Expert System for Equipment Selection

Abstract

An expert system was developed for equipment selection for various unit operations in open pit mining. For each unit operation, it considers a wide variety of equipment and ranks them based on their suitability. A major difference between this system and other published expert systems in the considered domain is that it incorporates the uncertainty that is an inherent characteristic of the factors affecting equipment selection. It also allows users to specify the site-specific relative importance of each of the governing factors. This makes the system relatively flexible and allows its adaptation to different mining conditions. The programming features of the expert system include uncertainty databases and object oriented programming. The expert system is validated with a case study (Malanjkhand Copper Mine, India).