A dynamic model for a class of semi-autogenous mill systems

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a state space model of semi-autogenous (SAG) mill systems, which is of great significance to the mineral processing control. According to the practical enterprise production condition, the model is composed of two main parts. One is the ore circuit model. Compared with other models of ore circuit, the present model is simple and efficient. Another part is the SAG subsystem model where the state space model is utilized to depict the grinding mechanism. Furthermore, the grinding process of hold-ups are analyzed and presented with the common outputs such as power draw, pulp density and pulp flow. We consider the mass of rocks, granules and water as states and analyze the observability of the SAG subsystem model. For the ore circuit system and the SAG subsystem established respectively, unknown parameters of these models are identified by appropriate parameter estimation methods. Verified by the actual plant data, the result shows that the SAG mill system works well.