BHP Billiton is using Dassault Systems’ Simulia software to achieve significant productivity gains at its Nickel West Perserverance Deeps Project in Western Australia.
The company says its Abaqus finite element analysis (FEA) technology is being used to enhance mine design and engineering simulation at a number of major mines in Australia.
The supplier says the FEA technology can be used to evaluate safety and improve design planning, implementation, and operations.
Using measurements of site deformation and seismicity, Abaqus FEA models have been calibrated and, in a single day, used to simulate a full, three dimensional, inelastic analysis of a mine’s life cycle. It anayses rockmass volumes spanning several kilometers around the ore body and down to excavations just a few meters across, are used to compare and optimize engineering options.
Furthermore, as the mine goes into production, large volumes of data from the field are incorporated with the analysis models to allow them to be calibrated to a precision not previously available to the mining industry.
The miner claims Distributed Memory Parallel (DMP) processing, using 32 CPUs with Abaqus FEA software, gives it the capacity to compare a number of different scenarios for mine-scale model simulations in a very short time. The level of detail achieved in these models allows us to calibrate deformation and rockmass damage, seismogenic potential and ground support performance.
The company says it is essential mining engineers think outside the box to ensure the safety of people and to achieve productivity objectives on these challenging sites with unique geological characteristics.
This technology enables quick, cost-efficient analyses, which in turn facilitate the logical decision-making process necessary for the future development of mines in safe, environmentally-sound and more economical ways.