DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF A SPLIT-ONLINE SYSTEM MODULE FOR QUANTIFYING GREENBALL ROLLER SCREEN OVERSIZE VOLUME ON A TACONITE BALLING CIRCUIT USING DIGITAL IMAGE ANALYSIS

摘要

Effective control of balling line circuits is a problem taconitecompanies have been dealing with for over thirty years. Thesensitivity of balling circuits to changes in moisture, bentonite,concentrate particle size, and other operating parameters are themain reasons for control problems. This paper presents test resultsand describes the integration of existing instrumentation with a digitalimage analysis system on a balling circuit. This work has the goal ofdeveloping control strategies to automatically adjust water spray andbentonite addition, to optimize the size distribution on the roll screenand reduce the variability in control between balling attendants,resulting in more consistent greenball product quality.