ACCOUNTING FOR THE EFFECT OF PULP PARAMETERS WHEN SIMULATING THE FINE SCREENING PROCESS
Keywords:
regression analysis, raw materials, fine screening, mathematical simulation, magnetite quartzite dressing, pulp characteristics.Abstract
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/itm2026.01.113
Fine screening is an important constituent of magnetite quartzite dressing, whose improvement is largely associated with a further development of the industry. Available mathematical models of dry fine screening allow one to control the process parameters. For wet fine screening, it is necessary to take into account the features of the pulp characteristics effect, which makes this study important.
The goal of the work is to determine the effect of the main pulp parameters in developing a model of iron ore screening. As distinct from dry screening, pulp or suspension particle sieving on a hydraulic screen involves the presence of an aqueous medium, whose main characteristic is viscosity. Pulp viscosity is a measure of the internal friction of the suspension, which depends on the concentration, the solid particle size and density, and the viscosity of the liquid phase. It determines the fluidity of the pulp, its ability to transport material particles, and the effect on the process of size separation on the screen. To take into account the features of wet fine screening, the main pulp characteristics are identified and combined into a pulp coefficient. A regression analysis is used to determine the type and value of this coefficient. The level of effect of each of the selected pulp parameters is shown, and the calculated hypersurfaces of the pulp coefficient as a function of the analyzed factors are presented. The form of the pulp coefficient as a function of the pulp characteristics is determined. The adequacy of the obtained screening model is confirmed by a high value of the coefficient of determination R2 = 0.972 and a small value of the standard estimate error SE = 0.00793.
The fine screening process was simulated for a stochastic ore pulp inflow specified as an estimated-parameter distribution using Tikhonov’s fine screening model. To determine the pulp characteristics and the pulp coefficient, a regression analysis was made using the STATGRAPHICS Plus package. The simulated results were compared with those of experimental screening to estimate the simulation accuracy. The results of the mathematical simulation, which relate the ore pulp inflow parameters to those of the fine screening process characteristics, allow the proposed approach to be used in the solution of practical problems.
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