Abstract
The capital and operating costs of mineral processing circuits are high. In order to reduce them to a minimum consistent with desired metallurgical performance, the design engineer must be able to predict accurately the metallurgical performance of every circuit which is to be considered for final design, relate performance to costs, and make a choice for detailed design based on these data.
Techniques currently used for design cannot predict accurately the total performance of a circuit whereas simulation techniques are suitable for this purpose provided that the unit models are valid. It is for this reason that simulation is such an important design tool. The requirements for accurate simulation are:
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valid mathematical models of each unit in the circuit,
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experimental data which can be used for the calculation of the parameters for use in the models.
The simulation of mineral processing circuits has been a popular subject for research for many years and considerable progress has been made. Size reduction circuits containing crushers, vibrating screens, rod mills, ball mills and hydrocyclones, can be modelled accurately, and accurate predictions of circuit performance at different operating conditions can be made based on laboratory or plant data. Consequently, simulation is a valuable aid in the design of these circuits. An example is given of the use of simulation for this purpose.
Progress is not as well advanced with the modelling of other units in mineral processing circuits and a brief review is given of the status of these models.
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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Lynch, A.J., Narayanan, S.S. (1986). Simulation - The Design Tool for the Future. In: Wills, B.A., Barley, R.W. (eds) Mineral Processing at a Crossroads. NATO ASI Series, vol 117. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4476-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4476-3_4
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