Development and Reconciliation of a Mine Operation Value Chain Flowsheet in IES to Enable Grade Engineering and Process
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Development and Reconciliation of a Mine Operation Value Chain Flowsheet in IES to Enable Grade Engineering and Process Mass Simulations for Scale-up and Strategic Planning Analysis E. Amini 1 & M. Becerra 2 & T. Bachmann 2 & N. Beaton 1 & G. Shapland 1 Received: 27 May 2020 / Accepted: 4 September 2020 # Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Inc. 2020
Abstract In this study, several methodologies to manage low grade and often competent portion of the ore have been proposed and tested in lab, pilot and operational scales. Relevant to this subject, the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction (CRC ORE) has developed Grade Engineering® (GE) concept to modify feed streams by rejecting the low grade and possibly hard components in the stream at the early stages of a value chain. Application of GE requires to understand the impact of the process on the value chain as they are value modifiers on in situ opportunities. Traditional modelling approaches and tools do not have the ability to run the analysis in a block model scale with high fidelity in an integrated value chain. Integrated Extraction Simulator (IES) in conjunction with sophisticated analytical tools such as a neural network (NN) was used to develop and reconcile a fully integrated value chain. The value chain model makes it possible to run all available blocks in the Geomet block model, which could be several millions, under possible scenarios for Grade Engineering for economic evaluation analysis and mine planning. Keywords Grade Engineering . Integrated Extraction Simulator . Modelling . Neural network development . Gangue rejection
1 Introduction Process plant modelling in a computer environment has been developed over the past 40 years, by implementing the comminution models formed by the JKMRC in the early 1970s [20]. The models for the other processes in a mine value chain, such as blast fragmentation and flotation, continuously developed and improved in parallel as well [17]. Other research and commercial entities have developed process modelling methodologies in a computer environment as well which were evolved as specialised commercial software like METSIM [1], MODSIM [9], USIM PAC [8], SysCAD [21], CEET [16] and FLEET [7], JKSimMet [19], JKSimFloat [11], JKSimBlast [22] or through equations set up in Microsoft Excel Sheets. These were done on a local computer in the
* E. Amini [email protected] 1
CRCORE, Pullenvale, QLD, Australia
2
Anglo American, Santiago, Chile
magnitude of thousands of simulations in a long period of time due to hardware limitations and lack of a fully automated process. However, simulating the impact of a production unit on the downstream process, with the purpose of integrating all production units in a value chain, has traditionally been limited to the use of separate stand-alone software platforms mentioned above. These software packages also possess a limited range of equipment models for part of the value chain only. There have been attempts to identify the impact o
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