Risk assessment of dilution in open pit mines
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Risk assessment of dilution in open pit mines Yaghoub Zarshenas 1 & Gholamreza Saeedi 1
Received: 8 May 2015 / Accepted: 6 November 2015 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2016
Abstract Mining dilution is one of the most important factors which affects all parameters of mining projects. It is a dangerous virus that, if not controlled, is rapidly spread in all stages of mining project and it can paralyze the mine. According to studies carried out in this paper, dilution can cause adverse impacts on the environmental, economic, community, technical, and safety issues, and its negative impacts remain as inauspicious legacy for the future. Therefore, proper management is essential in this regard. Risk management technique can be used to reduce these impacts. Dilution risk model presented in this paper has a significant potential as a tool for decision makers to assess dilution risk both quantitatively and qualitatively. High risk factors that result from dilution can be detected using this model, and this also facilitates comparison between different mines from dilution perspective. A risk is defined as a function of probability and consequence. The model was investigated in Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex, Gol Gohar, and Moeil Iron mines. Results of the study showed that dilution risk factors of Sarcheshmeh and Gol Gohar were 4501 and 4374, respectively, which confirmed high risk in both of them. Also, the score of 1038 for Moeil Iron mine confirms that there are minor dilution risks at this mine.
Keywords Dilution . Open pit mines . Risk analysis . Management tool
* Gholamreza Saeedi [email protected] 1
Department of Mining Engineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
Introduction Dilution refers to waste or non-ore materials (below cutoff grade) that are not separated from the ore during the operation and has reduced quality of the mined ore. The conducted research about dilution can be divided into three categories: analytical, empirical, and numerical methods. In the analytical methods, based on the principles of engineering and mathematical relations, dilution can be expressed as a function of effective factors. The first analytical method which was presented by Agoshkov et al. (1988) merely emphasizes the qualitative factors of extracted and in situ materials. Determining the amount of dilution using this model depends on assay of extracted and in situ materials. This model is used as a tool for dilution determination and has no role in specifying effective parameters for dilution. In other analytical models, dilution is expressed as a function of collapse or roof cut and floor cut and other parameters are ignored (Pakalnis et al. 1995; Richard and Gertsch 1998; Chugh et al. 2004). Ran model is another model that expresses geo-mechanical factors of hanging wall rock mass and geometrical parameters of stope as effective factors for dilution (Ran 2002). Compared with the presented analytical models, this model includes more parameters. In the empirical methods, the amount of dilution
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