Open Cut » Highwall Mining
The objective of this project was to develop a system for mapping, assessment and visualisation of hazards associated with highwall structure and stability.
The project has produced:
- an enhancement of methods of mapping and analysing highwall structure,
- methods of identifying geological hazards,
- improved methods of analysing and quantifying geological hazards and
- methods of visualising and communicating geological structure and hazards.
The project has demonstrated the application of advanced computational geometry developed by the CSIRO for the automated mapping of structure to the modelling of structure for mapping hazards in highwalls. 3D imaging systems have overcome limitations in the capture of data required for this analysis and can now map 50,000 square metres of highwall in a day. The combination of rapid 3D mapping and advanced computational techniques has produced a viable hazard mapping system. This project has integrated advanced analytical techniques developed as part of the ongoing research supporting Sirovision with visualisation technology developed for the Virtual mine to demonstrate near real-time mapping, analysis, visualisation and prediction of structure. The data acquisition, computational geometry and analytical processes have been combined with simulation techniques to produce a hazard mapping system that can predict the relative likelihood of the occurrence of potential structural hazards. The combination of fast accurate 3D imaging and advanced computational techniques has enabled accurate 3D analysis of highwall profiles and defects, including faults, joint persistence, joint frequency, structure intersection-frequency and character, strata type and shape.