Fit-for-Purpose Model of HP500 Cone Crusher in Size Reduction of Itabirite Iron Ore

Abstract

Cone crushers have a central role in the processing of quarry rocks, besides coarser ore preparation in several mineral processing plants. This is particularly true in the case of Itabirite iron ore preparation plants in Brazil, so optimizing their performance is of central importance for reaching maximum productivity of the circuit. The work presents results of modeling the HP500 cone crusher in operation in an industrial plant in Brazil (Minas Rio), from surveys carried out over a few years with different feeds and crushing conditions. A version of the Andersen–Whiten cone crusher model was implemented in the Integrated Extraction Simulator featuring a non-normalizable breakage response and a fit-for-purpose throughput model. The results demonstrate the good ability of the model to predict crusher performance when dealing with different closed-side settings and feed size distributions.