Efficient Final Pit Design Without Optimal Pit Shells

Today, we’ll look at how to create a final pit design in cases where you don’t have an optimal Pit Shell. This approach can be used for both final pit contours and separate design tasks, such as Pushbacks. The key here is to have a block model or geological plans that include cross-sections of the mineral deposit.

Let’s start by creating a contour that best describes the mineral deposit at the desired elevation. The simplest way to do this is by tracing it with a polyline. We’ll repeat this process for all ore bodies and at all horizons of interest. Once we’ve created the necessary number of contours—and by the way, there’s no limit to the number—they can all be added to the design process by activating the Dynamic Design plugin.

Next, we need to assign each of the drawn contours to the specific elevation it was created from. In our case, these two contours are on the same elevation and can be assigned with a single click. We’ll ensure the correct topographic surface is applied, as we’ll need it shortly. Now we can create the pit design, though without roads just yet—that’s our next step.

Moving to the roads tab, we select the starting point for the road. Since the pit in this case is designed from the bottom up, the starting point should be at the lowest part of the pit. You can choose any point and see where the ramp system ends relative to the pit or the topographic surface. Adjust the starting point and experiment to achieve the optimal result. The road settings are highly flexible and controllable, making it easy to connect multiple roads.

When two or more roads intersect, you’ll need to decide what’s required: add switchbacks, stop one or both roads, or take another action. Here, the engineer makes the decision. Let’s explore a few solutions in different areas. We’ll add two switchbacks. If they’re positioned too close to each other, no problem—we can adjust the road’s starting point. Alternatively, we can stop one road and connect it to the switchback. Connections can be made automatically if the transport berm width is maintained.

In this way, we can connect the end of one road to the switchback of another, or even work with combinations of two switchbacks, two completed roads, or a mix of both.

Let’s add a third road from another switchback. All of them seamlessly integrate into the final pit contour. Deciding where to exit, where to add additional switchback, horizontal segments, etc., depends on the experience of the mining engineer. Our job is to simplify and speed up their work.

For a clear visualization, we can view the wireframe that will be created based on our design. This is a visualization element without physically creating or placing it in the layer editor. Similarly, we can display all the lines that our project relies on. Of course, we can also construct the project itself, with or without considering topography. Different results serve different needs.

When we apply topography, it enables the display and creation of intersection lines and the resulting wireframe, which is the ultimate goal of this work. The project wireframe and the design lines automatically adjust to fit the topography.

We create and display the resulting wireframe and design lines, enjoying the results while reflecting on how much time this would have taken with manual construction…