Abstract
In this work, the implementation and use of a metallurgical simulator for a flotation plant, including rougher-cleaner-scavenger, RCS, is presented. The simulator can be fed by the user with input operating and metallurgical variables generated off line or in a hybrid manner. In the last case, the operating variables of all circuits are read from instrumentation installed in the pilot plants and combined with virtual variables, generated by the user, to run the metallurgical simulator in order to predict the characteristics of each virtual stream. The pilot plant is located at the Process Control Laboratory and includes a three pneumatic cells rougher circuit, a flotation column and a two pneumatic cell scavenger circuit. The regrinding and classification stages are simulated by using models based on literature.An expert control system is built in order to find out best operating points, in the sense of metallurgical results, mainly Cu global recovery and specified characteristics of the final concentrate. The expert system administrates the set points of the controllers of the operating variables of the plant (froth depths and air flow rates). The control strategy maximizes the rougher Cu recovery subject to the condition that the produced rougher concentrate can be adequately processed in the cleaner, regrinding, classification and scavenger circuits. To achieve this, the quality of the rougher concentrate (Cu grade over a given value and solid mass flow rate under a given value) is monitored jointly with the degree of saturation of manipulated variables in the rest of the circuits, the quality of the final concentrate and the recovery of the scavenger circuit. The result is to find out how to operate the whole plant to obtain both a final concentrate meeting specifications and the maximum Cu global recovery of the plant. Several examples are discussed. Copyright © 2017 IF AC.
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