Development of a Computer Program for selection of Optimum Mode of Operation for Surface Miner

Abstract

Surface miners find their natural applications in projects where drilling and blasting is prohibited or selective mining of mineral, partings and overburden is required. It also offers further advantages like less coal/mineral loss and less dilution, improved coal/mineral recovery with improved quality and finer fragment size which eliminates crushing. Surface miner can work in mining of limestone and coal with competitive cost if deployed judicially. The productivity of surface miner largely depends on the rock properties, machine configuration and application of surface miner. The rock properties are immutable and the machine configuration is one time decision of the higher management. Thus, mining engineer has to operate surface miner judicially to achieve the maximum production. In this paper, the development of computer software is presented, which helps mining engineer for selecting the surface miner based on cuttability index and the optimum mode of operation.