Abstract
Metallurgical testwork plays a key role in the design and development of mineral processing facilities in the mining industry, at all stages of project development. Samples are often selected for metallurgical testwork from existing drill core following drilling, assaying, and completion of geological testwork. Sample accessibility within the core shack, storage quality for older samples, and the quantity of material remaining (half and quarter cores) play a role in whether the samples can be used for metallurgical testwork. Geological and metallurgical activities and requirements are often considered independently, potentially resulting in a suboptimal use of core samples. Commercial software available for metallurgical sample selection does not consider the availability and accessibility constraints of core samples when they determine which samples should be used for testwork. Through collaboration between mining, geology, and mineral processing / metallurgy, a new mathematical programming method for metallurgical sample selection was developed to address these issues.