International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62

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International Journal of Mineral Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijminpro

An intelligent control strategy for thickening process

Ning Xu 1, Xu Wang ⁎,1, Junwu Zhou, Qingkai Wang, Wen Fang, Xiuyun Peng
Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (BGRIMM), Beijing 102600, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Automation of Mining and Metallurgy Process, Beijing 102600, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Through the online measurement of the thickener operation parameters including feed flow rate, mud bed level,
Received 28 September 2014 and underflow concentration, an intelligent control strategy for thickener underflow and flocculant addition is
Received in revised form 19 January 2015 proposed based on the mass balance model and expert rules. Based on the strategy, some guidelines concerning
Accepted 23 January 2015
controllers tuning are provided. The application of thickener modeling and optimization software in the waste-
Available online 9 April 2015
water treatment plant of mineral processing illustrates an optimal control operation with stable underflow
Keywords:
concentration.
Thickener © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Modeling
Process control
Optimization
PLS

1. Introduction
Due to its nonlinearity, long-time delay, and strong coupling charac-
teristics with frequently varied boundary conditions, thickening process
is known to be difficultly controlled. Thus the widespread thickener
operation with poor standards, overflows with high fine particle con-
tents and high variable underflows in many plants are understandable.
In order to resolve these problems, a fuzzy logic controller with two
basic control loops was suggested by Santos et al. (1995). One is to con-
trol underflow concentration by varying the underflow pulp flow rate
and the other is to regulate overflow turbidity by adjusting the floccu-
lant addition rate. While the effect of the interaction between the two
coupled control loops was not reported. Recently, Segovia et al. (2011)
mentioned a multiple-input single-output (MISO) fuzzy controller to
control the sludge level and underflow concentration by adjusting the
underflow flow rate. The drawback is that the effect of flocculant was
not considered in the MISO fuzzy controller.
On the other hand, since the development of rigorous mathematical
modeling of the process of continuous sedimentation in a clarifier–
thickener unit with partial differential equations (Bürger and Narváez,
2007; Garrido et al., 2003b), more advanced model-based control strat-
egies have been proposed. Based on the sedimentation velocity of each
particle affected by the time-dependent properties of the fed solids,
Diehl (2008) put forward a proportional controller for controlling the
inventory by calculating the mathematical model in the ideal
⁎ Corresponding author at: Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
(BGRIMM), Beijing 102600, China.
E-mail address: wangxu@bgrimm.com (X. Wang).
1
Equally contributed to the work.
case. Betancourt et al. (2014) suggested to using the flow rate of
underflow to control the concentration and the feed property coeffi-
cient which is able to manipulate the value by modifying the flocculant
concentration to control the sediment level.
Since the theoretical strategies above assume that the thickener
is operated under near stationary conditions and calibrated model pa-
rameters without overload, they are difficult to perform in practice.
At the same time, with the phenomenological theory of sedimenta-
tion, the softwares for designing and simulating conventional industry
thickeners have been developed (Garrido et al., 2003a; Burgos and
Concha, 2005). The concentration profile in the thickener can be pre-
dicted by entering the solid feed rate and the required underflow con-
centration into the software. But there is no reported software for
controlling thickening process.
In this work, we proposed an intelligent thickener control strategy
based on the dynamic mass balance model. The “intelligent” controller
is able to calculate the optimal set point of the underflow flow rate,
based on the mass flow of the fed solids in thickener and the state
parameters of thickening process, and automatically adjusting the con-
troller parameters according to the trends of state parameters.
2. Mass balance model
2.1. Process parameter online measurement
Thickeners work continuously to produce a concentrated underflow
and a clarified overflow. When the fed solid mass flow is determined by
the upstream process, operators are used to adjusting the flow rate of
underflow and flocculant to obtain the desired underflow concentra-
tion. In fact, there exist some problems in the thickener control. Mud

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.minpro.2015.01.007
0301-7516/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62 57

bed level which makes an immediate impact on the underflow con-

centration is usually neglected. Online analytical instrument of over-
flow turbidity is replaced by manual sampling tests. Flocculant dose
is adjusted according to subjective experience. What's more, thick-
eners often shut down due to the rakes' overloading without pressure
detection. All the above factors have affected the thickening efficiency
seriously.
Therefore, a complete monitoring system of thickening process
should at least online measure all the variables in Table 1 (see Fig. 1).
By online measurement of mud bed level, solid mass flow of feed and
underflow, mass balance model of thickening process can be built from
the obtained historical data as the basic of optimal control.

2.2. Mass balance equations

Based on mass balance, changes of the total solid mass of mud bed m
are mainly depending on the solid mass flow of feeding and discharging
Fig. 1. Thickening process measurement.
changes. Suppose the concentration of overflow is 0, the macroscopic
mass balance equation is (Betancourt et al., 2013)
2.3. Average solid mass fraction of mud bed prediction model
dmðt Þ
¼ Q F ðt ÞC F ðt Þϕ F ðt Þ−Q U ðt ÞC U ðt ÞϕU ðt Þ ð1Þ The average solid mass fraction of mud bed prediction model can be
dt
obtained by using the partial least-squares (PLS) regression algorithm.
Here, we rewrite Eq. (4) as follows
where the function of total solid mass of mud bed is
y ¼ ϕBed ðt Þ ¼ f 2 ðLBed ðt Þ; ϕU ðt ÞÞ ¼ f 2 ðX Þ ð6Þ
mðt Þ ¼ f 1 ðLBed ðt ÞÞ  f 2 ðLBed ðt Þ; ϕU ðt ÞÞ  C Bed ðt Þ ð2Þ
where the input matrix X is composed of mud bed level and underflow
solid mass fraction, and the output vector y is the corresponding average
which involves the mud bed volume function f1(LBed (t)) and average
solid mass fraction of mud bed.
solid mass fraction of mud bed function f2(LBed (t),ϕU (t)). Here we
First, X is normalized processing. Then given the nonlinearity of the
define
thickening process, X is converted to the active matrix XA. The elements
aij of row i column j of XA can be obtained by
V Bed ðt Þ ¼ f 1 ðLBed ðt ÞÞ ð3Þ
0

2 1




xi −c j

ϕBed ðt Þ ¼ f 2 ðLBed ðt Þ; ϕU ðt ÞÞ ð4Þ B C
ai j ¼ exp@− A i; j ¼ 1; 2⋯n ð7Þ
σ 2j
where VBed is the volume of mud bed and ϕBed the average solid mass
fraction of mud bed, which is obtained from the prediction model where xi is the input vector of row i of data samples and cj is the cen-
with mud bed level and underflow solid mass fraction as input vari- tered parameters which satisfies
ables. And the average concentration (kg/m3) of mud bed function
CBed that appeared in Eq. (2) satisfies the following formula cj ¼ xj ð8Þ

and σj is the width parameter of Gaussian function which satisfies

mbed ðt Þ
C Bed ðt Þ ¼
V bed ðt Þ n


1X


mbed ðt Þ σj ¼
xi −x j
: ð9Þ
¼ n i¼1
mbed ðt Þ  ϕBed ðt Þ mbed ðt Þ  ð1−ϕBed ðt ÞÞ ð5Þ
þ
ρsolid ρwater
Finally, XA and y can be decomposed as follows (Geladi and
ρsolid  ρwater
¼ Kowalski, 1986; Qin, 1998)
ρwater  ϕBed ðt Þ þ ρsolid  ð1−ϕBed ðt ÞÞ
 T
X A ¼ TP þ Eh ð10Þ
3
where ρsolid is the solid density (kg/m ). Similarly, feed concentration y ¼ XAb þ F h
function CF and underflow concentration function CU can be calculated
from ϕF and ϕU, respectively. where b is the regression vector obtained in accordance with PLS
algorithm.

Table 1 3. Control objective and strategies

Information of online measured variables.

Icon Symbol Measured objects In order to maintain stable and efficient in the continuous thickening
FT (feed) QF Feed volumetric flow (m3/h)
process, the controller is required to meet the following objectives.
DT (feed) ϕF Feed solid mass fraction (%)
(1) Ensure stable thickener operation by minimizing “short circuit”
FT (flocculant) Q Floc Flocculant volumetric flow (m3/h)
PT PRake Rake torque (N*m) or overloaded conditions.
LT LBed Bed level (m) (2) Stabilize the underflow concentration, thereby improving the
AT TOver Overflow turbidity (mg/l) performance of downstream processes.
DT (underflow) ϕU Underflow solid mass fraction (%) (3) Improve the clarity of the overflow water and prevent the loss of
FT (underflow) QU Underflow volumetric flow (m3/h)
mineral particles.
58 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62
(4) Reduce the flocculant consumption in the premise of ensuring
the settling velocity.
Based on the above considerations, the intelligent control strategy of
thickening process was proposed.
3.1. Flocculant addition control
The best dosage of flocculant can be determined by laboratory sim-
ulation. The effects of different dosing flocculation can be evaluated
from the settling velocity and the economic rationality.
The set point of flocculant addition is to control the pump speed
needed to deliver the required dosage. For flocculant injection, three
potential control modes could be used:
(1) Manual Control Mode: the operator sets the pump speed via the
variable speed drive.
(2) Automatic Control Mode: the operator sets the flow rate and the
pump speed is adjusted automatically to maintain the specified
flow.
(3) Feed Forward Control Mode: the flocculant injection is managed
by a feed forward control loop to control the flocculant flow by
varying the pump speed. As shown in Fig. 2, the set point of the
flocculant flow is adjusted in a feed forward control proportional
to the solid mass flow of the thickener feed.
The set point Q FlocSP (m3/h) of the flocculant flow is based on the
following calculation
Q F ðt Þ  ϕ F ðt Þ  C F ðt Þ  DRFloc SP ðt Þ
Q Floc SP ðt Þ ¼
FC  1000
where DRFlocSP is the flocculant dose rate (g/t), and FC is the flocculant
solution concentration (g/l).
3.2. Mass balance model-based methods in underflow control
Thickeners are controlled as a continuous settling and thickening
process, where the solids are being withdrawn at the same rate as
being fed. To achieve and maintain underflow concentration, it is neces-
sary to keep the mass balance where underflow solid rate equals to the
fed solid rate.
Based on the thickener mass balance model of Eq. (1), the underflow
flow rate Q U is determined as
Q F ðt ÞC F ðt Þϕ F ðt Þ−dmðt Þ=dt
Q U ðt Þ ¼ : ð12Þ
C U ðt ÞϕU ðt Þ
Specifically, when the underflow solid mass flow is equal to the
fed solid mass flow, the set point of the underflow flow rate Q USP⁎is
obtained
 Q F ðt ÞC F ðt Þϕ F ðt Þ
Q U SP ðt Þ ¼ : ð13Þ
C U ðt ÞϕU ðt Þ
And the underflow pump speed is adjusted automatically to main-
tain the specified flow (Fig. 3).
Fig. 2. Control block diagram of flocculant addition.
Fig. 3. Underflow control block diagram.
3.3. Rule-based methods in optimizing thickener control
The stability of thickener operation is greatly influenced by the feed
flow rate and upstream process. On the one hand, if the underflow rate
is too low, it is possible to make the thickener overloaded and the
mineral particle loss when the mud bed level is high enough. On the
other hand, if the underflow rate is too high, thickeners will be “short-
circuited” when the mud bed is pumped out and the feed is directly
discharged.
To solve these problems, thickener optimal control strategies in-
cluding state feedback identifier and expert system are proposed below.
First, the current state of the thickener, which includes rake torque,
overflow turbidity, mud bed level and underflow solid mass fraction,
is identified by the state feedback identifier. Specifically, the four key
parameters are identified by superimposing, thus the result is varied
as shown in Fig. 4.
The measured rake torque is an indication of the mud concentration
and the forces needed to move the rakes. When the torque reaches to
the setting threshold, operating changes are required to relieve the
torque. If the torque continues up to the safe limit, the drive will be
shut down to protect the mechanism. Therefore, corrective actions,
ð11Þ such as increasing underflow rate, should be taken well in advance of
reaching the safe limit to prevent overload. And by detecting turbidity
of the thickener overflow, the loss of mineral particles can also be
avoided. Generally, a rise in bed level or solid residence time will in-
crease the underflow concentration and rake torque. But if the floccula-
tion is poor, a high bed level may also be resulted though a normal
torque. However, if the feed is over flocculated, the bed level may be
lower than normal in spite of high torque.
Second, according to the identified state, the controller searches
in expert rule database extracted from above information of the thick-
ening process, and then optimizes the set-point of underflow rate and
flocculant dose rate, which takes the thickener mass balance model as
the rough tuning guide and meanwhile the state parameters as the
fine tuning guide (Fig. 5).
Fig. 4. Identifier interface of thickener state feedback.
 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62 59

towards the direction of thickener state parameters within the target

range.

4. Application examples of optimizing thickener control

The advanced thickener control software was developed based on

the proposed thickener control strategy. Here are the examples of the
software applied in the industrial wastewater treatment process of
a copper.

4.1. Flocculant dose rate optimization

In order to determine the optimal ratio of flocculant dosing, the

static sedimentation experiment which mimics the real environment
was carried out.
Fig. 5. Optimal control block diagram.
Static sedimentation experiment, based on the phenomenon of sus-
pension settling partition in gravitational field, is to study the settling
characteristics of the suspension by measuring changes over time in
Specifically, if the rake torque or overflow turbidity is beyond the set
each settlement area. The test suspension with a certain concentration
range, the flow rate of underflow set-point reaches the allowed maxi-
was prepared, fully shaken and let stand. And then the position of the
mum value. Otherwise, the set point QUSP of underflow rate is deter-
interface between the settling and fining zone was recorded at set inter-
mined from combining Eqs. (1) and (13) as
vals, i.e., the height of the settlement area. We take the settling time as
the horizontal axis and the height of the settlement area as the vertical
 mðt Þ−m0 1
Q U SP ðt Þ ¼ Q U SP ðt Þ þ  ð14Þ axis. Then the relationship curve between the height and the settling
Δt C U ðt ÞϕU ðt Þ
time can be plotted. To make the test results be similar to the fact as pos-
sible, samples are taken from the plant with a sampler.
and
Samples were poured into five 1000 ml cylinders as shown in Fig. 6.
32 ml, 48 ml, 64 ml, 80 ml and 96 ml of flocculant were added se-
ρsolid  ρwater  f 1 ðLBed SP Þ  f 2 ðLBed SP; ϕU SP Þ
m0 ¼ quentially to the cylinders from right to left according to the density
ρwater  f 2 ðLBed SP; ϕU SP Þ þ ρsolid  ð1−f 2 ðLBed SP; ϕU SP ÞÞ
of 2 g/m3, 3 g/m3, 4 g/m3, 5 g/m3 and 6 g/m3. Then, the liquid in the
five cylinders was stirred about 1 min, and stop stirring. At regular inter-
where m0 is the total solid mass of mud bed with the set point of mud
vals, we recorded the mud–water interface level and observed sedimen-
bed level LBedSP and underflow solid mass fraction ϕUSP, and Δt is time
tation. Based on the settlement experiment data, the relationship curve
interval related to particle sedimentation rate in the thickener. In this
between the height of the compression zone and the settling time was
paper, the initial value of Δt is 0.5 h through experiments.
plotted.
We use
As can be seen from Fig. 7, after 5 min, the settling velocity of the
8 cylinder of 2 g/m3 was significantly decreased, while there was no sig-
>
> 1
<K¼ nificant difference among other cylinders.
Δt ð15Þ
> mðt Þ−m0 Considering the sedimentation rate and economic factor, the opti-
> ΔVu ¼
:
C U ðt ÞϕU ðt Þ mal ratio of flocculant dosing was 3 g/m3.

where K is defined as control coefficient. Eq. (14) can be rewritten as 4.2. Identification of the average solid mass fraction of mud bed prediction
model parameters

Q U SP ðt Þ ¼ Q U SP ðt Þ þ K  ΔV u : ð16Þ
In order to build the thickener mass balance model, we first need to
Depending on the thickener conditions, the optimization results of identify the parameters of average solid mass fraction of mud bed pre-
the set-point value of underflow rate and flocculant dose rate are list diction mode through experiments.
in Table 2. By adjusting the flow rate of the thickener underflow, the values of
Finally, after the thickener controller waiting for several control cy- underflow solid mass fraction and mud bed level were recorded per
cles, if the overrun parameter of thickener state still doesn't show a 1 h. Meanwhile, the values of average solid mass fraction of mud bed
downward trend, the control coefficient K will be adjusted automatically were obtained from sampling tests using the developed sludge sam-
plers (Fig. 8).
40 groups of valid data were obtained during the 5 days of sampling
Table 2 experiment. Of which, 30 groups were used to train the model and the
Expert rules of thickener control. other 10 groups were used to test the model. The model prediction
ϕU LBed DRFlocSP Q USP curve of average solid mass fraction of mud bed is shown in Fig. 9. In
this paper, the relative mean square error (RMSE) is used to evaluate
On target Above target DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU
On target On target DRFloc Q USP⁎ model prediction accuracy. The RMSE of the prediction model is 7.45%.
On target Below target DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU
Above target Above target DRFloc Q USP⁎ + 1.1 K ∗ ΔVU
4.3. Application of advanced thickener control software
Above target On target 0.9 ∗ DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU
Above target Below target 0.8 ∗ DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU
Below target Above target 1.2 ∗ DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU On the basis of the original control system, the function of thickener
Below target On target 1.1 ∗ DRFloc Q USP⁎ + K ∗ ΔVU modeling and optimization could be achieved by adding a computer
Below target Below target DRFloc Q USP⁎ + 0.9 K ∗ ΔVU equipped with the advanced thickener control software designed in
DRFloc is the optimum flocculant dosing proportion according to the experiment. C/S structure.
60 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62
Fig. 6. Static sedimentation experiment.
Operation data of the thickener was collected from the programma-
ble logic controller (PLC) and then transferred into the data server. The
data was prepared and filtered by the Pre-handling Data Module and
then saved to the historical database. The thickener model was created
by the Model-Training Module using the data from the historical data-
base. The control parameters were calculated by the Optimized Module
and sent back to the control system.
The designed modeling and optimization system takes into account
the large number of data, and some modules also require manual oper-
ation. Thus the offline and online parts are included in the system and
associated with parameters. In order to reduce the coupling between
modules, the parameter configuration module is designed which stores
the parameters into the database.
Fig. 10 shows the window of advanced thickener control software.
The software operations include the following aspects: in the upper
right corner of the software interface, we can configure the mass
balance model parameters by selecting the number of the thickener
Fig. 7. Static settling characteristic curve.
Fig. 8. Developed sludge samplers.
model, set the size parameters of the thickener by selecting the number
of device type, and give the process parameters by selecting the number
of technological parameters. In addition, the range of the flow rate
of underflow can be adjusted in the upper right corner. The state vari-
ables such as mud bed level and underflow solid mass fraction of the
thickener can be selected to add to the control strategy according to
the actual situation. And we may configure control range of the state
variables in the bottom interface. The two curves in the middle reflect
the changes between set point (SP) and process value (PV) of the flow
rate of underflow.
Here are examples of the application of the advanced thickener
control software to optimize the thickener control. In the following
examples, since the range of feed concentration change is small and un-
controllable in actual thickening process, we choose feed volumetric
flow as the main input variable. And we observe and discuss how the
intelligent control strategy of the flow rate of underflow works to
have an effect on the mud bed level and underflow solid mass fraction
with K = 2 (Eq. (16)).
In the first example, the control effect of thickener controller is
discussed, when a large decrease in the feed volumetric flow leads to
the underflow solid mass fraction less than the lower limit. When
the test began, the feed volumetric flow reduced quickly, and conse-
quently the underflow solid mass fraction was lower than the control
target after 1 h. Then the controller was triggered immediately to
reduce the set point of the flow rate of underflow based on mass
balance model to increase the mud bed level gradually, which made
the underflow solid mass fraction recovery within the control range
smoothly (Fig. 11).
The second example discusses the control effect of thickener con-
troller when an increased change in the feed volumetric flow results
in the mud bed level above the upper limit. After the test was started,
feed volumetric flow increased quickly leading to the mud bed level
above the control target after the second hour. Then the controller
Fig. 9. Model prediction curve.
 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62 61

Fig. 10. Advanced thickener control software interface.

was triggered immediately to increase the set point of the flow rate of
underflow on the basis of mass balance model to decrease the mud
bed level gradually, so that the mud bed level recovered to the control
range smoothly. Subsequently, the controller judged whether the cur-
rent underflows solid mass fraction within the target range. If it was
within the allowable target range, the set point of the flow rate of
underflow was determined by the mass balance model; otherwise the
controller would continue to change the set point of the flow rate of
underflow as the first example (Fig. 12).
In the third example, the intelligent controller and the conventional
PID controller are compared. Two parallel thickeners in the industrial
wastewater treatment process of a copper were selected as subjects,
and the conventional PID controller and intelligent controller were
used to the first and the second thickener, respectively. At start, feed
volumetric flow is evenly distributed to the two thickeners.
Due to the ignored effect of the feed volumetric flow fluctuation,
underflow solid mass fraction of the thickener using conventional
single-loop PID control was also in a sharp fluctuation. Meanwhile, be-
cause of the serious lag of the thickening process, underflow solid
mass fraction controlled with the single-loop PID controller directly

Fig. 11. Example 1: Dynamic behavior of the thickener under a reduce change in the feed Fig. 12. Example 2: Dynamic behavior of the thickener under an increased change in the
volumetric flow for controller. feed volumetric flow for controller.
62 N. Xu et al. / International Journal of Mineral Processing 142 (2015) 56–62
Fig. 13. The control curve of underflow solid mass fraction.
would cause abnormalities of other state variables. For example, mud
bed level exceeded the safe upper limit with danger of the mineral par-
ticle loss, forcing the operator to make manual intervention, which also
indirectly caused a wide change in the underflow solid mass fraction.
Compared with the first thickener, underflow solid mass fraction of
the second thickener was stable within the range of 22% to 25% which
met thickening process requirement indicators. The average solid
mass fraction of 24 h of continuous operation of the control system
was 24.7%. There was an average increase of 3.1% percent compared
with conventional PID control (Fig. 13). What's more, the mud bed
level was always controlled within safe limits, which ensured the effi-
cient and stable operation.
5. Conclusion
In this work, we have illustrated the use of intelligent strategy for
underflow and flocculant addition control based on the thickener
mass balance model and the expert rules. In addition, the advanced
modeling and optimization software for thickener were developed.
The control strategy has been proven to be effective through the practi-
cal application in the mineral processing industrial wastewater treat-
ment plant with high promotional value for a widely used thickener.
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