Implementing a New Heuristic Approach to the Underground Mine Stope Layout Problem

Abstract

Underground mine planning requires an optimal stope layout as a prerequisite for the definition of an optimal production schedule. The procedure to generate an optimal stope layout considers an orebody model and economic parameters as inputs. Itevaluates all possible combinations of mining blocks and creates a set of stopes by satisfying the physical mining and geotechnical constraints. Thus, the procedure is computationally complex, and generating a solution to the problem is a challenge. This paper presents an implementation of a new heuristic algorithm that solves the stope layout problem. In two case studies, the algorithm achieves 11.2 per cent and 22.5 per cent superior solutions to the industrially available maximum value neighbourhood approach.