Decision Making on the Ocean Floor: A simulation framework to assess uncertainty and variability in Deep Sea Mining

Decision Making on the Ocean Floor: A simulation framework to assess uncertainty and variability in Deep Sea Mining

Wambeke, T.

Benndorf, J. (mentor)
Alvarez Grima, M. (mentor)
Hicks, M. (mentor)
Vervoort, A. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Geoscience & Engineering

Resource engineering

2013-03-22

As land resources decrease, commodity prices increase and technology evolves, deep sea mining is becoming a viable and sustainable alternative to meet the increasing demand for minerals. Successful deep sea mining operations are built on a sound identification of the resource, proper selection of equipment, a thoughtful production plan and good project management. These four key activities can be further optimized by analyzing how the spatial variability and uncertainty of the ore body properties impact the final mining operation. To address this problem, IHC Merwede and TUDelft are in the process of developing a risk quantification framework, which makes use of state of the art geostatistical simulation methods and transfer functions to quantify geological uncertainty and translate it into decision or project risk. The contribution of this master thesis is twofold. First, it offers a new methodological procedure to simulate realizations of the spatial deposit v ariability, in order to characterize risk and uncertainty. The Local Average Subdivision method (LAS) is introduced into mining geostatistics and new extensions are presented to (a) simulate under a nested spherical structure, (b) deal with not normally distributed data, and (c) incorporate point measurements of geotechnical and ore grade properties. Due to its computational efficiency, the presented method is suitable for simulating largely extended sea floor deposits on a scale of the Smallest Mineable Unit (SMU). Secondly, the research illustrates, through several example case studies, the significant benefits of a risk based approach. The geological uncertainty is propagated through the entire mining operation, and as such translated into financial or operational performance indicators. In particular, the focus is on assessing financial project risk and on the design optimization of the deep sea extraction equipment by analyzing cutting forces, specific energies and power requirements.

deep sea mining
geostatistical simulation
local average subdivision
risk based decision making

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b7f03eab-a046-4717-bfa5-f40eb917c87d

2013-03-23

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Wambeke, T.