A de-coupled level controller for cascaded flotation processes

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Flotation was introduced early in the zo century as a separation process forextracting valuable minerals from grinded ore. Today flotation is a dominant mineralconcentration method and is used for almost all sulphide minerals and also for nonsulphidemetallic minerals, industrial minerals, and coal.Automation and control has become a basic requirement in flotation plants. Effectivecontrol of pulp levels plays a very important role in stabilising the flotation processand therefore requires careful attention.This thesis presents a de-coupled level controller that has been developed for thecontrol of levels in cascaded flow processes, including multi-tank cascaded flotationprocesses. The controller was developed on a two tank cascaded pilot plant usingwater as a flow medium. A simulation model was constructed for the cascaded flowprocess. The simulation model made it possible to develop and evaluate a decoupledlevel controller in a simulation environment. Finally independent loop PIOcontrol and integrated PIO control loops with feed-forward de-coupling werecompared through simulation, as control strategies for the pilot plant.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University