Underground Timing
The diagram above shows the general steps associated with the
creation of a mine plan with the Underground Timing routine.
Pre-requisites include:
- Creating thickness, density, and quality grids, and/or average
values for the total coal and rock to be mined.
- Define the productivity rates of the equipment and operating
schedule for each section of equipment.
- The drawing linework has to be prepared on specific layers.
- Panels can be placed using one of, or a combination of, three
placing routines: Place Panel, Auto_Place Panel by Text, and/or Pick
and Place Panel.
- Several adjustments to the mine plan can be by Adding Pin Points,
Recalculating Extraction, Connecting Mine plans, and Editing panels.
Function
The drwing above shows the North Main panel with 5 panels to the
right. The panel perimeters are drawn on the PERIM layer.
The panels in this example were placed using Pick and Place.
The Mining Project dialog box above shows some of the key files used in
the mine timing. Opttions on the right side become active
depending on the items selected on the left side.
The underground timing scheduling dialog box provides options to assign
panels to be mined to
the equipment, insert delays between panels, input the plan start date,
number of shifts/day, and undo the current report. Disregard the
bottleneck options for underground mining. The underground timing
routine calculates the time needed to complete the assignment,
calculates coal
quantities and qualities, draws results period by period, and produces
a production report. In the order
to calculate timing, every panel needs to be assigned to equipment. The
left listbox lists the
available equipment. Use Add button to create a new equipment
or edit to change the definition
of the defined one. This list is stored within the mine plan and is
different for every plan.
The Edit button calls the same dialog as the Define Equipment
function.
The middle listbox shows panels currently assigned to the crew
highlighted in the left listbox
(if any). To assign a panel to the equipment, first click on the
equipment name, then on the
panel name in the right listbox and at last on the
Assign button. Panels are mined in the same order
as they appear in the list. To complete mining of all assigned panels
successfully the order
should not be controversial (i.e. NMAINS <1:2> can not appear
before NMAINS <B:1>). To
change sequence of mining click on the desired panel name and use
Do Earlier or Do Later buttons to change the order. The
Remove button removes the highlighted panel from the list of the
panels assigned to the current crew and moves it to the right listbox.
Use
Add Delay button to add delay (for moving of equipment,
maintenance or other reason) after highlighted panel. After all
panels for first crew has been added click the next crew and repeat
until all the panels needed are added.
When the assignment is completed click the
Calculate button. Check the timing report
produced and make sure that all assigned panels have been developed. If
the process
terminates earlier, the rest of the plan was inaccessible for some
sequencing reason. Modify the
assignment if needed and click Calculate again. During retreat
mining it is possible that a
sub-panel will be completed later that the panel itself. If this
conflict occurs the calculation
algorithm will try to offset start date of the panel itself to get
timeout sufficient to resolve the
problem. In the case when a problem could not be resolved an alert box
with corresponding message
will appear.
The time needed to develop a panel is offset by the Extraction Ratio
and Difficulty
Factor defined in the Edit Panel Dialog, and thickness and density of
coal and rock defined by the
Edit Panel Attributes function. The presence of qualities in the
production report depends on
the list of panel attributes and their values defined by the Edit Panel
Attributes function.
In cases when the mine plan includes retreat (second) mining, the
system will make sure
that when the parent panel is mined on retreat, the mining (advance or
retreat) in all child panels
is completed. If not it tries to offset the starting date of retreat in
the parent panel until the
timing conflict is resolved. Sometimes it is impossible to do so and
program reports the problem to
user for manual resolution.
Reporting Options
- Report by period - To draw the development progress
period by period and to obtain
quantities and
qualities report click on this button. The Report options
dialog appears prompting for
drawing options and period sizing.
- Report by equipment - use different colors to distinguish
peices of equipment not periaods.
- Report only - skip any drawing, just generate a detailed
report.
Period Sizing
The available period sizing options are:
- 12 months + 8 quarters + years - Display monthly
development
for one year, followed
by quarterly periods for next 2 years and from then yearly periods;
- Months/Years of Development, 1st Days of
Months/Years - starting from specified period
start date display each Month/Year of development, optionally with
rounding start date to the
first day of the Month/Year.
- Custom Date Table - Completely user-defined sequence of
periods, with customized
dates, colors, layers and hatches.
- Show date range - Display a single period as specified
by
user.
- Show custom table amounts - The same purpose as the
previous selection, with ability
to specify different amounts and drawing attributes for every period.
Option Sum for whole mine controls whenever equal quality
should
be
mine from whole mine or from the single panel.
Text Block Labeling Options
- Text labels are usually drawn perpendicularly to panel scaled to
fit
into the period area.
This behavior may be modified by clearing Text
Autosize option to have fixed text size and/or
by selection Draw labels lengthwise to change
orientation. User may pre-define a custom
text style and specify it in Text Style field.User is also able
to define a completely custom
text block to be used for labeling which may have any information
present in the report later as
well as any extra text to be displayed. Several named label blocks may
be defined.
- Block Labeling pull-down defines what is displayed as
period
name in timing block
drawn.
- Draw period names option uses short one line name for
the period,
- Use custom names picks up the name from custom date table.
Hatching Options
- Three different, user-definable hatches are used for advance,
retreat and predefined mine
history.
- The layer name for the retreat mining is obtained by prefixing
"RT-" to
advance layer name.
- Enforce Custom Coloring Table option allows to use any
period
sizing in combination
with Custom Date Table defining colors, hatches and layers for every
particular period.
- Change Shade Color pop-up box controls rotation of color
depending on the period drawn.
- Use Pastel Color enables use of larger number of colors
for
drawing timing blocks.
Using Property Boundaries
Sub-Divide by properties controls whether system
tries to use property lines and do calculations on per
property basis.
Other Output Options
- Sum For Whole Mine toggle defines if for period
sizing by amount options the amount is a total for a
whole mine or just for each panel.
- Report Polylines to Pits enables use of drawn
period boundaries as "pits" for calculations using
Mountain Top Removal.
- Output Period Grids - in surface mining stores
current surface grid for each period. This grid
sequence may then be played back using View 3D GRid
History command.
- Divide Advance/Retreat display draws advance
coloring to the right of centerline and retreat one to the left.
- Layer by Year/Period - place coloring for the same
year/period on the same layer.
- Stop at Last Period - when using cutstom period table stop
timing at last period defined
When the Custom Date Range option is selected date ranges are displayed
similar to that above. The colors/dates table shown defines
color/layer/label combination
for a specific date
range. The Auto Set function may be used to fill out the table for
repeating period lenthgs starting at
a particular line and to create a complicated setup like 12 months + 4
quarters + years after.
Date ranges can be automatically set with the dialog box above.
If development progress drawn is not satisfactory and the scheduling
needs to be adjusted,
use Undo Report button in Timing dialog to remove drawn report
entities. After the dialog is completed, the mining development
is shown step
by step and then the
coal production report is generated. The report format may be modified
to suite the particular
need and preferred format saved for further use. See Reference Manual
for complete description
of Report Formatting dialog. There is a progress window displaying the
time elapsed and the time remaining for large schedules that require a
lot of time.
The Report Formatter has several output options:
- Report - This outputs to an Ascii text file viewer
and a n Ascii text file can be saved or inserted directly into
the drawing.
- MS Excel - Exports the report directly to an MS Excel spreadsheet.
- Import/Export - Has several options to move data in and out of
your reports, and you can export to an MS Acess mdb file.
Report
The Report tab outputs Ascci text reports as shown below:
The above report is an example of an Ascii text report in Non-columnar
format.
The above report is an example of a columnar Ascii text report.
The report above is an example of an Ascii text report in spreadview.
The User Defined Attribute tab leads to a dialog where custom
attributes can be created.
The Attribute options opens with a list of the attributes above,
providing display and formatting options below.
MS Excel
When the MS Excel tab is open reports can be exported directly to
new or existing spreadsheets, begining on any specified sheet, row and
column. There are also options to include totals and text header
information in the file. When the optins have been specified
click on the Export to Excel
button. The spreadsheet below was exported using this option.
Import/Export Options
At the Export button under
Import/Export tab there are 5
options shown above.
Rpt format reports can be merged together, as shown above. The
rpt reports are the reports that can be loaded and viewed even after
the underground timing routine is closed.
Prompts
Select any part of mine plan: Pick any centerline in the
mine plan
Underground Timing Dialog
Pull-Down Menu Location: AdvMine
Keyboard Command: schedule_mine
File Name: \lsp\mineutil.exp