Mine optima improves underground design
The University of Melbourne’s MineOptima planning program evolved out of almost 20 years of research by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology and the School Mathematics and Statistics into mine planning and design.
MineOptima designs optimal equipment access layouts for underground mines, with algorithms that identify least-cost access networks for underground mines that satisfy navigability constraints while minimising development and haulage costs.
It provides a 3D rendering of an optimal decline network for a user’s underground mine, taking into account operational constraints such as the decline gradient, turning-circle radius and straight sections of the declines near junctions, and determines optimal locations for breakouts of subsidiary declines in the network, given the network topology.
In 2017 MineOptima was successfully acquired by an ASX-listed mining equipment, technology and services company.