Abstract
Ferronickel is mainly produced by the RKEF (Rotary Kiln Electric Furnace) process. The ore is extracted, crushed and dried before calcination. Rotary kilns are usually about 100 m long and rotate to facilitate material flow. Due to this length, in addition to rotation speed, the material takes a variable time to cross the whole kiln, and thereby changing the chemical and temperature profile, making the control of calcine temperature a great challenge. However, statistical analysis are a great tool for finding interesting patterns that are of valuable help to control the kiln variables, that are very sensitive to inertia caused by rotation and changes in temperature profile. We present a study based on real data taken from a processing plant, whereby we applied data mining techniques to extract information on which variables have influence on kiln’s key performance index variables, such as calcine temperature.
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© 2017 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
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Soares, F.M. et al. (2017). Applied Statistical Analysis on the Calcination Process in the Ferronickel Production. In: Allanore, A., Lambotte, G., Lee, J. (eds) Materials Processing Fundamentals 2017 . The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51580-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51580-9_2
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