- Title
- The integration of reflectance spectroscopy and bulk flow characterisation to evaluate the handleability of cohesive iron ore
- Creator
- Plinke, Jens
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- The depletion of favourable ore bodies regarding handleability dictates the turn of mine sites towards formerly less attractive deposits. Frequently, these ore bodies exhibit increased adhesive and cohesive characteristics causing issues in the materials handling stream. Sub-optimal running or even downtime of materials handling equipment, such as transfer chutes, bins and hoppers, may have a significant impact on resource operations. Such equipment poses risks in the form of bottlenecks as it is often impractical to ensure redundancy within the ore handling plant. With respect to the optimal design and operation of materials handling equipment, established bulk material test methods and procedures cannot always capture the properties of iron ores with increased adhesive and cohesive characteristics. Furthermore, these methods require timeframes of several weeks for material analysis, which is at odds with the operational demands for real-time information to aid decisions in the materials handling stream. This work aims to address these problems. A range of iron ore samples is selected and characterised following established flow property test procedures. The analysis is then expanded to characterise increased adhesive and cohesive properties with the newly developed inter-particle adhesion and wall-adhesion testers. On this basis a handleability index (HI) is developed to summarise the key parameters in a concise form suitable for easy assessment as well as for use in machine learning algorithms. The sensitivity of optical spectroscopy regarding key parameters deemed to be influential on iron ore handleability is investigated. The method is assessed to be suitable. Models for the optical measurement of key iron ore parameters are developed and validated. Mineralogy, moisture content and handleability of the samples are measured using the optical approach. Finally the developed models are applied to site-data from a pilot set-up located on a transfer belt on a mine site operated by one of this project’s industry partners. Demands to quantify problematic bulk material flow behaviour were addressed. Models for the optical determination of key iron ore parameters were established and their functionality was validated, creating pathways to bridge the gap between established flow property determination and real-time process monitoring. Optical spectroscopy was found to be a powerful tool to aid in the field of bulk materials handling.
- Subject
- bulk materials; adhesion; bulk soids; cohesion; clay; spectroscopy; mineralogy; flow properties; flowability; handleability; tunra
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1406267
- Identifier
- uon:35611
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Jens Plinke
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 16 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 514 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |