Abstract
Stockpiling ore within a storage facility located between the mine and the concentrator can help damp production fluctuations originating from either the mining operation or the ore processing operation. To increase ore production rates, additional equipment is often installed within concentrators and mines. However, ore storage facilities may create bottlenecks in the production chain, if they are not properly redesigned. This paper proposes a mine-to-mill simulation method to determine the limitations of existing ore storage facilities and help their resizing in a context of production expansion. The modeling method combines three simulators to evaluate the production losses attributed to ore storage facilities: (1) a dynamic simulator of the 2D distribution of a storage facility filling profile, (2) a dynamic logistic model to simulate mine production and (3) a Monte Carlo simulator to emulate mine and concentrator equipment downtimes. The resulting overall simulator is able to provide answers to a very practical and critical industrial question: is an existing ore storage facility capable of handling increases in the production rate? Results of an application of this simulation technique to an iron ore processing plant helped reorient the plant expansion prefeasibility studies.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.