THE COPPERBELT UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF MINES AND MINERAL SCIENCES

METALLURGY DEPARTMENT

INTRODUCTION TO EXTRACTIVE METALLURGY

REPORT TITLE: DRY SCREENING PROCESS AT
LUMWANA MINE

PROGRAM : BENG METALLURGY II

LECTURER : MR.L. KABONDO
DUE DATE : 7th APRIL, 2020
 Lumwana Mining Company – Processing Department
DRY MATERIAL SCREENING: LABORATORY PARTICLE SIZE ANALYSIS
LUMWANA MINE PROCESS PLANT
Screening or volumetric sizing is a method of sizing crushed or ground ore by shaking them
on a suitable separating surfaces .The material that passes through the (screen opening) of a
particular screen is known as the undersize and material that remains on the screen is the
oversize .

Sizing or Screening of known weight of the sample material by passing successively through
the sieve to determine the percentage weight in each size fraction using a laboratory sieve
shaker.

BELOW SHOWS THE SCREENING OPERATION PROCEDURE FOR DRY SUB SIEVE ANALYSIS
AT LUMWANA MINE

1. Cut a slurry sample for product screening.

2. Filter the sample and dry in the drying oven
3. Weigh the dried sample and wash weighed sample with water over the smallest sieve size to
disaggregate it.

1|Page
 4. The plus (coarse) fraction of the sample is called “sand” and the minus fraction of the sample
is called “slime”.
5. Filter and dry the coarse sample.
6. Clean the screens of the sieves carefully. Do not touch the screen with your finger. Use a soft
bristle brush to gently wipe the screen.
7. Nest the screen in order, coarsest at the top, pan on the bottom.
8. Pour the dried coarse sample onto the top sieve and shake gently by hand.
9. Place the stack of sieves on the sieve shaker machine. Place the cover on the stack.
10. Run the sieve shaker machine for 15 - 20 minutes. Close the cover of the sieve shaker during
shaking.
11. Make sure the sieve shaker stops completely before removing the stack of sieves from it.
12. Start from the top sieve, remove the fraction of sample by turning the sieve face down on
top of a weighing pan and brush the screen gently.
13. Weigh and record the weight of each fraction on each sieve.
14. Report the weights of coarse fractions and the fines weight.
15. Enter the weights into an Excel spread sheet to calculate size distribution and the P 80, 80%
passing size in microns.
CRITICAL PARAMETERS USED
PARAMETERS STANDARD PARAMETERS AT THE TIME SAMPLE WAS TAKEN
PARAMETERS
CLUSTER 1 CLUSTER 2

Feed rate 350tph 3621tph 3621tph

Cyclone pressure 100-120kpa 129kpa 129kpa
Operating cyclone 8 cyclones per cluster 9 cyclones 8 cyclones

% solids slurry 35-38% solids 37% 36%

P80(Percentage
passing) 350 micron 399
405

FULL SCREEN ANALYSIS FOR SIZE DISTRIBUTION FOR ROUGHER FEED TRAIN 1 & 2 - 7 OCTOBER 2015

Train 1
Screen size (µ) 1000 850 500 400 300 250 180 150 125 75 45
-45 Total
Mass retained (g) 0.0 0.0 120.8 77.7 148.4 90.6 155.9 70.8 75.9
111.5 51.2 97.2 1000.00
Retained (%) 0.00 0.00 12.08 7.77 14.84 9.06 15.59 7.08 7.59 11.15

2|Page
 5.12 9.72 100.00
Cumm. Passing (%) 100.00 100.00 87.92 80.15 65.31 56.25 40.66 33.58 25.99
14.84 9.72

Train 2
Screen size (µ) 1000 850 500 400 300 250 180 150 125 75 45
-45 Total
Mass retained (g) 0.0 0.0 124.1 85.4 150.4 103.5 171.5 67.5 93.4
103.1 43.6 68.5 1011.00
Retained (%) 0.00 0.00 12.27 8.45 14.88 10.24 16.96 6.68 9.24 10.20
4.31 6.78 100.00
Cumm. Passing (%) 100.00 100.00 87.73 79.28 64.40 54.16 37.20 30.52 21.29
11.09 6.7

Microns
400

300
100
6.74
  14.69
  98.99
P80
 

Microns
400
300
100
6.72
15.60
104.85
P80

3|Page
The feed rate at the time sample was taken to be 3621tph against target of 3500tph which led to the
difference of 121tph above the target .And for the cyclone pressure 129kpa was on both clusters
which was 9kpa above the target .Thereafter 9 cyclones were operating on cluster 1 and 8 cyclone
on cluster 2,the slurry %solids was 37% on cluster 1 and 36% on cluster 2 against target of range 35-
38%.lastly the percentage passing (P80) was recorded to be 399microns for cluster 1 and 405microns
for cluster 2 which were both above the 350micron standard .

From the screen analysis results shown above it can be concluded that the grind size for the slurry
sample taken at that particular time was very coarse at 399 and 405 micron for cluster 1 and 2
respectively .Despite the parameters being with acceptable ranges the ie .feed rate ,cyclone
pressure ,operating cyclones ,%solid slurry and the P80 .
However the coarse grind could only be attributed to the parameters from operations prior to the
cyclone classification these could have been.
-ore hardness
-Mill ball charge level
-mill weight
-Mill power draw

4|Page