Achieving precise drill and blast results is crucial to maximising mining production, efficiency and safety, which is why MICROMINE has taken ring planning to the next level.

MICROMINE has upped the features and functionality of its new Micromine 2020 software to include a series of truly innovative Ring Design tools.

Micromine 2020 Ring Design, which will be released in November, offers highly accurate, intuitive and sophisticated ring design planning tools which enable engineers to realize unprecedented levels of control and precious during their design.

The new ring design function is fully integrated into Micromine’s market leading exploration and 3D mine design software solution, which is used by more than 1500 customers worldwide.

Andrew Esmaili, Micromine’s Product Analyst, explained that “the new features are in response to our clients’ requests and seeks to address their day to day challenges’’.   Our design and visualization 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 have an awareness 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. If I was trying to describe these tools to someone in a few words I’d say: you’ve probably seen the benefit of proximity sensors on cars. Now think proximity sensors but for UG planners preparing drill plans in confined tunnels. Now let me elaborate. Micromine’s ring design tool allows planner to define the size and shape of rig(s) being used at a mine. Once that is done, planner can utilize a new utility to apply constraints that ensure that 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 to 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 when drilling in rugged surfaces.

These new utilities provide interactive feedback to the designer, eliminate guess work, eliminate manual intervention, minimize the probability of downtime and of course lead to more precise designs.’’

“This really set Micromine 2020 users and their mining operations apart from their competition.”

Fast planning, duplication and adaption

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.

Ring designs load in seconds, not minutes, allowing easy manipulation and updating.

Users can also generate detailed plots of ring designs with comprehensive customization options such as adding annotations, summary tables, legends and graphs , just to name a few.

Detailed 3D designs

Turning raw mining data into a meaningful 3D designs, the Micromine 2020 ring design feature accepts centerlines and wireframe for underground production drive.

Ring boundaries can be defined by hand, using templates or or auto-generated using wireframes. “The charging tools have been beefed up with a new function that allows users automatically charge any number of rings whilst accounting for underground structures’’ Mr Esmaili added.  specified polygons or wireframes.

“Drill design is better than ever with various improvements that ease the process of generating and editing drillholes.”

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 customize their views.

Integrated Micromine benefits

Better ring design is just one new and improved features that engineers, and miners can access through Micromine 2020.

The release offers integrated tools for modelling, estimation, design, optimisation and scheduling, with data sets all saved and easily accessible within the Micromine product.

MICROMINE’s comprehensive and easy-to-use exploration and mine design solution offers miners the flexibility they need, when they need it.

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.