MINERAL PROCESSING STATISTICS

Particle Technology
PTY 260S

M AZIZ & R MBOKO

 SIGNIFICANCE OF STATS
Aim of Sampling: In order to acquire information
necessary for the economic appraisal of ores and
concentrates.
Sampling : Sampling is the removal from a given lot of
material a portion that is representative of the whole
yet of convenient size for analysis.
Sampling devices: Shovels, pipe samplers, and
automatic machine samplers.
Statistics: To provide an accurate representation of the
whole lot, the quantity of a single sample, the total
number of samples, and the kind of samples taken are
of decisive importance.
M AZIZ 2
 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

MEAN/ AVERAGE

_
X1  X 2  X 3    X n
X 
n

M AZIZ 3
 MEASURES OF DISPERSION
Dispersion is the amount of spread, or variability, in a set of data.
STANDARD DEVIATION
The standard deviation measures the “average” deviation
about the mean.
 
n

 (X  X ) 2 VARIANCE
s=  The variance is s2
  i 1
 
n 1 or, s  Variance
 
 
COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION (CV)
  V  s
X
The above statistical elements tell how precise is a sample measurement
Smaller is CV better is the measurement

M AZIZ 4
 LINEAR REGRESSION DERIVATION

Y = a1 + a2X

Where   Y   X     X   XY 
2

a1 
N  X   X 
2 2

N   XY     X   Y 
a2 
N  X 2   X 
2

M AZIZ 5
 EXAMPLE
Five ore samples are taken from a number of places on the
main reef. The distance of each sample from the center of
the reef core is noted along with the gold content.

Sample # Gold content Distance from the

(ppm) core centre (m)
1 50 0.01
2 30 0.10
3 10 0.15
4 1 0.25
5 0 0.30
M AZIZ 6
Q.

•Determine the standard deviation of the gold concentration

•Determine the average distance from the core center over the
area tested

•Determine the average concentration of the gold in ppm

•Determine the standard deviation of the distance from the

core center over the area tested

M AZIZ 7
 Answer:

Let’s determine the average gold concentration over the area we have tested;
(0.01 + 0.1 + 0.15 + 0.25 + 0.3)/ 5 = 0.162

Let’s determine the standard deviation

=0.1038

M AZIZ 8
 Let’s develop a straight-line equation that will give us the distance a
specific gold concentration will be from the center of the reef.
The formula that gives us the cons.1 of the linear equation is the
following:

  Y   X     X   XY 
2

a1 
N  X   X 
2 2

N   XY     X   Y 
a2 
N  X 2   X 
2

M AZIZ 9
   Y   X     X   XY 
2

a1 
N  X   X 
2 2

X Y XY X2
50 0.01 0.5 2500
30 0.10 3.0 900
10 0.15 1.5 100
1 0.25 0.25 1
0 0.30 0.00 0
91 0.81 5.25 3501
 
cons.1= 0.2556
 

M AZIZ 10
 N   XY     X   Y 
a2 
N  X   X 
2 2

X Y XY X2
50 0.01 0.5 2500
30 0.10 3.0 900
10 0.15 1.5 100
1 0.25 0.25 1
0 0.30 0.00 0
91 0.81 5.25 3501
 
cons.2 = -0.00515
 

M AZIZ 11
 Hence we can say that the linear equation that will give us the
distance a position is from the centre of the reef based the
gold concentration will be the following;
 

0.2556 – 0.00515 x ppm = distance

 

M AZIZ 12
 It may be easier to represent this data with a curved line or a second
order polynomial

0.3

line represented by equation distance

from reef

0.0

0.0 50

M AZIZ 13