Determination of Truck–Shovel Configuration of Open-Pit Mine: A Simulation Method Based on Mathematical Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents a method based on the simulation model to verify the candidate scheme obtained by the mathematical model, to determine the optimal truck-shovel configuration scheme. This paper is well structured and informative, with latest references and addresses a field problem in a practical manner. However, the following comments are provided to the authors for improvement of the manuscript:

1. Please elaborate the efforts of this paper to reduce the influence of random factors in truck-shovel system.

2.Overall the paper is written in an understandable manner, however, there are many typos, lack of content and some repetitive parts e.g.

（1） Line 32，Reuse “multiple”.

（2） Line 120, The outstanding advantage of Flexsim is that. -> The outstanding advantages of Flexsim are that.

（3） The second paragraph of Section 3 and Section 3 (5) repeat the description of function settings.

（4） The captions of figure4,6,8,10 have many repetitive parts.

（5） The subtitle (1) appears in line 536, but there is no corresponding subtitle content in this article.

3. Captions of images are not very meaningful e.g. Figure15 is not related to the original text and the text “Second Best Candidate” at the bottom is hard to understand. The number below bars of this figure refers to unknown.

4. Writing of section 3 should be improved. The content of this chapter is to establish the simulation model in Flexsim, however, this part has no hierarchical relationship, and the logic is not very clear, so it is difficult to grasp the key points that the author expects to express.

5. Authors need to clearly describe the application prospect of this method e.g. How is the universality of the simulation model and how to apply it to other mines.

 

 

Author Response

Please see attachment file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors!

Your article is well structured, theme is more than interesting, and your simulation is highly accurate in simulating the real situation. There are some areas in your article that should be improved:

-          Line 148 - 151: you are stating the results data that will be calculate later but this is the introduction and there are no means of verify your data at this point so this should not be stated here

-          Line 152 - 160: the contribution of this paper will be more suited in the conclusion section

-          Line 161 – 166: you are explaining the structure of the article what is not needed since the reader wants data and not the structure of the article

-          Line 564: Figure 15 is not referenced in the article

-          Line 570: Table 6 is referenced in the article in line 576, but it should be referenced before it is shown. In this way there is no introduction to the table

-          Line 572: Table 7 is referenced in the article in line 582, but it should be referenced before it is shown. In this way there is no introduction to the table

-          Line 598: the summary section should be rewritten so that it is conclusion or removed in full. For instance, from line 583 to 597 and 609 to 641 you are stating conclusion.

-          Line 599 – 609: summary is not adding no value to the article

Best regards.

Author Response

Please see attachment file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript deals with research in the field of modeling the transportation of extracted raw materials in an open-pit mine with the aim of reducing costs.

Comments:

Paragraph 116 – 132 – describes the program used. However, its content is more reminiscent of a business description. It would be appropriate to supplement this section with other programs that are used for modeling and in the field of mining mineral resources with references to the literature.

Was the simulation model based on a real existing surface mine? If the model was based on a real existing / planned surface mine, it is necessary to supplement this part with basic mining parameters.

Does the optimization concern the loading of raw materials on vehicles or the movement of vehicles along a prescribed route?

When creating the model, did you consider detailed data about the route (slope, load capacity, speed) and also the vehicles used?

The manuscript lacks verification of simulated data with practical outputs in real operation.

Author Response

Please see attachment file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

We thank the authors for elaborating the answers and supplementing the article.