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By P Hawke, J Hurst, B KrapeP

Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (HPPL) drilled two deep diamond stratigraphic holes (ECD0001 and RHD0296) within the eastern Fortescue Valley in the Pilbara of Western Australia. Located south of the Roy Hill Iron Ore project, the holes aimed to define the stratigraphy of the Marra Mamba Iron Formation (MMIF) of the Chichester Range and its south-dipping extensions below recent cover. Previous attempts to define the MMIF of the Chichester Range have resulted in differing interpretations due to the data available at the time.The unweathered MMIF beneath the Fortescue Valley in the HPPL drill holes is characterised by dolomitic carbonate interbedded with stilpnomelane-rich shales, chert and banded iron formation (BIF) with hematite staining. This intersection equates to ~75 m of carbonate-facies iron formation, as opposed to the ~230 m thick oxide-facies BIF and shale sequence encountered south of the Fortescue Valley.Various detailed geological core analyses and interpretations from ECD0001 and RHD0296 were integrated with regional diamond and reverse circulation (RC) holes from across the Fortescue Valley. Interpretation of the data indicates that the eastern Fortescue Valley MMIF represents a thinned thickness sequence of the whole formation. The MMIF of the Chichester Range and Fortescue Valley has gamma logs that correlate strongly in parts to the type section used for MMIF south of the Fortescue Valley. Therefore, the outcropping MMIF in the Chichester Range represents an eroded equivalent of the æreducedÆ thickness MMIF observed in ECD0001 and RHD0296.Data from deep diamond drill holes across the valley, from the Hamersley Basin to the Carawine Basin, were correlated. The correlation shows that the depositional site of the MMIF in the HPPL diamond drill holes is consistent with a proximal ramp setting, in which iron-rich shales wedge up-palaeoslope and shelf-derived carbonate turbidites wedge down-palaeoslope. Not only is it the occurrence of these shales that define the MMIF, but they also determine the northward potential to develop orebodies, as they are the source of iron from which iron-rich oxides and carbonates of metamorphic or diagenetic origin form.CITATION:Hurst, J, KrapeP, B and Hawke, P, 2013. Stratigraphy of the Marra Mamba iron formation within the Chichester Range and its implications for iron ore genesis at Roy Hill - evidence from deep diamond drill holes within the East Fortescue Valley, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 91-106 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By J Visser

Dust mitigation has long been seen as nothing more than managing a nuisance issue, but the reality is that poor dust management can lead to one or more of the following negative consequences: an increased risk of safety incidents, lost revenue, reduced and possibly even lost licence to operate, regulatory intervention, high staff turnover and/or absenteeism and occupational health and safety (OH&S) issues. Dust mitigation and management is not a black art; rather it is a scientifically driven process that can provide an opportunity to increase profits, increase the companyÆs status as an excellent corporate citizen, enhance staff retention and reduce the safety risk profile of the operation.The way to achieve success in dust mitigation and control is to apply the scientific method to each problem that can arise and plague any operation by using current industry best practice. This method of dust problem-solving can be applied to dust issues arising from specific dust sources and locations. The dust sources can include wind impacting on stockpiles, open areas, tailings storage facilities, moving train and truck loads, vehicular traffic on roads, the operation of shovels, front end loaders, draglines and other equipment, as well as ore movement on conveyors.The solutions will come from a combination of deployment of dust collection equipment, dust and moisture monitoring equipment, the appropriate application of water and chemicals, the introduction and maintenance of appropriate barriers and the use of predictive data from local and public weather stations. The paradigm shift required is to view dust mitigation as one aspect of normal operational practice, not a ænice to haveÆ or æunnecessary expenseÆ as most operators currently view it. This attitude is becoming more important as more and more local communities oppose the development of mines. One of the reasons for this local opposition is the inevitable dusty environment that is usually associated with mining.Dust mitigation is not a significant expense if correctly designed and included into the system, either as part of the original design of the operation or as a brownfield installation after the fact. Indeed, there is always a loss of revenue associated with dustiness resulting from ore movement and avoiding this goes a long way to paying for any associated dust mitigating costs.CITATION:Visser, J, 2013. Dust mitigation - changing the paradigm, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 27-38 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By K T. Broekman, R L. Koenig

"The Braemar Iron Formation is atypical ore when compared to the current magnetite ores being processed. In attempting to process and economically recover the vast quantities of iron ore stored within the Braemar Iron Formation, æshifting the paradigmÆ is required. The formation has a low Davis tube recovery (DTR) grade of 15 - 20 per cent, which is much lower than magnetite ores processed in Australia. Despite this, by thoroughly testing and understanding the ore characteristics, it is found that the Braemar ores have significant advantages to processing than the harder banded iron formation (BIF) and taconite resources.The Hawsons magnetite iron ore resource has been known from the early 1960s when CRA explored the area. The grade was low and the Pilbara region discovery lead to the development of high-grade direct shipping hematite ores. Carpentaria Exploration (CAP) rediscovered the magnetite whilst undertaking multi-commodity exploration in the Broken Hill district during 2009. Shifting the paradigm away from grade the advantages of processing this ore are achieved by having an extremely low waste to ore ratio, lower Bond work index, lower abrasion levels and high-grade magnetite concentrates with little impurities other than silica. While developing the Hawsons Iron Project (HIP) it became more apparent that a positive business case is achievable when the following factors are exploited: very large resource - the resource is contained within one pit the rock fractures easily along grain boundaries - ideal for cheap impact crushing of the ore the ore is extremely soft, with a Bond work index of 6.3 - 8.0 kWh/t all major infrastructure required is readily available - rail, power, access and port the mine is in close proximity to Broken Hill - rich mining history and skill set available the resource contains many billions of tonnes of magnetite mineralisation.Shifting the paradigm by selecting equipment suitable for processing soft ores and not hard BIF or taconite ores and taking locality and available infrastructure into account may change the way people approach new low-grade resources in future.CITATION:Koenig, R L and Broekman, K T, 2013. Understanding ore characteristics and equipment selection, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013, pp 403-410 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Aug 12, 2013

By M Eggers, H Baxter

This paper discusses the geotechnical condition of bedding shears and small- and large-scale faults and shears in Archean banded iron formation (BIF) bedrock, based on observations of core and televiewer images. Information that can be collected includes the orientation of defects, infill thickness, strength and material type, defect shape and surface roughness.The spacing and continuity of bedding shears may be critical to slope design where performance is structurally controlled with bedding dipping out of a wall. The intensity of development of the bedding shear is a useful indicator of the amount of shearing a bedding surface has been subjected to. This can allow for engineering judgement to be used in adopting peak or residual shear strengths along defect surfaces when developing the design.The spacing and continuity of bedding shears may also contribute to the blockiness and degradation of a rock mass where the structural orientation is otherwise favourable. Additionally the condition, thickness and strength of infill of major fault structures can affect slope design and performance, depending on orientation.Comparison of the condition of structures observed in core with the corresponding in situ televiewer image has been made to assess what characteristics are most accurately captured by each technique and whether the additional information gathered from using the televiewer technique is justified by the cost. The question of whether the data collected by a televiewer is sufficient to ultimately replace the need for core is considered.CITATION:Baxter, H and Eggers, M, 2013. Fault and shear characterisation in archean banded iron formation bedrock - a comparison between core and televiewer data collection techniques, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 47-56 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By E Forbes, G V. Franks

"This study investigates the dual function of a temperature responsive anionic co-polymer of poly (N-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAM) as a selective flocculant/flotation collector. PNIPAM is used for separating hematite from 50:50 mixtures of hematite and quartz, at a variety of particle sizes. The performance of PNIPAM in this system is compared to that of conventional flotation collectors: sodium oleate and sodium dodecyl sulfate. The results of the study demonstrate that anionic PNIPAM used at 50¦C (above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST)) is the most effective flotation collector for hematite particles in the size range between 10 and 20 ¦m. This is attributed to the increased probability of both particle/bubble collision and particle/bubble attachment through the formation of hydrophobic hematite aggregates. Anionic PNIPAM used at 50¦C also produced the highest hematite recoveries for very fine hematite particles (circa 1 ¦m). However this recovery was completely unselective. This lack of selectivity is partially attributed to the activation of quartz particles by PNIPAM, but is thought to mainly occur as a result of entrapment of quartz particles within the matrix of hematite aggregates.CITATION:Forbes, E and Franks, G V, 2013. Selective separation of hematite from quartz by flotation using a temperature responsive polymer, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013, pp 381-390 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Aug 12, 2013

By J E. Everett, F Grobler

This study considers realistic data for a planned open pit iron ore mine, but is applicable to any open pit situation. By interpolating drill hole data, grades are generated for a rectangular block model. Each blockÆs grade designation vector has components for each analyte (chemical element or compound) influencing ore value. Interpolation by means of geostatistical kriging leads to each block being assigned its expected value, and thus underestimates the overall grade variability. Alternatively, interpolation by means of conditional simulation is a method that implements random sampling from an infinite population of solutions. Each conditional simulation has appropriate overall grade variability, but estimating any blockÆs mean and variance requires sampling from multiple conditional simulations. For a block model, an ore/waste selection criterion maximises the expected tonnage at a target grade. This criterion is a linear composite of the grade components, with positive coefficients for the beneficial analyte (iron) and negative coefficients for the deleterious analytes (such as silica, alumina and phosphorus).Although conditional simulation gives the same expected grade as kriging for each block, the expected maximum tonnage of ore selectable at a target grade may differ from that obtainable from the kriged solution. We apply the linear composite selection criterion to each of 25 conditional simulations, as well as to the kriged block model. The resulting distribution of product tonnage is confirmed to have an expected tonnage that is over 20 per cent greater than that of the kriged model. The method also enables a selection probability to be computed for each block, and thus a probabilistic pit boundary distribution to be identified and used in mine planning. Proposed extensions will consider risk-based scheduling of the multiple selection solutions through minimisation of a derived æstress factorÆ and treating the mining process as an iterative system with actual or artificial ædepletionsÆ modelled in line with the mine plan, using the updated state (with new information) to re-evaluate the mine plan for subsequent periods.CITATION:Everett, J E and Grobler, F, 2013. Risk-based ore selection from conditionally simulated block models, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 149-156 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By A Hacket, M Haest, I Vitins

Infrared spectroscopy has the ability to accurately measure mineralogy of drill cores, allowing for better spatial characterisation of iron ore deposits and potentially improving the prediction of key mining and processing parameters at the deposit scale. BHP Billiton Iron Ore is using infrared spectroscopic drill core logging to provide fast and accurate mineralogy for diamond cores and reverse circulation (RC) samples.Mineralogy can be predicted from infrared spectroscopic drill core data with errors on estimates ranging from six to 12 weight per cent. The error on the clay estimates is significantly lower than for hematite and goethite content estimates. This manuscript presents the results from a study on a bedded iron ore deposit, hosted in the Brockman iron formation, for which infrared spectroscopic data were collected on all of the diamond and RC drilling. Results show that these mineralogy estimates improve drill core logs, the geology model and the metallurgical block model.CITATION:Haest, M, Vitins, I and Hacket, A, 2013. Infrared spectroscopic drill core logging - making inroads to deposit scale 3D mineralogy, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 251-258 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By S Hapugoda, J R. Manuel, M J. Peterson, A Poliakov, E Donskoi

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Aug 12, 2013

By G. Eaton

Safety management is an important mortal and business function in construction. Contractors have traditionally tracked and reported lagging indicators, e.g. fatalities and lost-time accident rates, to measure their safety performance and stay in compliance with relevant regulations. Over the last several decades, contractors became more proactive in their approach to safety and developed programs that track leading indicators, e.g. safety audits and safety climate. In particular, safety climate measures workers? perception of safety management and its effectiveness in the workplace. Past literatures indicated that, while some industrial construction contractors ignore safety climate measures, others are limited by a lack of a formal means to measure safety climate. In this study, a survey approach is used to measure an industrial construction contractor?s safety climate through three key areas: management commitment, job control, and general safety climate. As a pilot study, a total of 214 individuals at a fabrication facility participated in the survey to verify the validity and effectiveness of the proposed survey approach. This survey study also confirms that job control and management commitment have a positive correlation and that worker demographics have an effect on respondents? perceptions of management commitment.

Aug 1, 2013

By C Kumar

Scaffolds are temporary structures built to facilitate construction activities on site. A considerable amount of resources are allocated to scaffolding on industrial projects. Variability in geometrical features and space accessibility of structures on industrial projects, in addition to involvement of different trades that share the use of scaffolds, requires an extensive understanding of scaffolding requirements. Hence, it?s important to plan and estimate scaffolding man-hour requirements for the different construction areas on an industrial site. Contributing factors involved in such estimates include the list of trades that work in a construction area, trade working hours, volume of work, geometry of equipment erected, etc. A simulation template for predicting scaffold erection man-hour values for individual construction areas in an industrial project was developed in Simphony 4.0. The template is based on mapping the geometry of equipment and other factors to man-hours of scaffold work. The template facilitates the use of distributions as inputs and produces a range estimate of scaffold man-hours. The mapping is based on a linear regression model derived from existing project data from PCL Industrial Management Inc. The template is being further developed to incorporate the ability to predict scaffold erection schedule and material requirements based on construction work areas or equipment lists of an industrial construction project.

Aug 1, 2013

By R. S. Adhikari

The changes in defects patterns or in element condition index during visual inspection of bridges are primary concerns for inspectors. This paper presents a new approach for change detection of defects in bridges by identifying changes in texture patterns through spectral analysis of digital images. The commonly used method for change detection is image differentiation. This subtraction method requires images to be of same size, scale, and rotation. However, no two images are same in real practices. Thus, image registration is required to align images and to produce change maps. This process is tedious and it is difficult often to achieve a good registered image. But, the change detection task can be readily modeled in frequency domain for texture patterns discrimination and also for quantifying their properties. This paper proposes a novel approach for change detection by transforming digital images into Fourier spectrum. In new coordinate system, 1-D signature functions can be drawn which facilitates easy comparison of textures in different directions. The proposed methodology provides useful tools for comparison of inspection history graphically and quantitatively. In practice, expensive sensors are used to detect subtle change in defect patterns. The proposed method can be used to detect any subtle change in defect patterns using digital images at much lower cost.

Aug 1, 2013

By C. Mawdsley

The Tata Steel mill at Skinningrove in the North East of England produces top hat sections for mineshaft guides in sizes 102 and 150 mm. The top hat section is the technically preferred shaft guide choice for modern deep mine shafts. This paper explores the relative service performance of top hat and square hollow section guides in service. Comparative corrosion performance is reviewed and the paper describes work commissioned by Tata Steel (as Corus) undertaken by Aker Kvaerner Engineering to evaluate relative winding speeds, relative loads and fatigue life in service. The experience of supply to UK Potash mining is discussed and the future view of high capacity hoisting and larger section size market need and availability is assessed.

Aug 1, 2013

By S. Leong

This paper reports on research examining disclosures from mining companies regarding their water usage in the Macquarie and Lachlan catchment areas, both parts of the Murray-Darling Basin in New South Wales, Australia. The objective of the research was to assess whether this disclosure is sufficient to allow communities to determine whether mining companies are complying with mining conditions of consent and abiding by the requirements of their water licencing agreements. These requirements are then compared to the water reporting requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Water Accounting Framework for the Minerals Industry (WAFMI). Communities are concerned about whether the mining industry?s use of water will have impacts on their livelihoods and lifestyle and thus require information concerning the quantity of water that will be extracted, how much water will be left for other stakeholders and whether the mining will affect water quality. This is an archival study. It has involved examining relevant publically available information released by mining companies and government regulators and determining if this is sufficient to meet the needs of the local communities. Additionally, it has involved looking at information indirectly provided by mining companies, via the use of intermediaries. Further, information availability concerning basic water accounting and regulatory breeches and whether such information is available at the mine site level has been considered. It is found that while NSW legislation places very little reporting requirements on mining companies, the development consent conditions for new projects and extensions to existing projects are quite significant and should be sufficient to meet the needs of local catchment residents though such information is not always easily accessible for the layperson.

Aug 1, 2013

By R. E. Bou Serhal

Many miners are exposed to dangerously high levels of noise on a daily basis. Over the past 15 years, a continually increasing number of occupational hearing loss has been reported from the mining community in the United States, of which, more than 95% is attributed to prolonged noise exposure. Although the noise exposure levels may differ between coal miners and metal and non-metal miners, in the absence of noise control at the source, the solution is the same: use of personal hearing protection devices (HPD). While protecting the miners? hearing it is also essential to no longer hinder their ability to communicate. With access to an advanced HPD that is customized to the miners? ears we are able to combine these two requirements. Using an intra-aural instantly custom molded HPD miners are protected from high levels of noise. The HPD is equipped with wireless capabilities, and contains both a speaker and an In-Ear Microphone (IEM). Therefore, the miners? speech may be captured from inside the ear and transmitted to the remote listener. This IEM signal is relatively noise-free since it is isolated from the background noise. The IEM speech signal, however, is ?boomy? and is missing some high frequency content, making fricative consonants hard to understand. Nonetheless, the IEM speech signal is correlated with the natural speech signal and may be manipulated through statistical techniques to more closely resemble natural speech. By improving the intelligibility and quality of the IEM signal, numerous applications may be enabled. One use of the enhanced IEM signal will be for radio communication. Using wireless radio communication in a noisy mining environment is sometimes the only practical and affordable solution to allow communication between miners equipped with personal hearing protection devices. Traditionally, one of the weaknesses of such wireless radio communication lies in the lack of designating receivers: whether they are the intended receiver or not, all those carrying a radio receiver are subjected to the broadcasted signal. The current work will detail a new concept of a "radio-acoustical virtual environment" where the radio signal will only be received by miners within a given spatial range, such range depending on the user?s vocal effort as well as the ambient and perceived background noise levels.

Aug 1, 2013

By A. Grimod

The European Guideline ETAG 027 - 2008 (?Guideline for European Technical Approval of Falling Rock Protection Kits?) defines the procedures to test rock fall barriers. Nowadays, this guideline is essentially the only test and construction framework utilized by manufacturers and it is also starting to enter in the mentality of designer who can clearly specify the performances of rockfall barriers. ETAG 27 (and the related European Technical Approval and the CE marking) represents a milestone for the rockfall barrier market, because it gives the possibility to compare the performances of different fences and it ensures the quality of the certified product. For these reasons ETAG 27 presently constitutes the base for tenders all around the world. Although rockfall barriers are in common use, designers and consultants do not have a clear overview of the real performances and the technological limits of these structures. The first problem can be solved using ETAG 27 criteria, which allow designing rockfall barriers at ultimate and serviceability limit state. Even though ETAG 27 uses crash tests performed with the Service Energy Level (SEL) and Maximum Energy Level (MEL), design with these concepts is not obvious or in common acceptance. Some preliminary questions must be solved. When can these energy levels be correctly applied? In the case of rockfall simulations, what probabilistic approach must be used for the evaluation of the barrier? Unfortunately ETAG 27 does not give any information or tests relating to the technological limits of the fences. Therefore some important questions arise. How do the site specific aspects of installation affect the barrier performance? What is the behaviour of the barriers under extreme conditions? And finally, the main question lies in the background: what is the functional reliability of ETAG 27? All of the above questions require comprehensive answers, which is consistent with the experience of designers, installers and producers. Officine Maccaferri S.p.A., with its 130 year experience in the field of rockfall protection, collected a large number of case histories with barriers impacted by single or multiple blocks, debris flows, and snow avalanches. Throughout these case histories and in accordance with a recent Italian standard code, it has been possible to implement a reasonable design approach that considers the efficiency of the barrier, the uncertainties of the input data, and the fore

Aug 1, 2013

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) has been a world leader in the development of innovative virtual reality technologies over the last 10 to 15 years. These developments have included developing the world?s first 360° surround, virtual reality (VR), stereo projection theatre system known as AVIE (Advanced Visualisation and Interactive Environment), which was developed by iCinema, a collaborative venture between the UNSW Faculties of Engineering and College of Fine Arts. The UNSW School of Mining Engineering has been responsible for development of mining applications virtual reality software modules and to date, has developed eighteen different mine safety training and mining engineering education modules which run in the AVIE environment. This platform and technology package provides a unique ?immersive environment? experience for groups of trainees or students who can engage with the simulated environment in the complete safety of the virtual reality theatre. In all of the major international mining industries, safety is of paramount importance, and training of personnel is an essential component of any comprehensive proactive safety management system. All personnel need to be aware of the inevitable hazards around them at all times, as well as understand appropriate safety and operational procedures. This can be done by conventional class-room style training sessions, or by provision of training documentation. However the effectiveness of such systems is often very limited due to the inability of trainers to engage with the audience for a lengthy period of time; or to convey the often complex and variable mining environments and situations which can exist in a typical mine. The ability to immerse the trainees in a virtual mine environment, with all the reality of an actual mine but with none of the physical exposure to actual hazards, provides a far more effective and engaging training experience. Furthermore, in the virtual world, trainees can be exposed to the very unlikely, but nevertheless high consequence hazards such as mine fires, falls of ground or outbursts, without any risk to their safety and well-being. The end result is that trainees will be far more engaged with the learning environment they find themselves in, and will develop a far higher level of understanding of the topics, rather than simply experiencing a passive class-room style learning environment offered by conventional training modes. The UNSW systems have been implemented widely within the Australian mining industry and the mining engineering education sector and are now being adopted internationally. This paper presents an overview of the innovative technologies involved in these virtual reality systems ? as applied to the mining industry. Modules developed for both mineworker training and mining engineering student learning will be presented, to illustrate the effectiveness and value of such a training and education approach.

Aug 1, 2013

By Nehad Elsafty

It is always necessary to expand existing buildings, so that they could meet the growing societal needs. Compared with demolishing them and then constructing new ones, the expansion of existing buildings could not only reduce project cost, but also save the use of energy and raw materials in projects. Therefore, it is widely adopted in most under-developed countries. However, the expansion of existing buildings is not an easy task. It has been involved with a lot of issues in defining the scope of work, planning landscape, managing construction activities, etc. This paper investigates the potential challenges in expanding existing buildings. The project of expanding the Al-Agoza Hospital, one of the biggest and oldest hospitals in Cairo, Egypt, is selected as a case study. In the case study, the project documents have been carefully reviewed. The project engineers and the health-care professionals working in the hospital have been interviewed. This way, the point of views from the owner, the architect/engineer, and the contractor have been taken into account. Several lessons are learned through the discussion with these people. The results from this paper are expected to provide pieces of useful advice and suggestion for the expansion of existing buildings in the future.

Aug 1, 2013

By F. Bosché

Previous research has shown that ?Scan-vs-BIM? systems are powerful to provide valuable information for tracking structural works (progress, quality, safety). However, the transferability of this capability to other construction areas such as MEP works has not been assessed so far. Comparatively, the construction of MEP systems, in particular pipes and ducts, tends to be more flexible with respect to the positioning of individual components, so that Scan-vs-BIM systems could be defeated when tracking MEP installation works. This paper presents recent results on the feasibility and performance of using a Scan-vs- BIM system to track MEP works. The approach followed is presented and then tested with two real-life challenging case studies were conducted simultaneously but totally independently in Canada and Italy. The results show that, as expected, pipes and ducts tend to be more loosely positioned than structural elements leading to a poorer performance of the Scan-vs-BIM system. Nonetheless, it appears that the system works well to assess the level of conformance of site installation works, providing valuable information for estimating emerging performance metrics like ?percent built as-designed?. In addition, the proposed system could also be useful to accelerate and thus reduce the cost of delivering as-built BIM models for in the case of new builds.

Aug 1, 2013

By S. Aram

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions have been serving as the basis for collaborative product definition, manufacturing, and service management in many industries. They capture and provide access to product and process information and preserve integrity of information throughout the lifecycle of a product. Efficient growth in the role of Building Information Modeling (BIM) can benefit vastly from unifying solutions to acquire, manage and make use of information and processes from various project and enterprise level systems, selectively adapting functionality from PLM systems. However, there are important differences between PLM?s target industries and the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry characteristics that require modification and tailoring of some aspects of current PLM technology. In this study we examine the fundamental PLM functionalities that create synergy with the BIM-enabled AEC industry. We propose a conceptual model for the information flow and integration between BIM and PLM systems. Finally, we explore the differences between the AEC industry and traditional scope of service for PLM solutions.

Aug 1, 2013

By Leslie McHattie

?Intelligent mine? conjures up a futuristic image of unmanned extractors and loaders working in harsh conditions in a remote lunar landscape. The promise of increasing mine fleet productivity and solving the problem labor shortages in mining regions can certainly be achieved today through remote controlled extraction and automated hauling. The technology is available and it doesn?t seem to be so much science fiction when Google?s self-driving cars hurtle down the freeway. ?Intelligent mining,? on the other hand, implies the application of information technology at every phase of the mining value chain, from exploration and geological modeling to equipment, operations and maintenance, and logistics and transportation. These are really industry-specific, enterprise-class software solutions focused on using information technology to support the business processes of mining and make them more efficient and effective. Overlaying the physical world with the digital or virtual world enables us to model and simulate our assets, giving us the ability to effectively design, build, and ultimately optimize the performance and reliability of our assets throughout the lifecycle. The digital asset, often a 3D model, is created initially during the engineering and construction phase, and is handed over to the operator before the mine goes into operation. Combined with geospatial or geographic information systems, the operator has a complete digital representation of the physical world, which forms the foundation for risk and performance management, along with compliance and regulatory reporting. Laser scanning and positioning technology can be used to create point clouds ? information models consisting of millions of data points ? which enable the visualization and representation of the ?as-operated? reality. But consider that once the mine is in operation, it throws off an endless stream of data in the form of performance and condition data from sensors and monitoring devices on fixed and mobile assets through networks, servers, and services. This ?big data? can be processed and analyzed to spot trends, help predict events, and formulate reliability strategies as early as the design stage (e.g., reliability-centered design). ?Intelligent mining? implies that massive amounts of data augment the reality of the physical mine, plant, and equipment. This embedded intelligence can be used to optimize operational efficiency, increase asset availability and utilization, improve safety and environmental integrity, and maximize return on investment. Lastly, the sweet spot for intelligent mining is seen in the convergence of consumerization and industrialization. The application of ?consumer? technologies that we use every day on our iPhones and Android devices, such as cameras, motion sensors, and positioning in an industrial context, are producing ?immersive? experiences. Overlaying the digital world on the physical world and connecting them accurately through intelligent positioning results in ?intelligent infrastructure,? which is safer and more sustainable. Bentley Systems works with many mining companies and engineering, procurement and construction companies involved in all aspects of mining infrastructure development. In fact, 10 of the top 20 mining companies ranked by market capitalization are users of Bentley software, including all of the top five. In addition, Bentley provides software solutions to the world?s leading engineering, procurement, and construction companies, as well as owner-operators, who design, build and operate the world?s infrastructure. Bentley?s solutions for mining and resource extraction industries help increase the efficiency of capital projects associated with the design, procurement, and construction of mines and processing plants, as well as the operation and maintenance of mining fleet and equipment.

Aug 1, 2013