Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study

With the increasing availability of large amounts of real-time process data and a better fundamental understanding of the operation of mineral processing units, statistical monitoring of mineral processing plants is becoming increasingly widespread. Process plants are typically too complex to model...

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Main Authors: de V. Groenewald, J., Coetzer, L., Aldrich, Chris
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40785
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author de V. Groenewald, J.
Coetzer, L.
Aldrich, Chris
author_facet de V. Groenewald, J.
Coetzer, L.
Aldrich, Chris
author_sort de V. Groenewald, J.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description With the increasing availability of large amounts of real-time process data and a better fundamental understanding of the operation of mineral processing units, statistical monitoring of mineral processing plants is becoming increasingly widespread. Process plants are typically too complex to model from first principles and therefore models based on historical process data are used instead. Multivariate methods such as principal component analysis are indispensable in these analyses and in this paper, it is shown how the statistical analysis of process data from a grinding circuit and a sound fundamental knowledge of the operation of mineral processing plants complement one another. For this purpose a philosophy for the statistical monitoring and cause and effect analysis of a process was outlined. It was shown how a well defined process hierarchy with complementing performance measures can effectively be used to detect a shift in the operation of a mineral processing plant and find the root cause of the shift. Visualisation of the results was found fundamental in communicating the findings of the statistical analysis to the processing plant. This resulted in the requirement for multidimensional visualisation of the process for which principal component analysis plots and process performance graphs in the form of two-dimensional histogram plots and parallel plots were found to be the most effective. Data availability, process variable selection, process hierarchy definition and performance measure selection were also found to be critical factors directly impacting on the success of statistically monitoring a process.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-407852017-02-28T01:46:49Z Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study de V. Groenewald, J. Coetzer, L. Aldrich, Chris Comminution Process control Flotation Mineral processing With the increasing availability of large amounts of real-time process data and a better fundamental understanding of the operation of mineral processing units, statistical monitoring of mineral processing plants is becoming increasingly widespread. Process plants are typically too complex to model from first principles and therefore models based on historical process data are used instead. Multivariate methods such as principal component analysis are indispensable in these analyses and in this paper, it is shown how the statistical analysis of process data from a grinding circuit and a sound fundamental knowledge of the operation of mineral processing plants complement one another. For this purpose a philosophy for the statistical monitoring and cause and effect analysis of a process was outlined. It was shown how a well defined process hierarchy with complementing performance measures can effectively be used to detect a shift in the operation of a mineral processing plant and find the root cause of the shift. Visualisation of the results was found fundamental in communicating the findings of the statistical analysis to the processing plant. This resulted in the requirement for multidimensional visualisation of the process for which principal component analysis plots and process performance graphs in the form of two-dimensional histogram plots and parallel plots were found to be the most effective. Data availability, process variable selection, process hierarchy definition and performance measure selection were also found to be critical factors directly impacting on the success of statistically monitoring a process. 2006 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40785 Elsevier restricted
spellingShingle Comminution
Process control
Flotation
Mineral processing
de V. Groenewald, J.
Coetzer, L.
Aldrich, Chris
Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title_full Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title_fullStr Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title_full_unstemmed Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title_short Statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: An industrial case study
title_sort statistical monitoring of a grinding circuit: an industrial case study
topic Comminution
Process control
Flotation
Mineral processing
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40785