A new model for automated pushback selection

Abstract

The design of pushbacks is essential to long-term open pit mine scheduling because it partitions the pit space into individual units, controlling ore and waste production. In this paper, a new model is proposed for the pushback selection procedure, which consists of characterizing the potential pushbacks based on the comprehensive family of nested pits and selecting those ones that meet a set of criteria, for instance, bounded ore and waste. An advantage of this method is the possibility to automate the pushback selection methodology, applying well-defined criteria for the selection and reducing the time employed in the planning task.