Determination of Truck–Shovel Configuration of Open-Pit Mine: A Simulation Method Based on Mathematical Model

Abstract

The truck–shovel system is the most common material transportation system in open-pit mines. The configuration of trucks and shovels directly affects the efficiency and cost of transportation in open-pit mines. Under the condition that the types and quantities of trucks and shovels are known, in order to obtain the optimal configuration scheme in the open-pit mine transportation system this paper presents a method to determine the optimal scheme by conducting experiments based on the simulation truck–shovel system model in Flexsim software. We test candidate configuration schemes that are solved by the mathematical model with daily minimum production and expected profit constraints in the simulation model, and finally obtain the optimal truck–shovel configuration scheme that meets the ore output requirements of each loading point. Through simulation experiments, the daily production of the optimal truck–shovel configuration scheme is 3.75% higher than that of the original mine scheme and the profit is increased by 3.85%. The results show that the open-pit truck–shovel system constructed by Flexsim has great research potential and value for the optimization of truck–shovel configuration schemes.