The study of BWR cutting trajectory for optimal stockpile-voxel profile design

Abstract

Improvement on material handling systems is demanded as world mining production continuously increases. Additionally, the supply of iron ore grades close to customer demand is crucial especially due to the gradual decline, in recent times, of quality iron ore grades. Stockpiles play a major role in storing material and reducing grade variation among material. Contrary to the conventional approach of treating stockpile as a single entity, the voxel based approach was proposed by previous studies in reclaiming material from stockpiles. Voxel is defined as a volume element with custom defined shape. However, voxel profile has always been defined as a simple rectangular shape without taking into account the reclaiming pattern of the bucket wheel reclaimer (BWR) which can be seen as a gigantic robotic arm. The objective of this paper is to highlight the drawbacks of defining rectangular shaped voxel in reclaiming using the BWR. A kinematics model of the full BWR including its buckets is derived and the simulation of reclaiming trajectory leading to the future study of defining the optimal profile of voxel is also discussed.