Ugarov Stary Oskol Technological Institute (Division), NUST MISIS, Stary Oskol, Russia:

Yu. I. Eremenko, Head of a Chair, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences
S. Yu. Khalapyan, Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, khalapyan@ya.ru
A. O. Anpilov, Post-Graduate Student

The study aims to enhance energy efficiency of iron ore concentrate dehydration based on the systems of automated control. Checking of disc vacuum-filters at the modern mining and metallurgical plants is executed manually by operating personnel based on the lab test data on moisture content of the concentrate. In order to ensure adherence to the technology standards, an operator has to maintain rotational speed of disc filters and/or density of initial pulp such that its moisture content is ample. As a consequence, efficiency of the filter lowers, which means increased operating expenses and product cost at the constant running cost of maintenance of the required vacuum gauge pressure in the system. The major difficulty in the automatic moisture content control is measurement of the moisture content and average thickness of filter cake. It is often technologically and economically inexpedient to install sensors and detectors. This research has revealed mutual correlation of technological parameters of vacuum-filters and feasibility of indirect humidification and weight measurement in filter cake. The hidden correlations were found by the neural network analysis of test data of a real-life object. As a
result, the neural network model was obtained, which determined the moisture content and weight of a concentrate based on the information on pressure in the vacuum system and on amplitude of vibrationat t wo points on the receiver surface with regard to the rotational speed of the disc filters and pulp density. The implemented computational experiment demonstrated the advantage of the developed system of automatic control with indirect neural network measurement of moisture content and weight of filter cake as compared with the reference system based on the laboratory research.

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