CONFERENCIA ESPECIALIZADA

I.S.T. SILESIANOS

APLICACIÓN DE TECNICAS
AVANZADAS EN EL ESTUDIOS
DE CONTROL DE LA MOLIENDA
DE BOLAS EN YACIMIENTOS
MINEROS

ING. JUAN TISZA

FIEM – UTP

20 OCTUBRE 2010
OVERVIEW

LA MOLIENDA DE BOLAS Y SU IMPORTANCIA EN LA MINERIA

LA IDENTIFICACION DEL PROCESO

EL CONTROL PREDICTIVO

CONCLUSIONES
LA MOLIENDA DE BOLAS Y SU IMPORTANCIA EN LA MINERIA

EL CIRCUITO DE MOLIENDA TIENE COMO OBJETIVO LA DE PROCESAR Y REFINAR LA

GRANULARIDAD DEL MINERAL TRITURADO

EL TAMAÑO DEL GRANO SE CARACTERIZA POR SER DE UNA DIMENSIÓN QUE DEBE
SER ESTÁNDAR EN LOS PROCESADOS DE MINERAL COMO LA FLOTACIÓN

LA FLOTACIÓN ES UN PROCESO QUÍMICO QUE GARANTIZA UN TAMAÑO ÓPTIMO

DEL GRANO MINERAL
CIRCUITO DE MOLIENDA EN UNA PLANTA MINERA
OUTPUTS DE CUATRO
VARIABLES:
TAMAÑO DE LA PARTICULA
SUMP LEVEL
CARGA CIRCULANTE
OUTPUTS DE CUATRO
VARIABLES:
TAMAÑO DE LA PARTICULA
SUMP LEVEL
CARGA CIRCULANTE
Model Predictive Control

Objetivo: seguir la trayectoria a

través de un setpoint
IMPLEMENTACION EN UNA PLANTA REAL QUE PROCESA COBRE EN CHINA
CONCLUSIONES

-IMPORTANCIA DE REALIZAR UN CONTROL ROBUSTO EN ASENTAMIENTOS MINEROS

- IMPORTANCIA DE MANTENER ESTABLE EL TAMAÑO DEL GRANO MINERAL PARA

FACILITAR SU PROCESADO EN POSTERIORES ETAPAS

- IMPORTANCIA DE LOLS FORMALISMO MATEMATICOS MODERNOS QUE

CONTEMPLAN LA TRANSFORMADA DE LAPLACE
 MODELING OF THE MINERAL PARTICLE-SIZE
EVOLUTION THROUGH STOCHASTIC INPUT
SIGNALS IN A BALLS MILL GRINDING CIRCUIT
JUAN TISZA-CONTRERAS

HUBER NIETO-CHAUPIS

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE
INGENIERÍA (UNI)
ded 
UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA DEL
PERU (UTP)

IEEE CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOGOTÁ COLOMBIA

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

Eng. Juan F. Tisza C.

He is an Electronics Engineer and co-author of

this work.
Contribution to this investigation has been mainly
in the process control and engineering
considerations of the ball mill grinding circuit.

ded

Dr. Huber Nieto-Chaupis

He is a nuclear physic and co-author of this work.

Contribution to this investigation has been mainly
in the mathematical modeling

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

ded

UNI (Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería) is the main academic institution

on Engineering based at Lima and its major during last years has been
focused on branches of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. UNI has
played a notable role in preparing highest proffesionals in Perú.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

ded

UTP (Universidad Tecnológica del Perú) is a young institution becoming a

center of innovation and strong research in engineering and liberal arts. Is
well suited in local ranking and its intensive invest in R&D led to
12/07/21 consolidate in a robust institution
UTP -by
UNI promising tech and sciences to Perú.
16
 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

OUTLINE

 INTRODUCTION
 DESCRIPTION THE PROCESS
 DETERMINATION OF THE PROBLEM
ded
 PRESENTATION THE FORMALISM
 RESULTS COMPARATIVE OF THE
SIMULATIONS
 SUMMARY

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
I. Introduction
the ade

It is well known the crucial role of the mineral

activities as part of the development of a country
in several ways. Even though it is clear its
enormous impact on the economy and the
prospects of growing in future.
Recently, it has been paid attention
ded
on the so-called ball mill grinding circuits
because their role in the mineral plants. As
reported in the adequate functionality of a
grinding circuit might optimize the reduction
of unnecessary costs.
Most of the applied methodologies in the studies
of automation aimed to improve the functionality
of the circuit have used control schemes
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
such as those traditional techniques
like PID controllers.
In such studies a special attention has been
paid on the particle size variable due to the
fact that exist a direct relation between the
value of the particle size and the recovery of
minerals in final instances.
ded Recent studies have faced the problem of
identifying the whole system through multiple
inputs and multiple outputs since the
complexity of the system as manifested in the
evidence of the existence of several variables.
It actually constitutes one of the main
disadvantages of the ball mill grinding circuit
so that both nonlinearity and complex nature
should be taken into account its studies.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG An important point which has not been stress enough
at the past is related to the dynamic of the variables.
While the output variables have a clear dependence of
the input ones as described well by the relation with
the Laplace variable.. In this report, We preset a
mathematical model where we are contemplating
terms of interaction of variables in a ball mill grinding
circuit.
The fact that these terms could be the source of
spontaneous fluctuations is discussed.
ded

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

II.- BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS

THERE ARE 3 MAIN STAGES AT

ORE MINERAL PROCESSING AT
CONCENTRATOR PLANT IN THE
ded MINING COMPANY

 CRUSHING
GRINDING
FLOTATION

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
OVERVIEW OF THE PROCESS THE MINERAL

ded

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

BALL MILL GRINDING STAGE

ded

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG III.- DETERMINATION OF THE PROBLEM
THE MORE IMPORTANT OUTPUT VARIABLE IN THE
GRINDING STAGE IS PARTICLE SIZE, THEREFORE THE
TESTING OF MODEL WE ARE PRESENTING IS GIVEN IN
RELATION WITH THIS VARIABLE, WHICH IS INFLUENCED
BY THE FRESH ORE FEED RATE, THE MILL FEED WATER
FLOW RATE AND DILUTION WATER, AS WELL AS THE
INTERACTIONS AMONG THEM DURING THE DYNAMICS OF
THE CIRCUIT.
ded FLUCTUATIONS ON THESE VARIABLES AND THEIR
ASSOCIATED INTERACTIONS MIGHT DEGRADE NOTABLY
THE PARTICLE SIZE. WE PRETEND FOCUS ON THE EFFECT
OF THE COUPLINGS OF VARIABLES FOR A SYSTEM
CONTAINING 3 INPUTS AND 3 OUTPUTS.
THEN IS INDICATED THAT INTERACTION COULD BE
DEFINED BY A STOCHASTIC FUNCTION SINCE NOT ANY
INFORMATION OF DETERMINISTIC NATURE IS KNOWN.
THUS, SIMULATIONS CORRESPONDING TO THIS CASE ARE
PERFORMED AND COMPARED TO THE CASE WHERE THE
SYSTEM IS FREE OF INTERACTIONS.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

THEREFORE WE GOING TO PRESENT BASICS

CONCEPTS ABOUT THE METHODOLOGY
MATHEMATICAL AND THE SIMULATIONS.

RELEVANT COMPARISONS ARE DISCUSSED AND

EVALUATED IN ORDER TO ASSESS THE PROSPECTS
BY USING THIS FORMALISM IN ORDER TO USE FOR
ded FURTHER CONTROL SYSTEMS.

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM

PROCESSING

ANALYSIS
EXPORTATION
ded ORE EXTRACTION

RECOVERY

TRADE-OFF

TREATMENT

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG We focus on the problem of the
identification of the evolution of
the mineral particle-size after of
processing in a balls mill
grinding circuit.

WHY?

We believed firmly that a good

estimate of the modeling would
go a better control even in those
cases where several I/O are
involved.
ded

Motivated by the work of Xi-song Chen et.al

Min. Eng, 20, 1099–1108 (2007) this
research attemps to model the evolution of
the particle-size by including new concepts
based on stochastic formulations.

Because the presence of several I/O

variables, it is almost impossible to assume
that the system would consist in a
dynamics fully deterministic. The presence
of many variables and their interactions
would insert some mechanisms purely
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stochastic.
 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG DILEMMA: HAS OR DO NOT
In virtue of its complexity and operativity, a balls mill grinding circuit can be viewed under two
scenarios: one which contemplates no any interaction among the ones entering to the mill, and
the second one which contains interactions at least of one output and the corresponding inputs.
In this analysis, we shall go through the case where only one output do interact to the input ones.

The system DO NOT

contains interactions

ded

The system DO contains

interactions

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG THE SYSTEM AND DYNAMICS

INPUT OUTPUT
MINERAL ORE PARTICLE-SIZE
WATER SUMP LEVEL
DILUTION WATER CIRCULATING LOAD

The starting point consists in writting the well-known master equation

ded Y ( s)  G( s) X ( s)

Therefore for a 3X3 MIMO system, the complete dynamics can be

written as:

 RP ( s)  G11 ( s ) G12 ( s ) G13 ( s )   RM ( s )

 C ( s )   G ( s ) G ( s ) G ( s )  R ( s ) 
 C   21 22 23  A 
 S M ( s ) G31 ( s ) G32 ( s) G33 ( s )   RD ( s ) 
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY
The linearity of system is dictated by the transfer function which is
featured in having a well-defined delay. It is traduced in the functionality
of the circuit which runs in according to the feed of the mill.

e bs
G(s)  b = delay
(d  us) d,u = systems’s constants

CIRCUL. PARTICLE
ded ORE WATER LOAD
SUMP INTERACTION
SIZE

5 min 6 min 10 min 20 min 50 min 60 min

It’s crucial for simulations ends: charge/hour, water flow, delays between
the pass of material (one-to-one), max. volumen in mill, diluted water
flow, full cycle time, water/ore rate in mill.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
The variable of interest: the particle-size can be modeled at the s domain
by containing up to three input variables

RP ( s )  H11 ( s ) RM ( s)  H12 ( s ) RA ( s)  H13 ( s ) RD ( s )

In the time-domain, one can to write down the evolution through integral
equations:
t t
ded RP (t )   g11 ( ) RM (t   )d   g12 ( ) RA (t   )d
0 0
t
  g13 ( ) RD (t   )d
0

The transfer functions are actually unknown and their description on the
time domain is better understood by means smooth polynomials:

g ij ( )  11 ( )   2  2 ( )  1 2 ( )  ...

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
It is usual to define the transfer function as a finite sum of the products
between the system coefficients and their respective polynomials

N (i, j )
g ij ( )   ij  q ( )
 q

q 1

This step led us to define a set of functions featuring the system and
depending upon the morphology of the polynomials
t
ded
Fijq (t )    q ( )RM (t   )d
0

The particle-size can be represented in a much more compact form as

being lineal on the coefficients

M (1,1) M (1, 2 ) M (1, 3)

RP (t )   q Fq (t ) 
C
q
11 11
 q Fq (t ) 
C
q
12 12
 q Fq (t )
C
q
13 13

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
The manner as written before satisfies the fundamental relation only when
the system obeys a lineal regime

3 M (i , j ) 3
Yi (t )    q q
C ij
X ij
(t )   C ij
X ij
(t )
j 1 q 1 j 1

Reflexions:
ded
- It’s actually the ball mills grinding circuit a linear system?

- What are the variables which are not defined in all?

- How to measure the coupling of interactions if any?

- Are the interactions relevant to describe the phenomenology?

- For what the inclusion of interactions in analysis would serve?

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
In fact, there is interaction for the case:

-The circulating load goes again to the

mill thereby interacting to the mineral ore
and/or water.

- Therefore, up to three new “pseudo-

inputs” should be considered in a full
description of phenomenon.
ded
- We argue the following: if interactions
are applied to analysis, then all of them
should be of stochastic nature.

RP ( s )  H11 ( s ) RM ( s )  H12 ( s ) RA ( s )  H13 ( s ) RD ( s )

 H12 ( s ) RA ( s ) H X ( s )CC ( s )
Interaction between the water and the circulating load
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
The full output is now written as a composition of two phenomena: one
being the simple case and the one which is subject to interactions

 

Yˆi (t )  C X (t )   C X (t )
ij ij ij ij n

n
Coupling constant

ded
One can conclude that the interactions should be attained to nonlinear
terms to the full output. For the concrete case of the balls mill grinding
circuit:

 

Yˆi (t )   C X (t )  ij ij n
Stochastic
n

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATION

M (1,1) M (1, 2 )
RP (t )   q Fq (t ) 
C
q
11 11
 q Fq (t )
C
q
12 12

M (1, 3)
  q Fq (t )
C
q
13 13

ded

The contribution of the interactions is given by an integral containing

random variables and whose choice depends upon a Gaussian distribution

   t  t   2 
t2      2 1     
~    t  
RP (t )  RP (t )  A0  e

d
1 t
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG
INPUTS

CHOICE OF TO RECONFIGURATE
MINERAL WEIGHT NOT
WATER FLOW
MILL PROPERTIES

CHOICE OF RANDOM
CHOICE OF FUNCTIONS
FUNCTIONS For ΔT(i) > ΔT(i+i)
ded ARE CONVOLUTIONS
STABLE?

CHOICE OF TESTING THE

SET <C(i,j)>
PARAMETERS
STABILITY
AND FITTING

YES
CONVOLUCIÓN
PARTICLE-SIZE IS
ACCEPTED

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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG RESULTS OF SIMULATION

The mineral particle size evolution

has been simulated under similar
conditions to the real ones.
The effect in inserting interactions
is manifested as a noise without
dramatical changes on the main
shape.

ded
STARTS THE CONTRIBUTION BY EFFECT OF INTERACTION

Different scenarios with different

inputs were also tested. No
divergences were found, neither
strong fluctuations. So one can
state that the inclusion of
interactions in the modelling
would be the most realistic way to
be implemented in control
systems.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG CONCLUSIONS
IT IS A FIRST ATTEMP TO MODEL THE PARTICLE-SIZE
UNDER QUASI-REAL CONDITIONS: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
INTERACTIONS

WHEN SUCH INTERACTIONS ARE TAKING INTO ACCOUNT

THE SHAPE OF THE PARTICLE-SIZE EVOLUTION GETS SOFT
FLUCTUATIONS JUST ON THE RANGE WHERE THE
CIRCULATING LOAD APPEARS TO BE NOT NEGLIGIBLE.

ded A STOCHASTIC DESCRITPTION OF THE INTERACTION

MIGHT BE AN EFFICIENT INGREDIENT TO CARRY OUT WELL
ACCURATE CONTROL SYSTEMS.

THIS WORK IS JUST A FIRST STEP TO TACKLE THE

PROBLEM OF MODELLING THE BALLS MILL GRINDING
CIRCUIT INSIDE A MIMO CONTEXT AND NONLINEARITIES.

IN A SUBSEQUENT PAPER, WE SHALL STRESSED THE

ISSUE OF TWO OUTPUT VARIABLES: PARTICLE-SIZE AND
SUMP LEVEL.
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 -CONFERENCE ANDESCON 2010 BOG

THANK YOU SO MUCH

ded

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