Geometrical mine design and multi-bench material flow simulation for AFS characterization

The economic extraction of the Athabasca oil sands is governed by the application of advanced technologies to reduce production cost, which is currently about 600% that of the cost of conventional oil. The pursuit of low-cost, bulk production methods in oil sands mining has led to the need to extend hydrotransport systems to the mining faces using flexible pipeline/belt conveyor assemblies called "At Face Slurrying" (AFS) technology. This technology will introduce a unique set of geometrical, material extraction and economic problems. Dynamic evolution of mine layouts is essential to developing efficient continuous extraction methods in surface mining. This is a complex process because of the underlying field constraints and the need to meet current production targets under a minimum cost envelope. Conventional mining practices have simplified the extraction processes and layouts using discrete functions which are appropriate for cyclic operations. However, in continuous AFS operations, discrete approximations may lead to significant errors in the geometric layouts of equipment components, and strategic and tactical mine plans.; This research initiative is a pioneering effort to develop continuous ellipsoid and spheroid processes for characterizing material extraction using the novel AFS technology. The dynamic evolution of material extraction is developed using 3D ellipsoid and spheroid processes that result in a system of parabolic partial differential equations with the appropriate boundary conditions. Continuous simulation of these stochastic processes with their field constraints is carried out within Visual SLAM, Matlab, Simphony and ADAMS simulation environments. The models are validated using data from Syncrude's operations in Fort McMurray with detailed experimentation in a laboratory environment. The continuous processes are compared with the current cyclic method at Syncrude. The results of economic, dynamic and kinematic evaluation of the AFS technology show that it could result in a 44% reduction in the current production cost from {dollar}13.78/bbl to {dollar}7.72/bbl, with a strong long-term economic outlook compared to the 5-year industry target of {dollar}9.00/bbl. The main novelty of this research was the development of continuous-time ellipsoid and spheroid processes for continuous surface mining operations, which provide solutions to strategic and tactical plans for materials handling with the AFS technology.