Automation and digitalization across crushing, grinding and flotation
The full-process automated control system for mineral processing covers the full-process automation control algorithms for the crushing, grinding, flotation, and concentrate dewatering systems. In the crushing section, the focus is on one-click start/stop control of equipment to protect equipment and personnel safety. In the grinding section, the emphasis is on stabilizing ore feed, water supply, and hydrocyclone pressure to ensure grinding fineness and pulp density. In the flotation section, the focus is on reagent dosing control, flotation cell level control, and flotation cell aeration control. In the concentrate dewatering section, the emphasis is on improving thickener efficiency and stabilizing the thickener underflow density.
The Grinding Process Control System is developed specifically for the milling system consisting of semi‑autogenous mills and ball mills. It covers multiple critical control links during the grinding procedure, including the interlock‑protection subsystem for ore‑feeding belts, constant ore‑feed control subsystem, fixed‑ratio water‑feeding subsystem and hydrocyclone classification control subsystem.
In the crushing circuit of a mineral processing plant, the focus of the control system is to ensure that equipment shuts down in the direction of material flow and starts up against the direction of material flow. When an intermediate device fails, its related upstream equipment stops immediately, thereby protecting both the equipment and the process flow. At the same time, the crushing control system should also ensure choke feeding of the cone crusher.
DGather is an IoT‑oriented data‑acquisition software. It collects data from automation systems and field instruments via multiple protocols including Modbus (TCP/RTU/ASCII), OPC‑DA, OPC‑UA, MQTT and Siemens S7‑protocol. Collected data can be forwarded to MQTT brokers, relational databases (MySQL, MS SQL Server and domestic‑made databases), time‑series databases (e.g. InfluxDB), as well as real‑time databases such as the domestic Gengdun real‑time database.
OPCDA-Proxy has two main functions: 1. It proxies OPC-DA as a WebAPI interface, allowing OPC-DA data to be read via a browser URL; 2. It proxies OPC-DA as a Modbus-TCP Slave server, allowing OPC-DA data to be accessed through a Modbus-TCP master station. Through these two approaches, the DCOM configuration challenges of OPC-DA can be effectively circumvented, enabling OPC-DA data to flow freely across networks.
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