Spoil Placement Timing

This command brings all the spoil commands together as final step and performs the timing and scheduling of the spoil placement. The first window is to select a new Spoil Timing Project file, or load an existing one (*.SPD file).

Once the SPD file is named, then the Fleets and production are defined in the next window, if there aren't any in the file already. The green + and X buttons are for adding and deleting the rows. Give each fleet a name and a production per hour, and hours per day worked on average. If a fleet is already saved, it can be loaded with the Load button.

The next step is to load the Spoil Source file (*.SPO) that was created with either Surface Mine Reserves or Surface Equipment Timing.

The Spoil Source editing window will appear next. This gives the opportunity to review the source data and make any final edits before scheduling. The data in the image below came straight out of the Surface Equipment Timing command.

The next screen will be the Spoil Timing Project manager. This shows a tree structure of the project which is comprised of 3 main areas, including the Haul Fleets, Spoil Sources and Spoil Destinations.

After the Spoil Timing Project screen, where all the items can be viewed and edited, clicking OK brings up the Spoil Placement Timing window. This is where all of the assigning and reporting of the schedule is set.

This is the main dialog for sequencing the spoil timing. It is divided into 4 main areas, and they are described with the matching numbers labeled on the image for clarity.

1. Spoil Source section shows a list of available spoil sources from the Spoil Source file that was used. They can be edited with the button, and sorted up or down. The procedure is to move them from left to right, in order to be filled by the mining.
2. Haul Fleet: This section shows the list of haul fleet units that are defined. Edits can be made here. To set one current, just pick it and keep it highlighted while timing spoil.
3. Spoil Destination section is the method to define where the spoil cuts are going. In this example, there are both in pit and out of pit spoil locations. Multiple benches will be displayed with B1, B2, etc.
4. Calculate is used to run the timing and get the reports once the spoil sources have been assigned to a destination. Enter in a start date if it is changed. The Shifts/Day displays how many divisions are displayed in the white window below. The gray grid lines are the shifts per month. If only 1 shift per day is selected, then each grid line is a full day.
5. Each period is divided by the red, vertical lines. This example shows months.
6. The dark blue gantt chart bars are the spoil sources. The gray bars are the spoil destination perimeters. Each spoil source has to go somewhere, once that source is used up, then the destinations go to the next source.

Once selecting the Calculate button, the next window determines the type and options for reporting. If any of the report types are set to just periods, then the window will appear like this.

If the Spoil Source File is selected, then the periods set there, created from Surface Equipment Timing, will set the period intervals. This also activates the Use Equipment Timing Grids, which will use the GSQ grid sequence file, and merge that with the spoil surfaces per period.

To select the output grids for the 3D spoil results, the surface topography, final ground surface grid is set here. Also, the top of each bench grid file is set here, for multibench spoil. These grids can be made with Grid File Utilities to set the designs by area or inclusions. For example, the top of Bench 1 could be a combination of the post mining topography for in the pit spoils, and a fill design elsewhere, for out of pit spoiling and dumping.

The program will now prompt for the existing GSQ Grid Sequence file to use. This file contains the advance of just the pits in the mining sequence. It will now use this file, matching up the periods, and add in the back fill spoiling. This will represent the full mining progression, showing the advance of the pits, and the following of the spoil and dumps.

The plan view map is hatched with the color period blocks to illustrate where each spoil is placed in each period.

This creates a new GSQ file, with the name defined above in the Define Surface Grids window. It uses the name define here by default, SpoilGrids. Viewing this file with the View 3D Surface History will show the mining progression with the spoil fills.

Using the Report Formatter can export the report directly into Excel. An example Excel dump is shown here.

Keyboard Command: timespoil
Prerequisite: SPO file from Surface Mine Reserves or Surface Equipment Timing, spoil polylines with direction, and haulage fleet.
Pulldown Menu Location: Spoil in Surface Mine Module