ABSTRACT
Planning of processing capacity and production rates are challenging tasks in mine planning, largely due to the accessibility to the orebody as well as the heterogeneity of ore quantity and grades. In this research, a new approach is proposed to optimize the processing streams and their capacities while considering the block destinations. Destination policies are determined via classification and boundary setting of the orebody. The main objective of this optimization is to design mineral plants such that the deviations from the target grade will be minimized as well as maintaining the balance between the mine production and process capacity. The high initial costs of plant installation are also considered. As the grade distribution within an orebody is largely heterogenous, the optimization is achieved through using spatial clustering techniques to examine the grade distribution throughout the orebody and comparing target grades and mineral processing costs of each possible processing plant. Two similar case studies are presented with possible processing plants to be built along with their costs. The ideal combination of plants is selected while simultaneously determining the plant capacities and block destinations.
