In block caving mines, the gravity flow of caved (broken) ore controls the amount of valuable material recovered and the extent to which it is diluted by caved waste rock. In addition, it also dictates the spacing, and thus the number of drawpoint required, which has a large impact on capital requirements for development of the mine. However, despite the large amount of research that has been carried out in the gravity flow field, 3D simulations of ore recovery and waste rock dilution can still not be done with confidence for conditions in a specific mine. Some mathematical models, in form of computer programs, have been developed. However these remain unvalidated due to the lack of validating data. It would be best to obtain this data from full scale tests. However experience has shown full scale tests to be very expensive, extremely time consuming and often the results from these tests have not yielded results that could be used effectively for the development of generally valid modelling approaches. Therefore, physical modelling remains as the only reliable way to do this task. It is the objective of this paper to describe the best method of physical modelling in order to produce reliable results which could be used to improve block caving mine design and validate mathematical models.
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