ULTIMATE PIT LIMIT DESIGN USING HEURISTIC ALGORITHMS, CASE STUDY: SANGAN IRON DEPOSIT – IRAN

8th International Scientific Conference - SGEM2008, www.sgem.org, SGEM2008 Conference Proceedings/ ISBN: 954-918181-2, June 16-20, 2008, Vol. 1, 541-546 pp

ABSTRACT

The optimum pit limit design can be defined as determining the ultimate or final mining
limits of ore deposit with maximum value or profit which is obtained from its
extraction. Heuristic optimization techniques have been one set of the most widely used
methods for ultimate pit limit analysis because of their rapid execution speed and easy
conceptualization. This paper considers a heuristic technique, known as 3D moving
cone to find the optimum pit limit of Sangan iron ore deposit in Iran. To evaluate the
results aforementioned algorithm has compared with solution of 2D Dynamic
programming of Learchs-Grossman which always leads to optimum solution in 2D
Sections.

Keywords: Optimum pit limit, heuristic techniques, 3D moving cone, Rigorous algorithms, Learchs-Grossman.