ON HIGH-BENCH MINING IN DEEP OPEN-PITS

The paper briely describes the connotation of the topic "highbench mining" (HBM) and its coming out background, and analyses the main grounds of argument for HBM and raises the queries on the rationality and reality of HBM. It is pointed out that dedermination of open-pit bench height is an important component part of open-pit mining optimization and the criterion of optimum bench height determination is maximum positive cash flow in full open-pit mining period. It turns out that high-bench mining method is neither a development trend of deep open-pit mining technology nor a major way to tap the production potential and increase production at present in China. The paper presents the functional relationship between transport work of ore and rock handling and bench height in open-pits.