RR. Bench Depletion
- iarmstrong
The Bench Depletion step allows users to deal with remnant material that is leftover from the depletion surface.
This step deals with the depleted Phase Solid and the flitches within it. If a phase does not incorporate flitch mining, the flitch level will equal the bench level.
Material from flitches can either be removed or sent down; sending material up is not an option.
Defining Areas
CAD tools
Areas within the filch to be reallocated need to be defined by a closed polygon that can be created using the CAD tools in the viewport toolbar. More details on how to use these tools can be found here.
The CAD tools are found in various other steps within Rapid Reserver and behave in the same manner, except for the Add Contours button.
Adding Contours tool
The Add Contours feature can be used to generate a construction line around contour sections that are below a defined height.
A closed polygon can then be created by using this generated line and other CAD tools. The resultant polygons can then be removed or pushed down to the bench below.
Using Add Contour function to generate a contour line along a bench with rough edges: | Using standard CAD tools to close a polygon: |
Populate the Contour Height to match the Thickness threshold. Unticking the Limit to Upward Faces option will generate a closed contour around the bench area thicker than specified in the Contour Height field, and by default assign it to be removed. |
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Z-Plane and Thickness slider
To aid with identifying areas of interest, on the left-hand side of the main viewport a vertical slider bar is provided. This slider acts on the Z-plane and can be used to highlight areas that are below a certain thickness.
Slider’s view changes from Z-Plane to Thickness depending on viewport display angle.
Other Control tools
Panel | Usage | Example |
|---|---|---|
Legend panel | The colors for highlighting areas above and below the thickness height can be reviewed and changed to suit users preferences in the Legend panel. | |
Other Silhouettes | When uncertain whether to send material down to mine with the underlying bench, you can use the silhouette display tool to decide how moving the material will affect the increment below. | |
Layers panel | Use the hidden Layers panel to display pit designs and surfaces, if needed. | |
History panel | Use the History panel to see (and revert back, if required) all the operations performed on the selected Bench/Flitch/Lift. |
Reassigning Material
Choosing what to do with the material defined within a polygon can be made by right-clicking on the polygon and selecting an option from the dropdown.
The Bench Depletion step deals with material that exists within the flitches of the depleted phase solids. In this step, material within a flitch can only be removed or sent to the flitch below. The intention of this step is to remove/push down any remnant material that may be present.
Reassigning options are described in the table below:
Option | Usage |
|
|---|---|---|
Do Nothing | The “Do Nothing” option can be used to leave some part of the flitch/bench in its state, as opposed to removing or sending down the main volume. See an example on the right. | |
Remove | Material inside the polygon will be removed from the bench/flitch/lift. |
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Send Up | Not available, can be done for ramp and contour shots in the Bench Preconditioning step. | |
Send Down | Material will be removed from the current bench and mined with the bench below. It is important to know when the material is sent to the flitch below; it will be trimmed to the below bench’s silhouette. See the illustration below. | |
EstCon and Remove
The EstCon (estimated contour) column provides users with a high-level estimate on whether or not remnant material may be present within a flitch.
This number is not used anywhere else within the software and is by no means accurate. The higher the number, the higher the change there is material that needs attention.
In the Remove column you can flag some benches/flitches to exclude them from the further workflow (meaning no need to draw polygons to reassign/remove material). In the example below, the whole bench at 800RL has a remnant material less than 1m thick and can be fully removed.
Be aware of the flitches that you remove in this step, they will not appear in the Designer and in the further scheduling (Prescheduling, Reserves, Animation, etc).
Bench Silhouettes
It is important to understand, that the benches dealt with in Bench Depletion are based on the Depleted Phase Solids, not the Original Phase Solid. This means that material sent to the flitch below will be trimmed by the silhouette of the receiving flitch. A simple example of the behaviour is shown below.