Einladung zum Vortrag im Kolloquium Technische Kybernetik

 Control of Thickeners in the Mineral Processing Industry

Prof. Daniel Sbárbaro Hofer
Universidad de Concepción ˇ Chile

    Zeit: Dienstag, 02.02.2010 ˇ 16:00 Uhr
Ort: IST-Seminarraum 3.243 ˇ Pfaffenwaldring 9 ˇ Campus Stuttgart-Vaihingen

Abstract

The rational use of water in the mineral processing industry has become an important issue due to the geographical location of many plants. The increase of capacity in many copper concentrators has lead to an increased effort for recovering the maximum amount of water in the solid-liquid separation process. Thickeners are cylindrical tanks working continuously to produce a concentrated underflow and a water overflow free from particulate matter. These equipments are highly nonlinear systems, and practice has shown that standard feedback control has not been very effective in providing consistent operations. In many plants, thickeners operate with poor standards, with high dosages of flocculants, overflows with high fine particles contents and highly variable underflows. In this presentation, we will give an overview of current control strategies found in the industry, and the design of new ones based on the concept of mass balance.

Biographical Information

Daniel Sbarbaro received an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Concepción, Concepción, Chile, in 1984 and a Ph.D. degree from Glasgow University, Glasgow, U.K., in 1993. He is currently Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Concepción. In 1998, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to carry out research at the Control Engineering Laboratory (ESR), Ruhr University Bochum. His current research interests include the design of observers for nonlinear systems and the development of industrial control applications.