Modelling and prediction of copper concentration of a grinding process

Abstract

The mathematical model of a grinding process in copper concentrator is presented. With the aid of a dynamic model and a Kalman filter the copper concentration of the output of this process is predicted. The process includes ball mill, autogenous mill and separator. The autogenous mill is working as a secondary grinding mill for the underflow coming from the classifier. To obtain the mathematical model of grinding process several practical tests including screen analysis, puls and impulse tests, were performed. It has been shown that the dynamics of one ball mill can be described with two perfect mixers and plug flow in series and the autogenous mill with two perfect mixers in series. A linear matrix vector model has been used in a Kalman filter for estimating the copper concentration in the input flow of the flotation process.