Material flow analysis is commonly required in mining methods were the rock has to move from its initial position to the extraction point, commonly known as gravity flow. This happens in mining methods such as sublevel caving, panel caving, block caving. During this process the ore is diluted with waste from the walls of the cave column or waste sitting on top of the ore. It is essential for the mining design to assess the degree of dilution for different draw strategies to minimise the waste extraction and optimise the ore recovery. Stochastic methods have proved to be a good alternative for this type of assessment.
