Define stopes

Before adding stopes, we need to define the rule of how our stopes will be advanced through. In MineTwin, this can be done by adding advancement rules, or excavation rules as they are called in MineTwin’s UI. To add an excavation rule:

As a result, an excavation rule with the default name of "Excavation rule 1" will be created. Let’s change its properties to the following values, as shown below:

Now, we have defined the excavation rule that we’ll be using for all stopes of our sample scenario.

Stopes are the places where the extraction of ore happens. In MineTwin, all stopes must be connected with the mine’s transportation network. More specifically, each stope must fully or partially occupy one or several arcs. These arcs occupied by a stope must be consecutive, i.e. they must follow each other in the network. In MineTwin, such a list of consecutive arcs is called a mine segment.

There are the following relationships between mine arcs, mine segments and stopes:

In this tutorial, we will only be using a simple setup where 1 stope = 1 mine segment = 1 mine arc. To create such stopes, there is a Stope tool in the palette. Click this tool and click one of the arcs to create a stope as shown below:

Note that, as a result, a mine segment has also been created.

Now that we have defined the location of our only stope, it is time to set up the properties of the material in this stope. Let us select the Stopes item in the scenario tree, select our only stope, and set the following values in its General properties section:

Click the “set maximum length” button on the right of the *End offset property to get the value. Remember that the stope covers the entire arc length

The picture below shows the general properties view of our stope:

Now we can go to the Advancement type section of the stope’s properties and specify the simplest possible advancement type called Excavation:

Next, let us set the width and height of the stope’s face and link our stope with the advancement type we defined earlier in this section:

Note how the excavation parameters of the excavation type are shown at the bottom of the section.

The last thing that we will define for our stope is its grade. In MineTwin, grade is represented with the mixture of materials, some being useful substances and some just empty rock. This mixture of materials can be set in the Material mix section of the stope properties. Let us set the 5% grade for our stope. 5% grade will be 5% of Copper material and 95% of Empty rock material. Remember that we have defined these materials at the very first step of this tutorial. This setup can be done as shown below:

Please note that you can use the % button to calculate the last entry of the mix so that the sum of the entries adds up to 100%

Let us now review the stope that we have just set up. In the scenario tree, select the Stopes item and double-click on the only line in the Stopes table. MineTwin will navigate the map to this stope and highlight it with red color, as shown below:

You can always hit the Esc button to deactivate any highlighting in the Map view.

Now, our scenario has become complex enough to check it for potential consistency errors and warnings. To do so, hit the Check button on top of the scenario tree:

The result of this check will appear in the Errors window in the bottom left part of the application. See how our scenario has 3 errors and 3 warnings:

Let us go through these errors and warnings one by one:

This consistency checking functionality is especially useful in the later stages of the scenario setup. It guides the users by hinting what else must be set up to complete the scenario creation.

So, we have set up a stope for our simulation and defined what the characteristics of the stope should be. Now, we can click the Save menu button or hit Ctrl+S to save our intermediate results. You can always download the scenario file that we got so far and continue working with this tutorial later.