Micromine 2020 Ring Design offers highly accurate, intuitive and sophisticated ring design planning tools, which enable engineers to realise unprecedented levels of control and precision during their design.
The new ring design function is fully integrated into Micromine's exploration and 3D mine design software solution, which is used by more than 1,500 customers worldwide.
Andrew Esmaili, Micromine's product analyst, said: "The new features are in response to our customer's requests and addresses day-to-day challenges. Our design and visualisation tools are better than ever, but that's not the exciting stuff.
"We all know that ring drilling typically occurs in confined spaces, so it's vital for design engineers to be aware of geometry, mining conditions and drilling equipment. However, the reality is that modern engineers spend more time behind computers and less time in underground workings, this is where our new tools come in.
"Micromine's ring design tool allows the planner to define the size and shape of rigs being used at a mine. Once that is completed, planners can utilise a new utility to apply constraints that ensure that the boom's range and coverage limits are not inadvertently exceeded during the design process.
"To ensure that drill plans are safe and practical, users can now specify distance constraints that prevent the boom from being positioned too close to the sidewalls of a tunnel. A similar utility can be used to maintain a distance to the floor of a drive, a feature that is particularly useful when drilling in rugged surfaces.
"These new utilities provide interactive feedback to the designer, eliminate guesswork, eliminate manual intervention, minimise the probability of downtime and of course, lead to more precise designs."
Micromine 2020's enhanced ring design allows engineers to easily create, view, edit, mirror, copy or replicate rings. Dedicated tools simplify updating designs as new survey data becomes available.
Turning raw mining data into meaningful 3D designs, the Micromine 2020 ring design feature accepts centrelines and wireframes for underground production drive.
Ring boundaries can be defined by hand, using templates or auto-generated using wireframes. "The charging tools have been strengthened with a new function that allows users to automatically charge any number of rings while accounting for underground structures," Esmaili added. "Drill design is better than ever with various improvements that ease the process of generating and editing drill holes."
The visual representation delivered via Micromine 2020 both simplifies and accelerates the process of creating and implementing advanced ring designs while enabling users to adapt and customise their views.
Micromine 2020 is due for release in November and in addition to the new dedicated ring design module, boasts; new charting tools; a new stope optimiser; an improved scheduler; and advances in the Implicit Modelling and Pit Optimiser modules.
Got a story? Email: duncan.moore@aspermontmedia.com
