RR Bench Preconditioning

Bench Preconditioning Setup step allows users to set different conditions for a bench preparation, such as remove shallow dirt and send material down or up to be mined with the next/previous bench.

Do not use Bench Preconditioning to “Send Down” material that was left behind on the bench. Remove this material instead to ensure the plan is clearly communicated to production personnel.

Bench area above (blue) and below (brown) the thickness threshold value

Draw a polygon around the shallow dirt to assign shallow dirt to be removed

To update bench preconditioning:

Scroll through the level tree to find the latest dig faces.
- Benches with existing polygons are formatted in bold green.
- Benches with high estimated contour have a high value in the EstCon column.
Draw (or extend) polygons to encompass shallow floors or batter trims.
Right-click on the selected polygon and select one of four options available:
- Do nothing (<CTRL> + W): don’t do any operations within a polygon selected.
- Remove: (<CTRL> + R): remove shallow dirt from selected by the polygon area of a bench.
- Send Up (<CTRL> + Q): to send material up, if an area is to be mined with the bench above.
- Send Down (<CTRL> + E): to send material down, if an area is to be mined with bench below.

The default setting is “Send Down”, to update click on the polygon and go to the Properties panel beneath the viewport and click the drop-down arrow as shown below.

The Remove column allows entire benches to be removed by checking here.

The estimated contour (EstCon) value for each bench is calculated using the “Contour Height field” in Setup > Phase Details.

Add Contours Function

The last toolbar icon is the Add Contours function which generates a contour polyline using the value entered in the “Contour Height” field in the Setup > Phase Details step.

The resultant contour is calculated from the floor of the bench and the area inside the polyline exceeds the Contour Height value entered.