Prerequisites

The topics in this section require a thorough understanding of the topics covered in the previous  section:

Automated Excavation Sequencing.

 

Background

The previous two section of this document covered the procedures for setting up automated excavations. The key points from this sections are:

A Step is the smallest excavation increment performed by the automated excavation process. The planar extents of a Step are bounded by two adjacent blocks and by the Limiting Polygon. The vertical extents of a step extend from the floor of the lift or pass above to the floor of the current lift will pass to which the step belongs. A Step is defined by Pit-Strip-Block-Pass-Lift. The Block is the lowest numbered Block of the two Blocks that bound the step.

A Subsequence is a contiguous group of Steps. The grouping is done in a manner that serves the requirements of subsequent simulation. All of the Steps in a sub sequence must share the following characteristics:

•All excavated material must report to the same Dump or hierarchy of Dumps.

•When used in a full truck shovel simulation will steps must be processed by the same equipment fleet.

•When hauling to dump material from each step must be hauled along the same route to the same dump.

•All Steps must be excavated continuously without pause, and this must be consistent with the requirements of the schedule.

When all Subsequences have been constructed for the proposed mining operation these are assembled into a Supersequence. The Supersequence represents the proposed mining schedule.

When the Supersequence is complete it can be run in Excavate mode and the proposed mining schedule will be excavated in sequence.

The following topics explain how to create Staged Dumps, assign dumps and simulate the full topographic effects of the schedule via incremental excavation and dumping.

When Dumps are assigned to Subsequences,and the Supersequence is run, each Step (in each Subsequence) is excavated and its material is automatically dumped, the next Step is then Excavated and Dumped,and this process continues until the Supersequence is complete.

3d-DigPlus supports a number of different dump models. While any of these can be assigned to a Subsequence most typically the dump type Staged Dump, as described in the following topic, is used to this purpose.