Abstract:
Desliming, carried out in hydrocyclones, is one of the component operations of the itabirite iron ore processing circuit at the industrial unit of Anglo American, MG. Its performance is commonly analyzed in terms of parameters such as corrected cut size and partition, which in turn are basically dependent on the characteristics of the feed and the operating conditions applied. The objective of this work was to develop a mathematical model adjustment to simulate the performance of hydrocyclones in the desliming of itabirite iron ore in an industrial unit. For that, several samplings were carried out in the hydrocyclones of the circuit, followed by analyzes of operational stability, mass balance, adjustment of the calibration parameters of the Nageswarararo model, simulations and validation, using the IES software. It was concluded that it is possible to predict the corrected cut size, water partition and operational pressure for hydrocyclones in the desliming of itabirite iron ore, using the Nageswararao model, in the IES software. The mean of the measured and simulated data did not show statistical difference, with 95% confidence, by the Students t-test