HI. Quick Start Tutorial

Haul Infinity allows you to design haul routes in 3D using intuitive CAD tools. View and edit your network in the 3D viewport and customize all of the critical settings which affect haulage calculations. Make extensive changes and rerun immediately so you can export to your mine scheduling software of choice.

Open

Haul Infinity Network tab overview

Haul Infinity is organized into two tabs:

1. Setup tab - contains an ordered task list to prepare the project.

2. Network tab - contains 3D workspace for analyzing the transport network and its elements.

Brief description of these tabs see below and detailed information is available by clicking on the links provided.

The exercises in this chapter are for familiarization purposes and are deliberately light on detail. More in-depth discussion follows in the next sections.

Unless otherwise noted, each exercise follows from the preceding exercise.

Haul Infinity calculates mine haulage from first principles using the truck specifications, loading parameters and pathfinding across a road network. 

Accessing Haul Infinity

Haul Infinity is launched from the Alastri Hub, which manages all Alastri licenses and applications on your computer. 

• To install the Hub, see Installation and Setup.

• To run the Hub, double click the shortcut icon on your desktop, or search for "Alastri Hub" via the Start menu. 

Open

Alastri Hub - license manager and app launcher

Once in the Hub,

1. Click the Haul Infinity option.

2. Select the latest version.

3. Click START to launch the software.

Once in Haul Infinity, click File > New to open a new project.

Setup

Haul Infinity has a series of setup steps that must be followed to create a valid project.

These steps are listed below. Read through them in the section below or navigate to the HI. Setup tab page to get full information.

Note, that you can't open Network tab until all the setup steps are completed.

1. Settings step

2. Trucks Models step

3. Trucks Limits step

4. Materials step

5. Loaders step

6. Parameters step

7. Operating Conditions step

Settings

The first step in creating a project is to review the project settings.

Units

Select the units of measurement which match your site coordinate system and local standards.

Scripting

Option to allow users to include script extensions into the model.

Join Mode

Automatically assigns joins based on segment names.

Bench Settings

Bench Settings control the travel parameters between a reserve block and the network. 

Lift Settings

Lift Settings control the travel parameters between a dump block and the network. These settings behave exactly the same as Bench settings described above.

Other Settings

Take a glance over the remaining settings to ensure you are happy with the defaults. 

Truck Models

Truck models define the work capacity of trucks under different conditions. 

Download Trucks

Navigate to the Alastri truck library and download:

• Caterpillar 789C

• Komatsu 730E

• Hitachi EH3500

Import Trucks

Go to Trucks > Models > Add Truck > Import Trucks from Files and import the trucks from your downloads folder. 

Each truck is defined by its axle weights, power type and associated curves for rimpull, retard, fuel, trolley usage, battery usage, battery regen and regen force. Available charts will vary based on the power type selected.

Truck General Settings

General setting define certain aspects for different trucks.

Truck Limits

Truck limits define how a truck interacts with the road network under different conditions. 

Materials

Material properties are used to calculate payload volumes, dry tonnes and wet tonnes for productivity calculations. 

• Add "Ore" with a density of 2.7

• Add "Waste" with a density of 2.5

Loaders

Loader types define the dig rates for cycle time and trucking calculations. 

• Add "EX2500"

• Add "R9250"

Parameters

The parameters table holds cycle time inputs for every combination of loader, truck, and material.

Theoretical Calculations

The sections Loader Payload Calculation, Truck Payload Calculation, Loading Calculation are used to calculate cycle times from first principles. 

Overrides

The section Overrides is used to calculate productivities from historical inputs. 

Loading Times

Haul Infinity distinguishes between Truck Load Time and Loader Load Time.

Loader Load Time = Truck Load Time + Truck Spot Time

This distinction is important to ensuring that loader productivity calculations accurately catch the delays between each load, as well as the loading time itself. 

Operating Conditions

When querying a specific haul, the operating conditions can be used to quickly toggle one or more input parameters to different values.

Run Setup steps

When you have completed all the Setup steps of the Setup Task list, click the blue play button to run the last step or all steps to confirm and move to the Network tab.

Network

The Network tab is the main workspace in Haul Infinity, where you can draw a 3D road network over of existing pits and topos, and interact with it to create nodes and routes for haulage.

Below listed only brief instructions for setting up a sample model. Full description of the Network tab, see here.

Import Surfaces

Road networks can be drawn directly onto survey surfaces and mine designs. Surfaces are imported through the Layers panel (full description of this panel features see here).

Importing a surface

1. Go to the Network tab.

2. Find the Layers panel in the right of the screen.

3. Press the blue plus icon to import surfaces.

4. Navigate to the sample data folder and import .

   1. "clippedcontours.dtm",

   2. "pit.dtm",

   3. "wd1.dtm",

   4. "wd2.dtm".

5. The Decimation Results dialog will appear, where you can see the triangle count and specify the decimation required (in this demo project, decimation is not required). Make the necessary changes and click OK.

Zooming

Press the Zoom All button   in the toolbar to center the data. The topography, pit design and dump design should now be centered in the viewport. These are the surfaces on top of which the network will lie.

Layers panel

The Layers panel is used to work with the displayed layers. This is a common UI element present in all Alastri applications.

• You can show or hide any of the surfaces by clicking the eye icon .

• The closed lock icon  prevents the drawing tool from snapping to that surface (drawing a pit road beneath a topo, for instance).

• Tick the edges icon  to toggle visibility of the underlying strings.

Changing surface colors

1. Expand out the folders in the Layers panel (manually or using Tools button > “Expand All” option).

2. Open the dropdown in the far right column.

3. Select a new color.

4. Press OK.

Change your pit color to green and your dump color to blue for easier viewing (more details see here).

Draw a Network

Using our overlays as reference, we are going to draw in a road network upon which the truck fleet will run.

Movement and Rotation

Snap Mode

The snap mode dictates what we can connect segments to while drawing. The shortcut keys <Q>, <W>, <E> can be used to switch between the three modes.

Draw Tool

Press the pencil icon  and left click on the surfaces to draw roads that connect the pit and dump. The shortcut key <D> can be used to start and stop drawing.

Draw Assistance

These features may be used to draw roads when there is no existing design. 

Define Sources and Destinations

Nodes are fixed load points (or dump points) that we manually connect to the network. Typically these represent pit centroids, dump centroids, stockpiles and crusher bins.

Types of Nodes

Promoting a Node

Creating a node is as simple as right clicking a point on the network and selecting "Promote Point to Node".

Creating nodes example

• Find the toe of the pit ramp and promote to a "Bench Exit". The corresponding node centroid will appear at the selected point.

• Find the crest of the dump ramp and promote to a "Lift Entry". The corresponding node centroid will appear at the selected point.

Speed Limits and Traffic Rules

Road signs can be dragged and dropped onto the network to reproduce the site road rules.

The Road Signs menu can be found in the toolbar. To customise displayed signs use the Configure Signs dropdown box.

There are two sign types:

• Speed limits dictate the maximum allowable speed across the segment.

• Slow points and stop signs dictate the maximum exit speed from the segment.

No Entry signs have a speed limit of zero, which prevents trucks travelling along that segment. 

Set Road Rules

• Select desired sign from Road Signs drop down and click on appropriate sections of the network to apply.

• Select some segments > Right click > "Set Speed Limits on Selected Segments".

• Select some points > Right click > "Set Final Speed on Selected Points".

Changing Road Rules

Road signs can be changed by placing another sign on top, right clicking the sign or selected segments.

Removing or Changing Road Rules

Stop signs and slow points can be removed by right clicking on the sign or on selected segments.

Speed signs are never "removed" because all segments have a speed. Speed signs will be visible whenever there is a change in speed: at a terminal point, at an intersection, or anywhere on the road you have dropped a sign. To make a sign invisible, change the speed limit to be equal to the neighboring segments.

Example

1. Find a road with a 40 km/h speed limit.

2. Place a 20 km/h sign onto the road. The sign is visible because there is a speed change from 40 to 20 km/h.

3. Place a 40 km/h sign over the top of the 20 km/h sign. The sign will disappear, because there is no speed change along the segment.

Query a Haul

In order to make cycle time calculations, Haul Infinity needs to know the material type, loader and truck type.

Enter route parameters:

• Find the Route Selections panel to the left of the viewport.

• Set material to "High Grade".

• Set loader to EX2500.

• Set truck to CAT 785D.

• Set operating condition to "Normal".

• Select Destination from Node. To do this: right click on a node > Show Path to > Loaded > Crusher > crusher required.

• Show Return Route Between Nodes, as shown below.

• You can also Select a node from Nodes panel tree.

• Choose from History.

Hauls can be reactivated by selecting them from the History menu in the Route Selection panel.

Animations

Haulage animations can be turned on or off from the animations button .   Animations can slow down some calculations times. If you are using an older computer, turning animations off may help conserve performance.

Press the blue cross button to stop the animation and clear displayed haul route. Alternatively, press <X> key.