SOLID AND WATER BALANCE IN COAL PREPARATION

V. K. Gupta Fuel & Mineral Engineering Department INDIAN SCHOOL OF MINES, DHANBAD

Data Reconciliation For Material Balance

V. K. Gupta Fuel & Mineral Engineering Department INDIAN SCHOOL OF MINES, DHANBAD

NEED FOR SAMPLING AND MATERIAL BALANCE

Assessment of the performance of the individual process units. Assessment of the performance of the Plant as a whole. Estimation of Flow Rates, Assays and Size Distributions that could not be measured. Generating reliable data for estimation of unknown parameters of the process mathematical

To Flotation

Hydrocyclone

ROD MILL

Combination of Mill BALL MILL Discharges

Middling from flotation

BALL MILL

Sump Box

Sampling points for rod mill ball mill- hydrocyclone circuit

Adjustment of Raw Plant Data for Material Balance

Tools Used :

Linear algebra

Function minimization (optimization) techniques

Information Obtained : Values of unknown flow rates and other data.

Corrected/ Refined values of raw data collected in

Sources of Error
Fluctuations in the Quality and Feed Rates Sampling Errors Measurement Errors

Problems Faced
More Measurements than the Unknowns !
Process is over-defined. Estimate of the unknown parameter depends

on the choice of relationship and/or data used.

Errors are Random ! How to correct the data?

RMD

D1 = 1.0 #1 D2 = K D3 = 1+ K #3 SUMP CYF D1M1 + D2M2 = D3M3 M1 + KM2 = (1+K)M3

BMD

#2

K= (M1 M3)/ (M3-M2)

Screen size (mesh) 100/150 150/200 200/270 270/400

Wt % in Branch # 1 12.1 2.5 3.4 5.0 2 26.5 7.3 8.7 11.0 3 21.3 6.0 7.1 8.4

K (exp.) 1.77 2.69 2.31 1.31

K (reconciled data) 2.01 2.01 2.01 2.01

Approach to Solution
Minimize : Weighted Sum of Squares of Error with inverse of the variance associated with each measurement as the weight

DISCUSSION
For greater reliability in the Mass Balance results : Use proper samplers for each stream.
Use correct sampling procedure. Sample only when plant is running in steady state. Establish values of variance for each measurement by carrying out a sufficiently large number of experiments. Find out by carrying out Sensitivity Analysis which measurements are critical . Try to reduce their variance by improving sampling and measurement techniques.

Thanks for your kind attention and making this session interesting

THANK YOU