Russian State Geological Prospecting University named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze (Moscow, Russia):

Anistratov Yu. I., Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, e-mail: prof_anistratov@rambler.ru
Goryunov F. A., Post-graduate Student

One of the most important tasks in the open pit projecting practice is the choice of the best opening scheme of open pit field. Both direct economic indices and physical criteria are used during the evaluation of efficiency of various schemes. Physical criteria often include the amount of capital mining operations; the run time of transport facilities; and energy intensity of the process of transportation of rock mass from open pit faces to the posts of its final unloading on the surface.
Nowadays, the calculation of versions of opening schemes and their comparison between each other are realized by one of the foregoing criteria, which a priori is considered as priority. According to this criterion, the preference is given to the best scheme. Thereby, the complex approach is not suitable for the solution of this project task. It is obvious, that the most productive solution will be the estimation of all considered opening schemes by certain general criterion. This criterion is called cumulative in this article. It is calculated in the dimensionless form. There is given the analytic form of the presented criterion. Mechanism of re-calculation of dimensional values (particular criteria) into dimensionless values is described. This article also explains the procedure of calculation of cumulative criterion.