishDate 2014
publisher The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-342602017-02-28T01:38:49Z Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling Ren, H. Topal, Erkan Paul Hagan Typical mine planning process includes creating a mining block model, applying the ultimate pit limit analysis and creating mining cuts for production scheduling. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) has been used extensively for optimal mine production scheduling of open pit mines. One main obstacle for large scale mine scheduling is the size of the problem. In large scale open pit mines, the number of blocks are too numerous to allow an optimal solution to be developed in a reasonable amount of time frame. However, the problem can be simplified by aggregation of mining blocks to create the mining cuts. The objective of this research is to analyse and validate a clustering algorithm for mining block aggregation. Popular cluster algorithms are reviewed and compared for the effectiveness of clustering for production scheduling purposes. Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) cluster method is used to partition mining benches and it is tested against the efficiency and practicality of mine production scheduling. The block aggregation algorithm is validated with a case study of a copper deposit. The net present value (NPV) of the production schedule which is created by using clustering algorithm is $2.25 M higher than the traditional pushback based production schedule. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34260 The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy restricted
spellingShingle Ren, H.
Topal, Erkan
Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title_full Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title_fullStr Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title_full_unstemmed Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title_short Using Clustering Methods for Open Pit Mine Production Scheduling
title_sort using clustering methods for open pit mine production scheduling
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34260