M fatahi - School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11155-4563, Tehran, Iran,
a farzanegan - School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11155-4563, Tehran,

In this research, the effect of operational parameters including centrifugal force intensity, i.e., the rotational velocity of the bowl, feeding rate and separation cycle time on separation mechanism of a 7.5-cm laboratory Knelson Concentrator (LKC) at particle scale is investigated by applying a new approach based on DEM modeling. Separation performance of LKC is simulated using an open-source DEM solver ‘LIGGGHTS’. The simulations were run using 5000 mono size particles. Feed was a binary mixture of iron or platinum and quartz respectively as heavy and light particle with specific weight ratios.Simulation results are expressed qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of performance indices, i.e., concentrate grade and total recovery. In order to validate simulator predictions, experimental tests on synthetic sample of pure quartz and magnetite under specific conditions close to simulations conditions were carried out using the 7.5-cm LKC. DEM simulations were validated based on both qualitative (visual) and quantitative observations. For qualitative validation, the visual performance of DEM-simulated LKC is compared with the actual performance observed in the real experiments with LKC. For quantitative validation, grade and recovery predictions resulted from DEM simulations are compared with experimental measurements obtained from laboratory tests

Laboratory Knelson Concentrator, operational parameters, DEM simulation, LIGGGHTS, separation performance