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Dynamic Flow and Level Simulation of a Mobile
Crushing Plant for Process Control Design
Pasi Airikka
Metso Corporation, Finland
ABSTRACT
Simulation with dynamic models is a powerful tool for capturing essence of an industrial plant
operating under varying circumstances. Simulation provides a good insight to process interactions
giving valuable information on its behavior. A dynamic simulator can show responses to operator
actions such as setpoint changes, manual controls and mode changes. Furthermore, dynamic
simulation can reveal the target plant performance against process disturbances initiated by
operator actions, interacting control loops, actuator and sensor malfunctions and quality changes of
incoming feed material.
Dynamic simulation outperforms stationary static simulation by revealing transient responses
between ini tial and final steady-states. The responses between ini tial and final steady-states show
the trajectories on which the process variables move. This information is rather valuable for process
control design where dynamic process models wi th resulting transient responses for known inputs
are required. The known inputs can be control variable changes in manual mode, setpoint changes
in automatic mode or measured load disturbances.
Basi cally, a crushing plant has feeders, feed chutes, hoppers, crushers, screens and conveyors for
processing aggregates. I t is operated using information from flow and level sensors in addition to
crusher-specific measurement information such as crusher setting, speed, power and pressure.
Consequently, material flows and levels are the main variables that need to be modelled for
dynamic simulation. They can be mainly treated using fi rst principle models with empirical
assumptions.
To provide reasonable simulation accuracy for screening and crushing with bypass and recycl ing
flows, size distribution behavior i s modelled using static models but flows themselves are treated
using dynamic models. This paper shows how a dynamic flow and level simulator for a mobile
crushing plant with can be buil t up for process control design and concept development. Finally,
simulation results of a real mobile three-stage crushing plant are given.
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INTRODUCTION
Dynamic simulation is a powerful tool no matter if its purpose lies on testing, verifying, designing
or learning. Throughout history of computing simulation has served engineers, professionals,
researchers, students and machine or plant operators for expanding their insight to a process at
hand. Crushing plants make no difference as they can be dynamically simulated like any other
industrial plant.
There are numerous publications on creating a simulation model for an entire crushing plant
originating from the 1970s (Whiten, 1972). Later, after gaining more insi ght wi th more advanced
measuring and control technology, the focus has been in smal ler entities such as in a single crusher
where numerous papers have been publi shed (Evertson, 2000; Johansson, 2009; I tvuo, 2009;
Hulthn 2010; Itvuo, Jaatinen & Vilkko, 2011). The papers basical ly deal with findings on
interactions between crusher inputs and outputs and impact of crusher settings (eccentric speed,
closed side setting) on numerous quality variables such as grading and capacity.
This paper focuces on bui lding up a simulator for simulation of material flows and material
volumes and levels. The purpose of the work was to create a model for simulating material flows of
a mobile crushing plant which has three mobile crushing units. The flows on screens, conveyors,
through hoppers and crushers are modelled from the raw material feed to product and waste piles.
Similarly, material volumes or levels on conveyors and in hoppers and crushers are simulated.
The proposed simulation method does not focus on model l ing feed material or aggregate size
distribution. However, size distribution is considered in an ideal manner with non-changing
dynamics. The assumption holds for a screen as long as the screen nets remain unchanged. For
crushers, however, this assumption is not reali stic as the crushers has different grading with
different settings and speeds. Yet, the assumption is sufficient for simulating total flows and
material levels.
ROCK CRUSHING PLANTS
Crushing plants basical ly have only equipment where material i s either very temporarily stored or
transported: feed hoppers, screens, conveyors and crushers. To capture the essence of the crushing
plants flow model, all these equipment need to have models. Effectively, estimates of residence
times and static process gains are rather suffi cient for doing all that.
In addition, there are process points where material is separated due to screening. Separation of a
single or several fractions from the main stream requires capabil i ty to model parallel or recycl ing
material flows. From process dynamics perspective, this causes accumulation of different process
dynamics, mostly dead times resul ting in rather compl icated process responses.
Even rather simple open-loop simulation runs reveal impact of the various material paths with
different material transport dead times. For example, when process capacity is changed within a
rather l imited time frame, the resulted product flow takes place in several steps due to accumulated
transport delays. From a material control point of view, the crushing plant serves challenges as it
has multiples not only of different dead times that may vary but also process gains that change with
time. Therefore, a dynamic flow and volume simulator for a whole crushing plant is a valuable tool
for process control design allowing testing and validation of different process control strategies
aiming at the best achievable performance.
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FLOW SIMULATION
For simulating rock material (aggregate) flows throughout a crushing plant, an array of different
particle sizes (fractions) with respect to time t is set up. In following subsections,
in
x denotes the
size distribution input array with n decreasing bins for different sizes having material flows of
different fractions as i ts elements

T
in
n
in
n
in in in
t x t x t x t x t ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (
1 2 1
= x
(1)
Consequently, the total flow of the input array
in
x can be expressed as 1-norm of the array, that is,
the sum of its elements

=
= =
n
i
in
i
in in
tot
x t t x
1
1
) ( ) ( x
(2)
Similarly, the size distribution output array
out
x , which has the same dimension of n, can be treated
to produce the total flow ) (t x
out
tot
.
Conveyor flow
Material transportation at a crushing plant i s mostly taken care by conveyors. The conveyors can be
on/off or variable speed controlled. Given the total input flow
in
tot
x and the transport delay
) ( / ) ( t v t L = for conveyor length and speed v , the total output flow
out
tot
x can be expressed with
respect to time t
)) ( ( ) ( t L t x t x
in
tot
out
tot
= (3)
For on/off conveyors with constant conveyor speed v t v = ) ( , the transport delay L t L = ) ( is
constant. Size distribution does not change on conveyors and, therefore, it can be modeled as
) ( ) ( t t
in out
x x = .
Screen flows
Basi cally, a screen is a material divider. I t has only one incoming material flow path but it has m
output flows. To capture all the output material fl ows and their size distribution arrays, the
following can be used for modeling a single screen output fraction flow j
m j t t
in out
j
... 1 ), ( ) ( = = Sx x
(4)
where S is a diagonal n x n matrix having values of one only for those diagonal elements that
correspond to the fractions that are passed to the screen output fraction j and zeros for other
diagonal elements. To involve dynamics for model ing screens, there is a transport delay for each
screen output fraction j as follows
) ( ) (
j
out
j
out
j
L t x t x
tot tot
= (5)
For simplicity, the screen delays
j
L can be set equal to each other.
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Recycling and bypass flows
Typically, in addition to the main stream flow, there are bypass flows before crushers and recycl ing
flows back to the crushers. To capture these flows at a point where the flows coincide forming one
single flow forward, they need to be modeled as well . Assuming j different uniting flows wi th
different transport delays
j
L , the flows can be summed up as fol lows

=
=
j
i
j
in
j
out
L t t
1
) ( ) ( x x
(6)
Crusher flow
The throughput flow of a crusher can be basically modeled using dead times for modeling
residence time of different particle sizes in the crusher. By combining this with a crusher passing
curve the crusher can be modeled as
) ( ) (
) ( ) (
i i
out
i
in
L t z t x
t t
=
= Cx z
(8)
where z is an internal state array, Li is residence time for a single fraction and C is a n x n triangular
matrix with positive elements 0 >
ij
c presenting the crusher passing curve. The matric

T
n
c c c C ..
2 1
= is kept constant for constant crusher closed side setting and speed. The matric
needs to fullfill following algebraic conditions to prov ide accumulation of smaller size distribution
bins (9a) and equal total flow for input and output crusher flows (9b):
i
in T
i
x s x c (9a)

= =
= =
n
i
i
n
i
in T
i
in in
x
1 1
1 1
x c x Cx
(9b)
VOLUME AND LEVEL SIMULATION
Conveyor level
Volume flow (m
3
/sec) on a conveyor of length at a conveyor point s x can be given as
) , ( ) ( ) , ( x t h t v w x t Q = (10)
where w i s a constant conveyor width, v conveyor speed and h level of aggregate material on the
conveyor point x. Having volume flow ) , ( x t Q solved using flow simulation, the level can then be
solved from (9) using mass flow Mand bulk density constant = = Q M / 1.6 kg/m
3
) (
) (
) (
) , (
) , (
t v w
t M
t v w
x t Q
x t h

= = (11)
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Feed chute volume
A feed chute with a feeder can be treated l ike a storage tank with time-varying input and output
flows. I ts volume, or more precisely, change of volume V can be expressed as
, ) ) ( ) (
1
) ( ) ( ) ( t M t M t Q t Q t V
out in out in
= =

(12)
where output volume flow Q can be given as a function of feeder control u (0-100%)
, ) ) ( ) ( t u f t Q
out
= (13)
where the function describes the relation between the feeder control (speed) and the corresponding
volume flow. At its simpliest, the relation can be linear with a feeder speed saturation limit
sat
u
, )

>
s
=
sat out
sat out
u t u Q
u t u Q
%
t u
t u f
) ( ,
) ( ,
100
) (
) (
max
max
(14)
Crusher volume
Basi cally, the crusher volume (level) can be modeled using a FOPDT (First Order Plus Dead Time)
model for non-choke feed and an IPDT (Integrating Plus Dead Time) model for choke feed.
Residence and delay times should be adaptive due to the varying residence times inside the crusher
depending e.g on the rock material, crusher opening determined by a closed side setting (CSS).
SIMULATION RESULTS
A dynamic simulator is presented for a three-stage mobile plant having Metso Lokotrack crushing
units LT120, LT300GP and LT300GPB. The fleet of three mobile crushing units are illustrated below.
Figure 1 Fleet of Metso Lokotrack mobi le units (from left to right: LT120, LT300GP, LT300GPB)
forming a three-stage crushing plant
The first unit LT120 has a primary jaw crusher C120 with a 6 m3 feed hopper, feeder and conveyors
to scalping and product of the jaw crusher. The feeder i s manipulable (0-100%) and the jaw crusher
has a level indicator for preventing overflow. The 1200 mm product conveyor has a level
measurement (0-100%). The second mobile unit is 42 ton and 16.2 m long LT300GP with a
maximum capacity of 550 tph having a secondary cone crusher GP300S with feed size capacity up
to 320 mm and product size up to 75 mm. It also has a feed chute, a feeder and conveyors some of
which recycle aggregates from the crusher to be re-crushed. There are level measurements for the
feed hopper and the crusher. The third mobi le unit i s 60.6 ton and 21.8 m long LT300GPB with a
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maximum capacity of 450 tph having a tertiary cone crusher GP300C with feed size capacity up to
210 mm. It has a product screen and recirculation of the large size material back to re-crushing.
There are level measurements for the crusher and the li fting conveyor.
The flow diagram of the whole crushing plant for buil ding a dynamic simulator i s given in figure 2.
The simulation step used is 0.5 seconds, the number of simulated flow variables is 27, the number
of constants is close to 20 and the simulation time was set to five minutes.
Figure 2 Flow diagram of the 3-stage crushing plant with two product piles A and B. There are 27
state variables for flows at different crushing stages (S = Screening, C = Collection point)
Open-loop simulation
The first simulation is done as an open-loop simulation without any automatic control. The idea of
such a simulation i s to see how an exci tation of a crushing plant propagates though the crushing
plant causing transients of different dynamics and interacting phenomena. As an excitation, there
was a rapid start-up from 0 tph to 300 tph at t = 0 sec.
Figure 3 Simulated unmeasured flows of the tertiary crushing plant unit LT300GPB
Figure 3 ill ustrates how a step-wise feed material fl ow change (open loop start-up) propagates
through the entire crushing plant affecting the flows in the tertiary crushing uni t LT300GPB. Based
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
lo
w

[
t
p
h
]
FromLT300GP
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
lo
w

[
t
p
h
]
RecyclingfromGP300C crusher
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
l
o
w

[
t
p
h
]
To GP300C crusher in-conveyor
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
l
o
w

[
t
p
h
]
After crusher in-conveyor
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
l
o
w

[
t
p
h
]
To 10-25mmpile
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
l
o
w

[
t
p
h
]
To 0-10 mmpile
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
lo
w

[
t
p
h
]
Time [sec]
To GP300C crusher
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
200
400
600
F
lo
w

[
t
p
h
]
Time [sec]
After GP300C crusher to recycling
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on the simulation, the dead time of the whole crushing plant is close 40 seconds. After the dead
time has passed, there are several stepwise dynamic upward changes in the flows due to different
material paths having accumulation effects on each other. The simulation run provides with a way
to estimate the open-loop process static gains and dynamics through fitting a FOPDT or SOPDT
model for the responses.
Closed-loop simulation
The closed-loop simulation is based on a control strategy where the cone crusher of the last uni t
LT300GPB is targeted to be choke-fed to guarantee a stable capacity and efficient grading.
Similarly, the feed chute of the second unit LT300GP is aimed to have a high material level to allow
the feeder of the same unit to feed both cone crushers. The first feeder is manipulated to regulate
the feed chute volume of the secondary crusher. The predictive PI control lers (Ai rikka, 2012a) were
tuned based on the i nformation obtained from the open-loop simulation.
There were two closed-loop simulation runs: crushing plant start-up (from 0 sec to 1000 sec) and
grading change in the secondary cone crusher resul ting in +10% material passing change in the
screen after the crusher. Figure 4 shows the simulation results through the available existing
conveyor (two in the middle), feed chute (upper rightmost) and crusher level measurements (two
leftmost and lower rightmost).
The process start-up is approximately eight minutes (480 sec) which can be observed by looking at
the tertiary crusher GP300C level which is at i ts targeted 100% level in that time. The secondary
crusher grading change takes place at t = 30 min (1800 sec) resulting in decreasing levels both in
feed chute and tertiary crusher. However, the sudden and unexpected disturbance gets
compensated by automatic control s having only a small effect at the end (less than -20% for the
tertiary crusher).
Figure 4 Measured variables of the crushing plant. Upper (from left to right): jaw crusher level, jaw
crusher product conveyor level, secondary crusher feed hopper volume. Lower (from left to
right): secondary crusher level, tertiary crusher lifting conveyor level, tertiary crusher lev el
0 20 40 60
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Primary crusher level
%
0 20 40 60
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Primary crusher conveyor level
%
0 20 40 60
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Secondary crusher feed chute level
%
0 20 40 60
0
10
20
30
40
Secondary crusher level
%
Time [min]
0 20 40 60
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Tertiary crusher in-conveyor level
%
Time [min]
0 20 40 60
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Tertiary crusher level
%
Time [min]
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CONCLUSION
The paper discussed how a dynamic simulator for a mobile three-stage crushing plant can be bui lt
up. The necessary models were discussed to capture the essential dynamic behaviour of crushing
plant equipment which are feed chutes, feeders, conveyors, screens and crushers. A simulation
model was created for a real three-stage mobile Metso Lokotrack crushing plant having a jaw
crusher C120 and two cone crushers (GP300S, GP300C). Open-loop simulations revealed how the
material flows with bypass and recycl ing flows have accumulating dynamics due to different
material paths resulting in different transport delays. Closed-loop simulation showed that control
strategies can be tested on a dynamic simulator. In this paper, only one approach was tested with
the shown results. In a wider perspective, the simulator wil l serve as a platform for control desi gn
for feeding and crusher control. In future, crusher-specific behaviour (setting, speed, power control)
can be implemented with more accurate size distributi on modelling.
REFERENCES
Ai rikka, P (2012a) Another Novel Modifi cati on Of Predi cti ve PI Controll er For Processes Wi th Long Dead
Ti mes, IFAC workshop on Advances in PID Control, Bresci a, I taly, 28-30.3.2012.
Ai rikka, P (2012b) Simpl e Continuos-time Identi ficati on Method for PID Control led Crushi ng Processes,
Submission accepted for IFAC Workshop on Automation in the Mining, Mineral and Metal Industries,
September 10-12, Japan.
Evertsson, C.M. (2000) ConeCrusher Performance, PhD thesi s, Chalmers University of Technol ogy, Gteborg,
Sweden.
Friman, M., Ai rikka, P. (2012) Tracking Simulati on Based on PI Controll ers and Autotuning, IFAC 18
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World
Congress, Mil an, Italy, 28.8-2.9.2011.
Itvuo, P. (2009) Dynamic modeling of a rock crushing process, MSc thesi s, Tampere Uni versity of Technology,
Fi nland.
Itvuo, P., Jaatinen, A. & Vi lkko, M. (2011) Simulation and advanced control of transient behavior i n gyratory
cone crushers, PROCEMIN 2011, Santiago, Chile.
Hul thn, E. (2010) Real-timeOptimization of ConeCrushers, PhD Thesi s, Chalmers Universi ty of Technology,
Sweden.
Johansson, A. (2009) Modeling and simulati on of cone crushers, Proceedings of IFAC MMM 2009, Chil e, 1416
October.
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