Method of and system for rationalizing the operation of open-pit mines

• US 3,979,731 A
• Filed: 02/11/1975
• Issued: 09/07/1976
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/1970
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Institute PO Technicheska Kibernetica I Robotika
• Original Assignee: Institute PO Technicheska Kibernetica I Robotika
• Inventors: Naplatanov, Nicolay Delchev, Nicolov, Zdravko Alexandrov, Ganchev, Alexander Ivanov, Petrov, Peter Anguelov, Trendafilov, Stefan Petrov, Sgurov, Vasil Stoyanov
• Primary Examiner(s): Springborn, Harvey E.
• Application Number:
  US05/549,103
• Time in Patent Office: 574 Days
• Field of Search: 340/172.5, 340/22-24, 340/31, 340/38, 340/47-50, 445/1
• US Class Current: 701/118
• CPC Class Codes: E21C 41/26 Methods of surface mining machines for obtaining, or the removal of, materials in open-pit mines E21C47/00; Layouts therefor

Abstract

In an open-pit mine with several excavation sites and a fleet of trucks carrying ore from loading stations near these sites to a number of unloading stations, data concerning production schedules are manually fed into a programmer together with information on the yield of each loading station as determined by local ore analyzers, on the identity and location of vehicles as ascertained by roadside monitoring units, and on the loading and unloading rates as detected by sensing elements at the various stations. The programmer classifies the several loading stations in two groups, i.e. one group with a below-average content and another group with an above-average content of valuable material (ore) in the excavated mass, and determines the number of vehicles to be routed to the stations of either group on the basis of the ratios of unloaded ore and overburden to their respective production quotas, taking into account the number of vehicles waiting at the loading stations and the travel times of available vehicles to their assigned stations as displayed by a traffic simulator. Routing instructions are supplied to the drivers of empty vehicles by address boards located on the approaches to road junctions giving access to the various loading stations.

Claims

1. A method of rationalizing the operation of an open-pit mine with a plurality of loading stations adjacent respective excavation sites and at least one unloading station at a processing site served by a fleet of vehicles for the transport of excavated material from said loading stations to said unloading station, the excavated material containing high-value and low-value constituents in varying proportions, comprising the steps of

a. establishing production quotas for high-value and low-value constituents to be processed during a predetermined operating period;

b. measuring during said operating period, at each excavation site, the relative proportions of high-value and low-value constituents in the excavated material;

c. classifying said loading stations in a high-yield group and a low-yield group on the basis of the measurements carried out in step (b);

d. continuously calculating during said operating period a first and a second ratio representing the amounts of produced high-value and low-value constituents in proportion to their respective production quotas as established in step (a);

e. comparing said first and second ratios with each other; and

f. routing available vehicles to said loading stations on the basis of the comparison made in step (e), with preference given to the high-yield group upon said second ratio exceeding said first ratio and to the low-yield group upon said first ratio exceeding said second ratio.

2. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein, with a plurality of processing sites and associated unloading stations, step (d) is performed individually for each unloading station and vehicles are routed thereto from loading stations selected in accordance with step (f).

3. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein step (f) includes a determination of the number of vehicles waiting at each loading station of the preferred group and the routing of additional vehicles to a loading station thereof having less than a predetermined maximum number of vehicles waiting to be loaded.

4. A method as defined in claim 3 wherein the number of waiting vehicles at all loading stations is determined simultaneously with the aid of a traffic simulator.

5. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein step (f) includes visually communicating routing instructions to the drivers of empty vehicles at approaches to road junctions giving access to several of said loading stations.

6. A system for rationalizing the operation of an open-pit mine with a plurality of loading stations adjacent respective excavation sites and at least one unloading station at a processing site served by a fleet of vehicles for the transport of excavated material from said loading stations to said unloading station, the excavated material containing high-value and low-value constituents in varying proportions, comprising:

analyzers at said excavation sites for measuring the proportion of high-value and low-value constituents in the excavated material;

monitoring units on the approaches of said stations responsive to the proximity of a vehicle, said monitoring units being provided with transmitting means for sending out vehicle-identifying codes;

programmed means communicating with said monitoring units for receiving said vehicle-identifying codes together with information on the outputs of said analyzers and data on the arrival rates of high-value and low-value constituents at said unloading station, said programmed means including an arithmetic unit for continuously calculating from said data a first and a second ratio representing the proportions of produced high-value and low-value constituents to respective production quotas therefore, comparing said ratios with each other, comparing the analyzer outputs with a predetermined mean value for classifying said loading stations in a high-yield group and a low-yield group, and generating routing instructions for empty vehicles giving preference to said high-yield group upon said second ratio exceeding said first ratio and to said low-yield group upon said first ratio exceeding said second ratio; and

traffic-directing means controlled by said programmed means for supplying said routing instructions to the drivers of empty vehicles, said programmed means including a memory for the storage of origin and destination of each vehicle derived from the received vehicle-identifying codes.

7. A system as defined in claim 6 wherein said traffic-directing means comprises a plurality of address boards positioned on the approaches of road junctions giving access to several of said loading stations.

8. A system as defined in claim 7 wherein said monitoring units include a pair of sensors upstream and downstream of each address board.

9. A system as defined in claim 6, further comprising traffic-simulation means controlled by said programmed means for visually indicating the movement of vehicles routed toward respective loading stations.

10. A system as defined in claim 6 wherein a plurality of processing sites are served by respective unloading stations, further comprising sensing means at each loading and unloading station for signaling the operations thereof to said programmed means.