Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
- Ziaeddin Pourkarimi
- Ali Dehghani Ahmadabadi
- Mohammad Noparast
- Seyyed Ziaeddin Shafaei
- Mohammad Reza Soltani
Abstract
Simulation of grinding circuits has being performed from 30 years ago and is also to be more complete and powerful approach with improvement of mathematical models which simulate various processing units/machines. The modeling and simulation of various mineral processing circuits are presently performed. In order to simulate the present grinding circuits of Esfordi Phosphate processing plant, at first the breakage and selection functions of its ball mill’s feed sample were determined. According to obtained results, maximum value of selection function (selectivity of particles to be broken), was measured which was equal to 0.011886 min.-1 for 600 microns size fraction (d80 of ball mill feed at primary design). Then by using NGOTC software and measured residency times of particles in ball mill (average residency time in ball mill) which was 2.07 minutes (maximum time was 20 minutes), the selection function of ore was calculated in industrial scale, and accordingly the effect of using balls with various diameters were estimated. The results of selection function indicated that its maximum value reaches to 2.5238 min.-1, when balls with 25mm diameters to be used in ball mill. Finally by using BMCS software (ball mill circuit simulator), primary design data, and results obtained from various experiments, the circuit simulation was carried out. This procedure yielded optimized values of some required parameters such as size distribution and solid percent of ball mill product, and then the results were compared with current circuit values. However the estimated results and their vicinity to current ones proved the fact of estimation accuracy.
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