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How Do I Use The Site Mass Haul Tools?

  • 1.  How Do I Use The Site Mass Haul Tools?

    Posted 11-16-2018 12:06

    Earlier this week I did a Webinar that was recorded with a customer from Atlanta. They like many other contractors are looking at ways to optimize their Mass Haul Workflows on Site Projects. In the webinar I reviewed a project that I did with a customer relating to initial Bid Quantities and Work Process Planning methodologies using the Site Mass Haul tools for the New Western Sydney Airport in Australia. For any of you out there that are looking at this as the next stage of your development using TBC v5 or earlier to run scenarios on Projects at Bid, Pre Construct or During Operations of Existing projects - I think you may find this helpful.

     

    Funnily I had another customer today asking some more specific questions around this same subject - I guess this must be Mass Haul Week! 

     

    Anyhow - here are also a few extra Tips that I sent the second customer as they want to do the Mass Haul Analysis but also look at Haul Road Design to Minimize Haulage distances, slopes and associated costs. This is a secondary exercise once you have created an optimal Mass Haul Analysis that you think covers the project needs, then you can start to analyze the Haul paths and work to mitigate the haulage costs by optimizing the Vertical Design of the Haul Road or the path of the haul road to minimize distance or slopes.

     

    I will start posting more materials around this over the coming weeks as this is one of the best parts of Business center - HCE / TBC that is totally under utilized by contractors out there - Please post questions and lets get some meaningful dialog going on this subject

     

    Here are the additional Notes on Site Mass Haul

    To summarize an answer to your questions though 
    1) In the Site Mass Haul calculations themselves we only consider 2D Haul Paths and Distances, however you can cost weight different haul paths based on them being predominantly Up or Down hill etc (Cost of haulage is used as a "Weighting Factor" in the optimization calculations - so different haul paths can carry different weights based on their 3D properties if you want to use them as a factor. For the Haul Paths you can create Profiles and then edit the profiles to minimize / maximize slopes etc to get the slopes to the parameters you are working to (Max Slopes Loaded or Unloaded etc.). Once you have a good profile for the haul path, you can apply a Corridor Template to the alignment to create a Cut Fill Model of the haul route to determine the cost of constructing the haul path - as you adjust the haul path (plan or profile) the quantity of Cut and Fill can be updated to determine the new or changed costs of constructing the haul path. I would do that once I have found / determined the correct 2D Hauls that I need using the Mass Haul (That will tell me the Collection costs (Excavating and getting the material from the Cut location to the start of the nearest haul road / haul road collector) and the Dispersion Costs (the cost of dispersing the Material in the Fill from the end of the Haul Road to where the material is required. Note that when you define your Haul; Roads (I would use the Site Mass Haul Method for this work) - you may want to add "Collector Haul Roads to the main haul road to minimize the Collection and Dispersion Costs and compute as much of the Mass Haul as a Haulage cost as possible.
    2) The Mass Haul computation requires that "Zones" be defined. These are polygonal areas (can be rectangles or any shape of polygon), around the zones of Cut and Fill that you want to Analyze. In its simplest form, the Cut can be one zone and the Fill a second zone. If you have to Borrow or Waste materials then you can add those as Earthworks Sites. If you dont know how much Borrow or Waste you will have - set the capacities of the Waste or Borrow sites to be huge - when you run the Analysis you will then see how much you will consume from or at each location and you can dial back the available volumes at the sites to fit in with what you are working with. 
    3) When you define Costs - remember that the software is trying to determine the cheapest cost for moving the material that you are asking it to handle. If you don't know your costs that is OK - just use Cost as a "Weighting Factor" - ie if you want to use On Site Material in preference to Borrowing Material from Offsite - put your Unit Cost of Borrow high 0 that way it will be used as a last resort only. If you want to use material from location A in preference to B or vice versa for Waste - then set your cost of your preference lower and the other at a higher price. The larger the difference the more likely the software will choose the lower priced option. Remember also that total cost is a factor - the Collection, Haulage, Dispersal, Waste and Borrow Costs all play a factor.
    4) From the Cut (Landfill) to your Dump (Fill location) you can define the Fill as a Waste Site (if you are just hauling material to it and not building a Design there, or you can include the Existing and Design of the Fill area to the Existing and Landfill Design in the Cut Area to the same model and compute a single Cut Fill Map on which to base your Mass Haul.
    5) Draw in your haul road(s) from the Landfill to the Fill / Waste location along the desired path - note that when you use the "Haul Road" method of computation, the haul road needs to pick up from each Cut Zone you Define and deposit in each fill zone you define - you may need small connector haul roads coming off the main trunk haul road to feed multiple zones if you define multiple zones at each end of the haul path. Also if you are spreading material into several areas at the Fill end - then you should likely add a haul road from the trunk to those areas so you minimize dispersal costs from a single central location. Same for the Cut Areas.
    6) When you run the Mass Haul - the switch that allows the Free Flow / Use of Haul Roads only is important *see the video)  - in this case you want to use the Haul Roads only and not let the system free flow materials - but remember that there has to be a Haul Road in and out of each of the zones you define or between the zones where you want to move material between - otherwise the Zone Boundaries act as a Barrier to hold material in zone (Cut to Fill and then leave an Excess or Deficit in Zone that you need to work out how you want to handle it.
    The video shows you a number of tricks that I use - if you have Phases 0 the trick is to make sure that there is no link between Phase 1 and 2 (no free flow and no Haul Road Connection - then each phase will compute within itself. You can also run Phase 1 and Phase 2 as two separate Mass hauls if you want to.
    I am happy to guide you if you need help as you get started - I can set up a Share Drive with you so you can share the Project and I am happy to look at the project to offer advice - we can also do a Webinar to go over the details if you need help or assistance.
    Let me know - I am here to help
    Here is the Video (Excuse the croaky voice in places - you guys wore me out at Dimensions .....)
    Happy Mass Hauling
    Alan