Simulation of a closed continuous grinding circuit with concentration and classification of a Taconite ore.
Taconite is an iron ore containing mainly Chert and Iron Oxides. In this case the ore is not supergenic, and the iron oxides are represented almost exclusively by Magnetite. The texture of the ore is rather complex, and liberation is fundamentally important for this operation to be economic.
The liberation of magnetite in the plant that is to be studied in this module is described in Section 10.6 of the textbook.
The grinding circuit to be studied here is a simplified version of a real Taconite grinding/concentration operation. The flowsheet is described here. Your first task is to draw this flowsheet in MODSIM. Save your job when done.
When simulating a grinding circuit with liberation, additional information is required about the ore:
1. the ore's liberation spectra, i.e. the distribution of particle grades at several size ranges is required. This describes the liberation state of the ore as it enters the circuit.
2. the ore's textural parameters. This describes how the liberation spectra changes as the ore is ground.
Click here to see the complete system data specification for this simulation. Enter this system data in Modsim. Save your job at this stage.
As usual we need to enter model parameters for each unit in the simulation. Click here to see a set of parameters that work with this simulation. Pay special attention to the Ball Mill model.
After running this simulation, it is possible to view one of the Andrews-Mika diagrams that was generated by the Ljubljana model. More importantly, you should be able to review the liberation distributions in the circuit streams, and understand what the grade distributions mean.
Two simple exercises are to be attempted in this module: