Dense Medium Cyclone Forum Meeting Report

An ACARP Dense Medium Cyclone (DMC) Forum was held on 26th September, 2005 in which eminent Australian Coal Preparation professionals addressed issues identified by ACARP as important to the future direction of DMC R&D. Major findings were:

1. Behaviour of DMCs under different operating conditions is poorly understood, particularly at boundaries of normal operation, and large diameter units have poorer efficiencies that may be correctable.
2. A physical description of how performance is affected by the important variables is required to fully exploit the new larger diameter units becoming available.
3. Quantity, quality and portability of public domain DMC data is lacking.  That which is reported is frequently insufficient to be useful for building understanding.

The major recommendations are for:

1. A minimum data set requirement for all ACARP funded DMC R&D projects.
2. A hybrid mechanistic-fundamental model development strategy consisting of:
1. Collaboration of multiple operational sites and multiple researchers.
2. Coordinated/standard approaches.
3. Fundamental modelling to supplement empirical modelling.
3. An ACARP CEO influence strategy to promote appropriate and full data set release to the public domain, and for the inclusion of appropriate sampling provisions in full scale plants for the generation of DMC performance data.

To implement these recommendations, the existing ACARP Landmark approach is appropriate if implemented in a collaborative way.  The following recommendations are given for a possible ACARP Collaborative Landmark DMC Project:

• Operation should be through a Steering Committee.
• Collaborative smaller projects should be included and focused on small parts of the bigger picture.
• Data collection must conform to MINIMUM data set requirement and be undertaken by different researchers at different plants working in collaboration.
• Initial phase of project should last around 12 months, delineate and demonstrate the potential benefit to the industry, identify how the benefit would be achieved, formulate the longer term action plan and develop commitment from the general industry.  A budget of around $200,000 is recommended for the initial phase.
• Output of the Collaborative Landmark ACARP Project should be a validated hybrid mechanistic-fundamental model for design, operation and diagnostic purposes.
• The Landmark project should require funding of at least $1-1.5million over 3 years, but this would be better defined at the end of the initial phase.