Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics

Brazil is the world leading producer and exporter of iron ore, mainly due to operations of VALE, a global mining company with several operations in the country, delivering iron, copper, manganese, and nickel ores. Those operations are located mainly in the Northern state of Pará, and in the Southeas...

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Principais autores: Viana, Sidney, Nascimento Jr., Cairo Lúcio
Formato: Artigo
Idioma: Inglês
Publicado em: Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) 2021
Acesso em linha: http://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/bjic/article/view/13569
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spelling peri-article-135692022-10-19T17:34:37Z Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics Viana, Sidney Nascimento Jr., Cairo Lúcio 3.04.02.05-0 industrial automation; regulatory control; PID control; process control; performance improvement; time delay; root locus method. Brazil is the world leading producer and exporter of iron ore, mainly due to operations of VALE, a global mining company with several operations in the country, delivering iron, copper, manganese, and nickel ores. Those operations are located mainly in the Northern state of Pará, and in the Southeastern state of Minas Gerais. From 2014 to 2019, the company’s average yearly production of iron ore was about 342 million t/year. Most of such production was exported overseas, mainly to Asian and European countries.Mineral processing plants implement several stages of ore beneficiation, necessary to convert raw ore from the mines into ore products. Those plants comprise several processing facilities as crushing, screening, grinding, flotation, and others, which are operated by means of a plantwide digital control system, either SCADA- or DCS-based, using many process control loops.The most important process variable in a mineral processing plant is the ore mass flowrate, measured in t/h. The transportation of ore between mineral facilities is usually done by belt conveyors, and the ore flowrate is measured by a conveyor weigher (also known as dynamic weigher or belt scale), which is a heavy instrument assembled directly in the conveyor structure [18]. The conveyor weigher has two primary sensors: piezoelectric loading cells to sense the unit weight of material on the belt, in t/m; and an incremental encoder to sense the belt moving speed, in m/s. By combining the unity load and the belt speed measurements, the weigher computes the material flowrate, in t/h, with a typical precision of ±0.5% of its full measurement range. The ore flowrate in a conveyor is not defined by the belt speed, but by the speed of the feeder that discharges the ore on the conveyor belt. Therefore, by changing the feeder (actuator) speed it is possible to control the ore flowrate using its measurements provided by the conveyor weigher (sensor).This work describes the modeling and control of ore flowrate for the ore feeding system “RF-A” of the Fábrica Iron Ore Processing Plant, in the city of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, operated by VALE. The next section introduces the industrial process and the control problem.  Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) NONE 2021-08-25 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion application/pdf http://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/bjic/article/view/13569 10.3895/jaic.v9n1.13569 Journal of Applied Instrumentation and Control; v. 9, n. 1 (2021); 19-32 Journal of Applied Instrumentation and Control; v. 9, n. 1 (2021); 19-32 2594-3553 10.3895/jaic.v9n1 eng http://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/bjic/article/view/13569/pdf Direitos autorais 2021 CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
institution Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná
collection PERI
language Inglês
format Artigo
author Viana, Sidney
Nascimento Jr., Cairo Lúcio
spellingShingle Viana, Sidney
Nascimento Jr., Cairo Lúcio
Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
author_sort Viana, Sidney
title Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
title_short Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
title_full Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
title_fullStr Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
title_full_unstemmed Regulatory Control of Mass Flowrate in an Ore Feeding System with Time-Delayed Gain-Variant Dynamics
title_sort regulatory control of mass flowrate in an ore feeding system with time-delayed gain-variant dynamics
description Brazil is the world leading producer and exporter of iron ore, mainly due to operations of VALE, a global mining company with several operations in the country, delivering iron, copper, manganese, and nickel ores. Those operations are located mainly in the Northern state of Pará, and in the Southeastern state of Minas Gerais. From 2014 to 2019, the company’s average yearly production of iron ore was about 342 million t/year. Most of such production was exported overseas, mainly to Asian and European countries.Mineral processing plants implement several stages of ore beneficiation, necessary to convert raw ore from the mines into ore products. Those plants comprise several processing facilities as crushing, screening, grinding, flotation, and others, which are operated by means of a plantwide digital control system, either SCADA- or DCS-based, using many process control loops.The most important process variable in a mineral processing plant is the ore mass flowrate, measured in t/h. The transportation of ore between mineral facilities is usually done by belt conveyors, and the ore flowrate is measured by a conveyor weigher (also known as dynamic weigher or belt scale), which is a heavy instrument assembled directly in the conveyor structure [18]. The conveyor weigher has two primary sensors: piezoelectric loading cells to sense the unit weight of material on the belt, in t/m; and an incremental encoder to sense the belt moving speed, in m/s. By combining the unity load and the belt speed measurements, the weigher computes the material flowrate, in t/h, with a typical precision of ±0.5% of its full measurement range. The ore flowrate in a conveyor is not defined by the belt speed, but by the speed of the feeder that discharges the ore on the conveyor belt. Therefore, by changing the feeder (actuator) speed it is possible to control the ore flowrate using its measurements provided by the conveyor weigher (sensor).This work describes the modeling and control of ore flowrate for the ore feeding system “RF-A” of the Fábrica Iron Ore Processing Plant, in the city of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, operated by VALE. The next section introduces the industrial process and the control problem. 
publisher Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
publishDate 2021
url http://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/bjic/article/view/13569
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score 10,814766