Optimized design of drilling and blasting operations in open pit mines under technical and economic uncertainties by system dynamic modelling

Drilling and blasting are the two most significant operations in open pit mines that play a crucial role in downstream stages. While previous research has focused on optimizing these operations as two separate parts or merely in a specific parameter, this paper proposes a system dynamic model (SDM) for drilling and blasting operations as an interactive system. In addition, some technical and economic uncertainties such as rock density, uniaxial compressive strength, bit life and operating costs are considered in this system to evaluate the different optimization results. For this purpose, Vensim simulation software is utilized as a powerful dynamic tool for both modelling and optimizing under deterministic and uncertain conditions. It is concluded that an integrated optimization as opposed to the deterministic approach can be efficiently achieved. This however is dependent on the parameters that are considered as uncertainties. Keywords: Drilling and blasting, Uncertainties, System dynamic modelling, Optimization, Vensi