Optimization of the Excavator-and-Dump Truck Complex at Open Pit Mines – the Case Study

Abstract

The transition to the use of the new equipment requires a revision of previously established dependencies, which constitute the methodological basis for optimization to ensure the highly efficientoperation of technological equipment of the excavator-and-dump truckcomplex that performs all technological processes of overburden. The imperfection of the existing methods of optimization is due to the use, as a rule, of empirical formulas for the obsolete equipment installed to calculatethe performance, so replacing or partially adjusting these dependencies, including methods and tools for determining process parameters, is anurgent task. Therefore, it is important to establish the parameters of each ofthe conjugate technological processes for the development of hard rock and half-rock overburden, which together provide the optimal results of the entire excavator-and-dump truck complex. The article considers the use of excavator-and-dump truck complex optimization as a criterion for the average weighted size of pieces of exploded rock mass, which allows determining the optimal parameters of each of the associated technological processes, their costs, as well as the total costs of the technology as a whole.