FlowSim ® Gravity Flow Simulator

What isFlowSim BC®?
FlowSim BC© is a gravity Flow simulator used to rapidly and reliably estimate mine reserves for
block and panel caving.

FlowSim BC© advantages:

• Intuitive platform with technical support at competitive cost.
• High reliability, calibrated through experiments and validated in operations as El Teniente,
  Cadia East, Proyecto Mina Chuquicamata Subterráneo and El Salvador.
• FlowSim BC© can:
  • Simulate extracted tonnage by plan.
  • Simulate extracted grades.
  • Simulate dilution entry/fine migration.
  • Simulate the expected caving propagation (cave back as input).
  • Simulate preferential flow.
  • Incorporates tracking tools like smart markers and cave trackers.
  • Identify drawpoints to close according to mineral grade and dilution percentage.
  • Calculate remanent ore.
• Fast simulations (compared to similar tools on the market)

FlowSim BC is a numerical tool to simulate the gravity flow of caved rock using the cellular automata (CA) approach, it permits:

• Support for mine design and mine planning

– Simulates extracted tonnes and grades assigned by a plan
– Determinate the PED
– Simulate cavities interactions
– Close drawpoints if its 3 last grades samples are lower than grade of cutoff
– Changes drawbell designs

• Estimate remaining mineral (grades and tonnes)
• Asses the caving monitoring control system
• Save tracer’s position at every time

FlowSim BC mechanisms:

• Caving propagation (cave shapes)
• Internal Rilling (broken mineral flows trough air gaps) and Superficial Rilling
• Fines migration
• Preferential Flow (RF controls propagation direction).
• Fragmentation changes in height

These mechanisms had been validated through research using:

• Back analysis techniques from historical data from caving mines
• Scaled physical model experiments
• Industrial scale experiments using tracers
• Numerical model simulations (DEM)