Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants

The aim of this study is two-fold: first, to analyze the effect of stochastic uncertainty in the design of flotation circuits and second, to analyze different strategies for the solution of a two-stage stochastic problem applied to a copper flotation circuit. The paper begins by introducing a stocha...

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Main Authors: Jamett, Nathalie, Cisternas, Luis A., Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112209
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4335-7248
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author Jamett, Nathalie
Cisternas, Luis A.
Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo
author2 Sloan School of Management
author_facet Sloan School of Management
Jamett, Nathalie
Cisternas, Luis A.
Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo
author_sort Jamett, Nathalie
collection MIT
description The aim of this study is two-fold: first, to analyze the effect of stochastic uncertainty in the design of flotation circuits and second, to analyze different strategies for the solution of a two-stage stochastic problem applied to a copper flotation circuit. The paper begins by introducing a stochastic optimization problem whose aim is to find the best configuration of superstructure, equipment design and operational conditions, such as residence time and stream flows. Variability is considered in the copper price and ore grade. This variability is represented by scenarios with their respective probability of occurrence. The resulting optimization problem is a two-stage stochastic mixed integer nonlinear program (TS-MINLP), which can be extremely challenging to solve. For this reason, several solvers for this problem are compared and two stochastic programming methodologies are applied. The combination of these techniques allows the production of high quality solutions and an analysis of their sensitivity to epistemic uncertainty. The results show that the stochastic problem gives better designs because it allows operational parameters to adapt to the uncertainty of the parameters. The results also show that the flotation circuit structure can vary with the feed grade and copper price. The sensitivity analysis shows small to moderate variability with epistemically uncertain parameters.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1122092022-09-29T10:34:33Z Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants Jamett, Nathalie Cisternas, Luis A. Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo Sloan School of Management Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo The aim of this study is two-fold: first, to analyze the effect of stochastic uncertainty in the design of flotation circuits and second, to analyze different strategies for the solution of a two-stage stochastic problem applied to a copper flotation circuit. The paper begins by introducing a stochastic optimization problem whose aim is to find the best configuration of superstructure, equipment design and operational conditions, such as residence time and stream flows. Variability is considered in the copper price and ore grade. This variability is represented by scenarios with their respective probability of occurrence. The resulting optimization problem is a two-stage stochastic mixed integer nonlinear program (TS-MINLP), which can be extremely challenging to solve. For this reason, several solvers for this problem are compared and two stochastic programming methodologies are applied. The combination of these techniques allows the production of high quality solutions and an analysis of their sensitivity to epistemic uncertainty. The results show that the stochastic problem gives better designs because it allows operational parameters to adapt to the uncertainty of the parameters. The results also show that the flotation circuit structure can vary with the feed grade and copper price. The sensitivity analysis shows small to moderate variability with epistemically uncertain parameters. 2017-11-16T18:45:00Z 2017-11-16T18:45:00Z 2015-06 2015-05 2017-10-27T19:43:08Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0009-2509 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112209 Jamett, Nathalie et al. “Solution Strategies to the Stochastic Design of Mineral Flotation Plants.” Chemical Engineering Science 134 (September 2015): 850–860 © 2015 Elsevier Ltd https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4335-7248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2015.06.010 Chemical Engineering Science Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier Prof. Vielma
spellingShingle Jamett, Nathalie
Cisternas, Luis A.
Vielma Centeno, Juan Pablo
Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title_full Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title_fullStr Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title_full_unstemmed Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title_short Solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
title_sort solution strategies to the stochastic design of mineral flotation plants
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112209
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4335-7248
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