The ECO project (Efficient comminution operation) has had a kick-off meeting in December when a representative of the project’s Brazilian partner Vale visited Luleå for two weeks. The kick-off actually became a series of meetings with detailed technical discussions about modeling and control of Vales’s crushing plant in Serra Leste, northern Brazil. The measuring equipment needed to complete the first part of the project are now being installed there.
The project’s goal is to develop methods for increasing the efficiency of crushing and grinding despite variations in e.g. ore properties and product demands. This will be accomplished by collecting online measurement of variables such as ore size distributions and to change machine speeds and other variables continuously to achieve optimised operation.
The project, which will continue until 2020, is led by Luleå University of Technology and is a collaboration with Innovative Machine Vision Pty Ltd, Optimation AB and Vale S.A.
In the picture, from the left, top: Thiago Euzebio (Vale), Andreas Johansson (LTU), Lars Lindqvist (Optimation), Peter Lingman (Optimation), Khalid Atta (LTU).
