Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Multiobjective optimization of an industrial grinding operation using

elitist nondominated sorting genetic algorithm
Kishalay Mitraa; , Ravi Gopinathb
a Manufacturing

b Manufacturing

Practice, Tata Consultancy Services, 54 B Hadapsar Industrial Estate, Pune 411 013, India
Practice, Tata Consultancy Services, Air India Building 11th Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, India
Received 6 May 2003; received in revised form 15 July 2003; accepted 10 September 2003

Abstract
The elitist version of nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA II) has been adapted to optimize the industrial grinding operation
of a lead-zinc ore bene5ciation plant. Two objective functions have been identi5ed in this study: (i) throughput of the grinding operation
is maximized to maximize productivity and (ii) percent passing of one of the most important size fractions is maximized to ensure smooth
8otation operation following the grinding circuit. Simultaneously, it is also ensured that the grinding product meets all other quality
requirements, to ensure least possible disturbance in the following 8otation circuit, by keeping two other size classes and percent solid of
the grinding product and recirculation load of the grinding circuit within the user speci5ed bounds (constraints). Three decision variables
used in this study are the solid ore 8owrate and two water 8owrates at two sumps, primary and secondary, each of them present in each
of the two stage classi5cation units. Nondominating (equally competitive) optimal solutions (Pareto sets) have been found out due to
con8icting requirements between the two objectives without violating any of the constraints considered for this problem. Constraints are
handled using a technique based on tournament selection operator of genetic algorithm which makes the process get rid of arbitrary tuning
requirement of penalty parameters appearing in the popular penalty function based approaches for handling constraints. One of the Pareto
points, along with some more higher level information, can be used as set points for the previously mentioned two objectives for optimal
control of the grinding circuit. Implementation of the proposed technology shows huge industrial bene5ts.
? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Dynamic simulation; Mathematical modeling; Multiobjective optimization; Genetic algorithm; Pareto set

1. Introduction
Grinding is one of the very important unit operations in
most of the mineral processing plants. Since grinding is a
very energy intensive process, modeling and thereby optimization of grinding operation of industrial scale has been a
continuous endeavor of the scientists and engineers. Though
modeling of grinding circuit has attained a reasonable state
of robustness (Herbst and Fuerstenau, 1973; Lynch and Rao,
1975; Herbst et al., 1983; Kinneberg and Herbst, 1984;
Rajamani and Herbst, 1984, 1991a), work on several aspects of optimization and control is yet to reach the similar
state of maturity (Lapidus and Luss, 1967; Bryson and Ho,
1969; Birch, 1972; Herbst and Rajamani, 1979; Rajamani
and Herbst, 1991b). Recently, a successful implementation
of modeling and control of an industrial leadzinc grinding

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-20-4042468; fax: +91-20-4042399.

E-mail address: kishalaymitra@iitb.ac.in (K. Mitra).

0009-2509/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ces.2003.09.036

operation has been executed by the group of the authors.

The proposed control strategy is based on model predictive
control (MPC) in conjunction with on-line solution of the
process models for grinding operations (Momaya et al.,
2003). The on-line models used in the grinding circuits provide continuous feedback for better quality control of the
grinding circuit outputs. This is an important component of
the overall solution given the lack of on-line sensors for
measurement of quality parameters. The problems posed by
the processes make an MPC application a suitable candidate.
MPC solves an explicit optimization problem of maximizing throughput of the circuit keeping other key performance
indices (KPIs) within user speci5ed bounds. Other than
circuit throughput, two other important KPIs are recirculation load of the circuit and percentage passing of midsize
fraction. Characteristically, with increase in throughput,
both the recirculation load and percentage passing of midsize fraction decreases. The above-mentioned throughput
vs. recirculation load relationship is desired since reduction

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K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

in recirculation load saves energy. But the relationship of

throughput vs. percentage passing of midsize fraction is not
desired since that is detrimental for the consistent quality
product 8owing to the following 8otation operation. Maximization of these two contradictory aspects frames the
platform for multiobjective optimization problem (MOOP).
In the 5eld of traditional optimization, the less robust Pontryagin principle is often recommended for handling MOOPs
and enough literature is found on application of the same
(Chankong and Haimes, 1983; Ray, 1989). Unfortunately,
this kind of traditional optimization technique requires an
excellent initial guess of the optimal solutions, and the results and the rate of convergence of the solution are very
sensitive to these guesses. For complex systems, quite often, the search space becomes very narrow and one has to
provide the initial guess within that narrow region which
means one must almost know the optimal solution that one
is trying to obtain. In recent years, an extremely robust technique, genetic algorithm (GA) (Holland, 1965; Goldberg,
1989; Deb, 1995, 2001a), and its adaptations for more useful but complex multiobjective optimization problems, have
become popular. Unlike conventional methods, these methods work with a bunch of initial guesses, called population
and generally have the capability of 5nding the global optimum in presence of several local optima. Simultaneously
this algorithm is superior to traditional optimization algorithms in many aspects (Deb 2001a; Bhaskar et al., 2000b;
Nandasana et al., 2003).
In case of multiobjective optimization, instead of obtaining a unique optimal solution, a set of equally good (nondominating) optimal solutions is usually obtained (Pareto
sets). More precisely, within a Pareto set, when one moves
from any one point to another, one objective function improves while the other deteriorates. In absence of any other
high level additional information, a decision maker normally cannot choose any one of these nondominant optimal
solutions since all of them are equally competitive and
none of them can dominate each other. In case of traditional algorithms, multiobjective optimization problems are
usually solved using a single objective function, which is a
weighted-average of the several objectives. Unfortunately,
the solution obtained by this process depends largely on
the values assigned to the weighting factors used. This
approach does not provide a dense spread of the Pareto
points. Among several methods (goal attainment method,
j-constraint method, versions of nondominated sorting
genetic algorithm) available to solve multiobjective optimization problems, nondominated sorting genetic algorithm
II (NSGA II), developed by Deb et al. (Deb, 2001a,b; Deb
et al., 2002), is used here to obtain the Pareto set. Use of
penalty function is a very popular way of handling constraints. But tuning of the penalty parameter appearing in
the penalty function is very time consuming and normally
performed on the basis of trial and error. Unless tuned
properly, one may get misdirected totally in the search
space. NSGA II, along with a tournament selection based

constraint-handling technique, developed by Deb (2000),

allows one to get rid of the above stated problem of penalty
function.
Nondominated sorting based techniques have several
advantages over other techniques: (a) the spread of the
Pareto set is excellent, (b) a single simulation run can
obtain the entire Pareto set and (c) can handle problems
with discrete search spaces. NSGA based techniques have
been used to solve a wide variety of multiobjective optimization problems in chemical engineering in recent
years, as for example, an industrial nylon-6 semibatch
reactor (Mitra et al., 1998), a wiped-5lm polyester reactor (Bhaskar et al., 2000a), a steam reformer (Rajesh
et al., 2000), a hydrogen plant (Rajesh et al., 2001), a venturi scrubber (Ravi et al., 2002), a FCC unit (Kasat et al.,
2002) etc.
The industrial process handled here is a two step process.
Pulverization of the ore to 5nely ground particles in wet
grinding mills is done in order to liberate the valuables,
namely lead and zinc from its associated gangue. The ground
particles are then selectively 8oated in 8otation cells for
individual recovery of Lead and Zinc. The grinding circuit
has
one rod mill in open circuit operation,
one ball mill in closed circuit operation and
a two-stage classi5cation unit (one hydrocyclone for primary classi5cation and two hydrocyclones in parallel for
the secondary classi5cation).
The ore from the mine is crushed in the crushing unit and
is sent to storage 5ne ore bin. Fresh ore feed from the 5ne
ore bin along with water is fed to the rod mill. The rod mill
discharge slurry is mixed with the ball mill discharge slurry
in a sump known as the primary sump. Water is added to the
primary sump to reduce the pulp density. The slurry from
the primary sump is fed to primary cyclone, the primary
classi5cation unit. The over8ow from the primary cyclone
goes to secondary sump, where water is added to lower pulp
density further. The mixed slurry from the secondary sump
is fed to secondary cyclones. The under8ow product from
both primary and secondary cyclones is fed to the ball mill.
The over8ow from the secondary cyclone is the 5nal product
from the grinding circuit and goes to 8otation circuit as feed
(see Fig. 1).

2. Formulation
The grinding circuit is modeled 5rst. Each of the unit
operations, in this case they are rodmill, ballmill, hydrocyclones and sumps, are modeled separately and a connectivity
matrix, expressed in terms of 1 and 0, connects all of them
to simulate the whole circuit. In case of mill and sump operations, population-balance equations for solids and water
streams are considered. Each of the size class is tracked by

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

C1

Ore
Feed

C2

387

Final
Product

Water

Ball
Mill

Rod
Mill

Water

Water
Secondary
Sump

Primary
Sump

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of industrial grinding circuit.

considering population balance equation for each of them.

Once solids and water streams are predicted separately,
prediction of slurry properties of the combined stream, volumetric 8owrate, percentage solids etc. becomes relatively
easy. Selection functions used in milling operations for different size classes are to follow the nth order kinetics where
n needs to be determined from the industrial data. Mill operations are found to behave like over8owing sumps whereas
sump levels are to be found out on the basis of characteristics
of the pump kept at sump outlets. Hydrocyclones are modeled using the empirical equations provided by Lynch and
Rao (1975). All these equations of the dynamic modeling of
grinding circuit developed by the authors are consolidated
together and presented in Appendix A. This set of ordinary
diIerential equations is solved using well-tested public domain software, called DASSL (Petzold, 1983). This code
solves a system of diIerential/algebraic equations of the
form using a combination of backward diIerentiation formula (BDF) methods and a choice of two linear system solution methods: direct (dense or band) or Krylov (iterative).
The model is tuned with the data collected from the grinding circuit under steady state conditions. This process is
an optimization exercise in itself where parameters appearing in various unit models become the decision variables
and the objective function is the error between the industrial data and model predicted values at various locations of
the grinding circuit where samples are taken under steady
state conditions. Other mass balance equations are treated
as constraints. This exercise provides the parameters of the
grinding circuit that helps the model to behave like the closest possible mimic of the industrial grinding circuit. Grindability, selection indices for ballmill and rodmill (A and 
in (A.40) in Appendix A) and nine parameters appearing
in the hydrocyclone d50 and bypass fraction equation (K1
to K9 (A.27) and (A.29) in Appendix A) are the parameters to be found out by this parameter estimation procedure.
If observed correctly, the input to the grinding circuit that
can be changed online are solid ore 8owrate (MRM ), water 8owrates to primary (WPS ) and secondary (WSS ) sumps.

Other than this, there are several other locations where 5xed
amount of water is added to maintain smooth 8ow of slurry
within the circuit. These points are ballmill input (WBMF ) as
well as discharge (WBMD ) and rodmill input (WRMF ) as well
as discharge (WRMD ). These latter 8owrates are never manipulated whereas the former ones are manipulated to meet
the grinding product quality. The properties of the product
that draws attention of the grinding circuit performance are
throughput (TP ), size analysis (percentage passing of three
size classes namely coarse (PC ), mid (PM ) and 5ne (PF )
size classes), percentage of solids (PS ). Another very important parameter that is to be kept within speci5ed bound
is recirculation load (RL ). The model can predict all slurry
properties in any of the streams of the circuit given in Fig. 1
in steady state as well as dynamic mode.
The complete MOOP solved is, thus, written as follows:
MaxI [I1 ; I2 ]T
I1 = T P
I2 = P M
Subject to (s.t.):
PCL 6 PC 6 PCU
PFL 6 PF 6 PFU ;
PSL 6 PS 6 PSU ;
RLL 6 RL 6 RU
L:
All equations (Appendix A)
Decision variable bounds
L
U
6 MRM 6 MRM
;
MRM
L
U
WPS
6 WPS 6 WPS
;
L
U
WSS
6 WSS 6 WSS
;

where superscript L and U denote the lower and upper

bounds of the above mentioned grinding circuit variables.

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K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

The two objective functions used here are con8icting in nature and so it is likely that a Pareto set of nondominating
optimal solutions is obtained. The binary version of nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) which
is an adaptation of the simple genetic algorithm suited for
multiobjective optimization problems, is used to solve the
problem de5ned above. Details of this method are available
in the literature (Deb, 2001a,b).
3. Results and discussions
The model is 5rst tested for its validity. As the decision
variables considered here are three and each one of them
has upper and lower bounds, all possible combinations (23 )
among these three decision variable bounds are considered.
Now for these eight operating conditions, data are collected
from industry and simulations are also run. The comparison
between the simulations and data for all these eight cases
is presented in Fig. 2. This shows the validity as well as
the sensitivity of the model over the whole operating region
considered. The cases considered are denoted as the bounds
for the decision variables used (e.g. case (a) L-L-H means
the simulation of lower bounds for decision variable 1 and
2 and upper bound on decision variable 3). The eight cases
considered are: (a) L-L-H (b) L-H-L (c) L-L-L (d) L-H-H
(e) H-L-H (f) H-H-L (g) H-L-L (h) H-H-H.
The Pareto optimal points were obtained for the problem considered. The spread obtained in the front was very
dense. The 5nal Pareto front was quite diIerent from the best
nondominated front obtained in the initial population. This
means better fronts were evolved as generations progressed.
The elitist approach of considering both parent and child
population for selecting the better candidates for the mating
pool was found to work very well. This was supported by
the fact that subsequent generations didnot allow better 5tted chromosomes to get lost in the crowd due to the randomness involved in the selection operation of GA. Crowding
metric helped to maintain diversity in the Pareto front.
Starting with some randomly selected candidate solutions
in the zeroth generation, NSGA II was observed to take
about twenty-5ve generations to converge to the Pareto set.
After convergence, it was found to maintain the same points
in the Pareto fronts over any number of generations. The
nondominated fronts found in the zero as well as generation
number twenty 5ve, for normalized objective functions, are
given in Fig. 3. The number of distinct Pareto points found is
of the order of half of the number of populations considered
in a generation as rest of the points are basically multiple
copies of existing ones.
After formation of Pareto set, one can choose an operating point from this set using his or her intuition or some
higher level information related to requirement of the process. In the present case, the concerned industry used to
cater a varied set of needs of its clients. In case of some
clients, the quality was allowed to be compromised a little

bit, where maximization of throughput was given more

preference (points towards higher values of throughput
were of more interest) in comparison with some other cases,
where there was a very strict requirement on quality (points
towards higher values of midsize percentage passing were
of more interest). In this way, an operating point is chosen,
in the present case, among the extreme end points on the
Pareto set depending on the requirement of the existing
clients.
Another very important observation, from the point of
view of development of new future MOOP techniques, is the
existing trend among the decision variables for the points
present in the 5nal Pareto front. Here, the decision variable
values for the 5nal Pareto points are almost at the either
end (higher end for WPS and lower end for WSS ) of the decision variable bounds. This is happening as we are maximizing the percentage passing of midsize that can be only
achieved by performing coarse grinding in the primary cyclone i.e. by increasing the primary sump water 8owrates.
But we have other constraints to be tackled at the secondary
cyclone over8ow stream (5nal product). The Pareto solutions meet those requirements by performing 5ner grinding
at the secondary cyclone i.e. by decreasing the secondary
sump water 8owrates. Till now, for most of the multi objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) for MOOPs, actions
are taken in the decision variable space and the results get
re8ected in the objective space. If the relationship between
these two can be established, better algorithms using these
features can result. Even this kind of cause and eIect relationship that came out of the MOOP study, can work as
plant operating rules and help an operator to run the grinding circuit in a more eIective manner.
The initial population is changed by changing the decision
variable bounds and the same Pareto is emerged from it. The
spread of the Pareto was de5nitely diIerent in diIerent cases
of decision variable bounds used. The authors, therefore,
claim to obtain the global Pareto for the case presented
here. The formulation presented here was found superior to
the weight based formulation of objectives, where numbers
of objectives are added using weights and a single objective
optimization problem (SOOP) is solved and Pareto is generated out of it by changing various values of weights used.
In case of weight based formulation, the Pareto points are
found towards both the end of the global Pareto. Though
the identi5cation of the global Pareto was achieved by the
weight-based methods, obtaining spread across the Pareto
front was severely compromised. The MOOP problem is
also solved by converting the same into a SOOP (solved
using simple GA), where one of the objectives (percentage passing of midsize in this case) is treated as constraint.
In this case also, the global Pareto is identi5ed but the
spread across the Pareto is sacri5ced (much better than the
weight based approach). Even 5nding the global Pareto
was found to be dependent on the length of the string used
for representing the decision variables. Adapting an incorrect, though hard to know the correct one apriori and has

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K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

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Fig. 2. Validation of model within the range considered.

to be set by trial and error, string length leads to premature

convergence to a local Pareto. The superiority of NSGA
II over the other two techniques as mentioned above is further strengthened by the fact that NSGA II 5nds the global
Pareto in a single simulation run, as compared to multiple
simulation runs in the case of other approaches.

Each of the points in the Pareto set has diIerent sets of

decision variable values. As the throughput is increased,
maximization of the twin objectives is achieved by increasing the primary sump water 8owrate to a relatively higher
value and decreasing the secondary sump water 8owrate
to a relatively lower value. This recommends coarse

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K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

1.1

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1.05
1
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Generation 0
Generation 25

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Fig. 3. Random points created by NSGA II in generation 0 and the Pareto

points found in generation 25 and maintained through next generations.

classi5cation in the primary hydrocyclone and 5ne classi5cation in the secondary hydrocyclone. Three points are
identi5ed on the global Pareto front e.g. 5rst at the maximum value of TP , second at the minimum value of TP
and the third at the in between (average) the previous two.
Circuit behavior (cumulative size classi5cation plots) at all
the prime locations of the grinding circuit are presented in
Figs. 4 (maximum TP ), 5 (minimum TP ) and 6 (average
TP ). These locations are (a) rodmill discharge, (b) ballmill
discharge, (c) primary cyclone over8ow, (d) secondary
cyclone over8ow, (e) primary cyclone under8ow, (f) secondary cyclone under8ow, (g) mill discharge sump and
(h) secondary cyclone discharge sump. These 5gures show
that classi5cation becomes coarser as one moves from lowest
TP to highest TP in the global Pareto set. Any kind of
desired results that happens to be in between these three
cases (maximum TP , minimum TP and average TP ) can
be obtained from the other points present in the global
Pareto set. The biggest advantage of this kind of MOOP
formulation exercise is this provides a wide range on feasible solutions where from a user can choose the best one of
his or her choice.
The NSGA II parameters used to obtain the Pareto set
for the present study are as follows: Population size=80,
number of decision variables=3, string length for each decision variables=20, maximum number of generations=50,
crossover probability=0.9 and mutation probability=0.001.
The eIect of varying several GA parameters on the Pareto
solution was studied next. If the number of population is decreased from 80 to 50, without changing any other parameters, all the points generated randomly in the 5rst generation
were coincidentally nondominating in nature. As the population number decreases, convergence of initially generated

inferior fronts to Pareto set front was relatively faster (requirement of less number of generations for convergence)
but the spread of the Pareto set obtained was relatively poor.
Increase in the value of string length does not provide better
fronts. The eIect of varying the value of crossover probability, from 0.9 to 0.7, again led to no signi5cant changes in
the optimal solutions though number of generations taken to
converge to the 5nal Pareto was more (in case of 0.7) than
earlier (in case of 0.9). The eIect of a change in the value of
mutation probability, from 0.001 to 0.01, neither aIect the
spread as well as number of points nor imparts any improvement in the Pareto set. The variation of string length also
did not provide any better fronts, but if the string length is
decreased, the number and thereby the spread of the Pareto
fronts becomes relatively less dense. Once Pareto front is
achieved, any increase in maximum number of generations
successfully maintains the diversity in the Pareto front from
generation to generation.
This kind of MOOP formulation can be put into MPC
framework to provide more meaningful solution for controlling the process. The Pareto points can be used as a tool
for decision making and providing meaningful setpoints to
the grinding control problem solved by MPC (described
in the introduction). By solving the MOOP formulation,
a user can have multiple feasible solutions. It is not to be
forgotten that by solving SOOP formulation of MPC, one
can have only one solution at a time. Even the quality of
solution supplied by MOOP formulation of MPC is better
than that of SOOP formulation of MPC. Many solutions
that appear as unattainable or infeasible (for SOOP formulation of MPC) become feasible when MPC solves the
MOOP formulation. A rule based decision making system
(based on process experience) can be put one layer above
MPC based (MOOP formulation) supervisory controller to
decide which solution (out of several solutions provided in
the global Pareto front) to download to the process as set
point.
The proposed MOOP formulation when coupled with
MPC framework and implemented in the plant conditions,
the direct bene5ts are more in terms of signi5cant improvement in throughput (an increase of the order of 25%)
without compromising the product quality much. There has
been a remarkable improvement in zinc recovery (an increase of nearly 3% against an initial estimate of 1%) after
the installation of the controller compared to the prior state.
It is important to note that this increase in recovery has been
achieved without aIecting the product grade. This increase
in recovery impacted the return on investment hugely and
brought that down from 1.5 years (calculated initially with
an target improvement of zinc recovery of 1%) to little less
than half a year. The indirect bene5ts of the same on the
plant operating system are listed below:
A sustained increase in current throughput levels, besides
consistently meeting grinding circuit quality requirements vis-Qa-vis product size distribution and percentage

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K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

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Fig. 4. Cumulative distribution curve for normalized size for various streams ((a) rodmill discharge, (b) ballmill discharge, (c) primary cyclone over8ow,
(d) secondary cyclone over8ow, (e) primary cyclone under8ow, (f) secondary cyclone under8ow, (g) mill discharge sump and (h) secondary cyclone
discharge sump) in the grinding circuit for maximum throughput condition in Pareto set.

solids ratio. This itself bears a strong positive in8uence

in appreciably increasing the overall productivity of the
plant including individual recoveries of Lead and Zinc.
The operating regime can be smoothly transferred
from one operating point to the other (manually

extremely diRcult and time consuming) without affecting any key process variables. The controller
smoothly executes the step change given to the
process by keeping all other key process variables
unchanged.

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

1

0.9

0.9

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

Cumulative Distribution

392

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

0.2

0.6

0.8

0.4
0.3

1.2

1
0.9

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

0.6

0.8

1.2

(d)
1
0.9

0.8

0.8

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

(e)

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.2

1.2

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

(f)
1
0.9

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

0.6

0.8

1.2

0.8

0.4
0.3

0.1

Normalized Size

0.6

0.5

0.2

0.4

0.4

0.6

0.1
0.2

0.2

0.7

0.2

Normalized Size

0.9

(g)

0.2

0.1
0

Normalized Size

Normalized Size

0.6

1.2

0.3

0.9

0.7

0.4

0.1

Normalized Size

0.8

0.5

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.6

0.1
0.2

0.4

0.7

0.2

0.2

Normalized Size

0.9

(c)

(b)

Cumulative Distribution

Cumulative Distribution

0.4

Normalized Size

Cumulative Distribution

0.5

0.1
0

(a)

Cumulative Distribution

0.6

0.2

0.1
0

0.7

(h)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Normalized Size

Fig. 5. Cumulative distribution curve for normalized size for various streams ((a) rodmill discharge, (b) ballmill discharge, (c) primary cyclone over8ow,
(d) secondary cyclone over8ow, (e) primary cyclone under8ow, (f) secondary cyclone under8ow, (g) mill discharge sump (h) secondary cyclone
discharge sump) in the grinding circuit for minimum throughput condition in Pareto set.

Reduction in the recirculation load that is an indirect

measure of energy consumption in the grinding circuit
by 70%.
Variations in one of the key process variables can
be observed by looking at the behavior of sump

levels
These
troller
totally
OFF.

with grinding controller putting ON and OFF.

sump levels are completely steady with Conputting online whereas the same levels were
manually uncontrollable when the controller is

0.9

0.9

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

Cumulative Distribution

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Normalized Size

0.4
0.3

1
0.9

0.8

0.8

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

(c)

0.8

1.2

1.2

1.2

1.2

0.5
0.4
0.3

0.1
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

(d)

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

0.6

0.8

1.2

0.3

(f)
1
0.9

0.8

0.8

Cumulative Distribution

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Normalized Size

0.9

0.7

0.8

0.4

0.1

Normalized Size

0.6

0.5

0.2

0.4

0.4

0.6

0.1
0.2

0.2

0.7

0.2

Normalized Size

0.9

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

0.1

(g)

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.7

0.9

(e)

0.2

0.2

Normalized Size

Normalized Size

0.9

0.1

Cumulative Distribution

0.5

(b)

0.2

Cumulative Distribution

0.6

0.1
0

Cumulative Distribution

Cumulative Distribution

(a)

0.7

0.2

0.1
0

393

0.1
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Normalized Size

(h)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Normalized Size

Fig. 6. Cumulative distribution curve for normalized size for various streams ((a) rodmill discharge, (b) ballmill discharge, (c) primary cyclone over8ow,
(d) secondary cyclone over8ow, (e) primary cyclone under8ow, (f) secondary cyclone under8ow, (g) mill discharge sump (h) secondary cyclone
discharge sump) in the grinding circuit for average throughput condition in Pareto set.

The grinding controller keeps all the size fractions

under the speci5ed control limits and supplies a uniform product size distribution for the 8otation process
downstream.

4. Conclusions
A MOOP is solved for an industrial leadzinc grinding operation. One objective function considered is to

394

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

maximize the grinding product throughput whereas the

second objective function considered is to maximize the
percentage passing of the midsize. These two objectives,
during simulation studies as well as in industrial operations,
are found to contradict each other i.e. increase in throughput
decreases the percentage passing of midsize and vice versa.
This forms the ideal case of framing the MOOP. In addition, constraints on two other size classes, percent solids
and recirculation load of the grinding circuit are used to ensure that there is no degradation of the product quality that
the grinding operation delivering to the following 8otation
circuit. Three decision variables optimized in this study are
the solid ore 8owrate and two water 8owrates at two sumps
(primary and secondary). Pareto points are found out by
a genetic algorithm based optimization technique namely
NSGA II. The quality (mainly the spread) of the Pareto
front found out by this procedure simply outperforms the
procedure of SOOP formulation for MOOP using weighted
average approach or using constraint based approach. The
Pareto points, thus found, is used as a tool for decision making while providing meaningful setpoints to the grinding
circuit control problem solved by an advanced process control algorithm e.g. MPC. The direct industrial bene5ts are so
huge that the return on investment was reduced to little less
than half a year from one and half years calculated initially.
Notation
C
d(i)
F
H , H (i)
I1
I2
I
m(i)
M
MRM
L
U
MRM
, MRM
PC
PCL , PCU
PF
PFL , PFU
PM
L
U
PM
, PM
PS
PSL , PSU

solids per unit volume (slurry)

size (in microns) of ith size class
mass fraction of solids in slurry
solids holdup, solids holdup in ith size class
objective function 1 for the multiobjective
optimization problem
objective function 2 for the multiobjective
optimization problem
objective function vector for the multi objective optimization problem
mass fraction of ith size class in a stream
mass 8owrate (solids)
solid mass 8owrate for rodmill
upper and lower bounds for hroughput to the
grinding circuit
percentage passing for the coarse size class
upper and lower bounds for percentage passing for the coarse size class
percentage passing for the 5ne size class
upper and lower bounds for percentage passing for the 5ne size class
percentage passing for the mid size class
upper and lower bounds for percentage passing for the mid size class
percent solids of the 5nal ground product
upper and lower bounds for percentage solids
of the 5nal ground product


w
Q
RL
RLL , RU
L

ore density
water density
volume 8owrate (slurry)
recirculation load of the grinding circuit
upper and lower bounds for recirculation load
of the grinding circuit
grinding circuit product throughput
slurry volume
volume 8owrate (water)
water 8owrate at ball mill discharge
water 8owrate at ball mill feed
water 8owrate at primary cyclone
upper and lower bounds for water 8owrate at
primary sump
water 8owrate at rodmill discharge
water 8owrate at rodmill feed
water 8owrate at secondary cyclone
upper and lower bounds for water 8owrate at
secondary sump

TP
V
W
WBMD
WBMF
WPS
L
U
WPS
, WPS
WRMD
WRMF
WSS
L
U
WSS
, WSS
Subscripts
6
m
mf
mp
of
s
sf
sp
uf

fresh feed to the unit

mill
mill feed (ore + recycle)
mill product
over8ow of a unit
sump
sump feed
sump product
under8ow of a unit

Appendix A
A.1. Rod mill equations
Mmf = M6

mill feed solids 8owrate;

Qmf = (Mmf =) + W6

Cmf = (Mmf =Qmf )

mill feed slurry density;

dHm =dt = Mmf Mmp

Qmp = Qmf

solids balance over mill;

mill product slurry 8owrate;

Cmp = Mmp =Qmp

Hm = Cmp Vm

mill feed slurry 8owrate;

mill product slurry density;

mill solids holdup;

mmf (i) = Muf muf (i)=Mmf

ith size in feed:

(A.1)
(A.2)
(A.3)
(A.4)
(A.5)
(A.6)
(A.7)

mass fraction of
(A.8)

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

Individual size balance over mill

A.4. Cyclone equations

dHm (i)=dt = Mmf mmf (i) Mmp mmp (i) S(i)Hm mmp (i)
+

i1

b(i; j)S(j)Hm mmp (j):

395

(A.9)

Wsp = Qsp (Msp =)

water in sump product;

F = Msp =(Msp + w Wsp )

mass fraction of solids;

(A.26)

j=1

Rf = ((K1 nc Ds + K2 nc )=Wsp ) + K3

A.2. Ball mill equations

Mmf =

Muf muf (i)

bypass fraction;

mill feed solids 8owrate;

Qmf = (Mmf =) + Wuf

Cmf = (Mmf =Qmf )

Qmp = Qmf

mill feed slurry density;

solids balance over mill;

mill product slurry 8owrate;

Cmp = Mmp =Qmp

Hm = Cmp Vm

(A.10)

mill feed slurry 8owrate; (A.11)

dHm =dt = Mmf Mmp

mill product slurry density;

mill solids holdup;

mmf (i) = Muf muf (i)=Mmf

(A.13)

Wuf = Rf Wsp

(A.16)

(A.17)

water in under8ow

+ K8 (Qsp =nc ) + K9

(i) = 1:0 exp{0:693 (d(i)=d50 )n };

theoretical eRciency for ith size

1:5725
SI is the cyclone sharpness index
ln(SI )
E(i) = (i)(1:0 Rf ) + Rf corrected eRciency for
ith size:

(A.31)

A.5. Product and recirculation

dHm (i)=dt = Mmf mmf (i) Mmp mmp (i) S(i)Hm mmp (i)

muf (i) = Msp msp (i)E(i)=Muf

b(i; j)S(j)Hm mmp (j):

(A.18)

where A0 is the cross sectional area of the sump outlet and

K is a constant to account for pump characteristics.
dh=dt = (Qmf + Wmf Qmf )=A
sump level dynamics;

Hs = Csp Vs

under8ow solids;

(A.32)

fraction in ith size in under8ow;

(A.33)


Mof =
Msp msp (i)[1:0 E(i)] over8ow solids;

mof (i) = Msp msp (i)[1:0 E(i)]=Muf

Qsp = A0 K (2gh) sump product volume 8owrate; (A.19)

Csp = Msp =Qsp

Msp msp (i)E(i)

(A.34)

A.3. Sump equations

dHs =dt = Mmp Msp

(A.30)

n=

Muf =

j=1

hydrocyclone d50;
(A.29)

Individual size balance over mill

(A.28)

log (d50) = K4 Dvf + K5 Dsp + K6 Din + K7 F

(A.14)
(A.15)

(A.27)

where nc is number of hydrocyclones in parallel.

(A.12)

mass fraction of

ith size in feed:

i1

(A.25)

(A.20)

solids balance over sump; (A.21)

sump product slurry density;

sump solids holdups:

(A.22)
(A.23)

CL = (M6 + Muf )=M6

circuit circulating load:

(A.24)

(A.35)
(A.36)

A.6. Special terms

Vm = Vmill (*b *v *s + [*c *b ]*v )
mill slurry volume (constant in over8ow mills);
Vmill = mill volume (+r 2 L);
*b = fraction of mill volume occupied by balls
(including voidage);
*v = bed voidage;

Individual size balance over sump

dHs (i)=dt = Mmp mmp (i) Msp msp (i):

fraction in ith size in over8ow;

*s = fraction of voidage occupied by slurry;

396

K. Mitra, R. Gopinath / Chemical Engineering Science 59 (2004) 385 396

*c = fraction of mill volume occupied by total charge;

(balls + coarse slurry);

(A.37)

Vs = Sh Sw Sl slurry volume in sump;

Sh = height of slurry in sump
(fraction 5lling depth);
Sw = width of sump;
Sl = length of sump;

(A.38)

b(i; j) = B(i; j) B(i + 1; j)

breakage function matrix

(A.39)

B(i; j) are elements of a lower triangular Toeplitz matrix

with 5rst column B(i; 1)
B(i; 1) = /(d(i 1)=d(1))0 + [1:0 /](d(i 1)=d(1))1
B(1; 1) = 1:0
/; 0; 1 are ore speci5c breakage parameters (constant)
S(i) = A d(i)

selection function for ith size

(A.40)

A is the ore grindability index.  = A n, where n = 0:15 to

0:25, typically for most circuits.
Mill power can be computed from standard models for
mill power.
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