CA2440312A1 - Single pass crushing flowsheet - Google Patents
Single pass crushing flowsheet Download PDFInfo
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- CA2440312A1 CA2440312A1 CA 2440312 CA2440312A CA2440312A1 CA 2440312 A1 CA2440312 A1 CA 2440312A1 CA 2440312 CA2440312 CA 2440312 CA 2440312 A CA2440312 A CA 2440312A CA 2440312 A1 CA2440312 A1 CA 2440312A1
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- Prior art keywords
- sand
- oil
- slurry preparation
- preparation process
- ore
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Classifications
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
- B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
- B02C23/00—Auxiliary methods or auxiliary devices or accessories specially adapted for crushing or disintegrating not provided for in preceding groups or not specially adapted to apparatus covered by a single preceding group
- B02C23/02—Feeding devices
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
- B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
- B02C21/00—Disintegrating plant with or without drying of the material
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B03—SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS; MAGNETIC OR ELECTROSTATIC SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS FROM SOLID MATERIALS OR FLUIDS; SEPARATION BY HIGH-VOLTAGE ELECTRIC FIELDS
- B03B—SEPARATING SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS
- B03B11/00—Feed or discharge devices integral with washing or wet-separating equipment
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B03—SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS; MAGNETIC OR ELECTROSTATIC SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS FROM SOLID MATERIALS OR FLUIDS; SEPARATION BY HIGH-VOLTAGE ELECTRIC FIELDS
- B03B—SEPARATING SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS
- B03B9/00—General arrangement of separating plant, e.g. flow sheets
- B03B9/02—General arrangement of separating plant, e.g. flow sheets specially adapted for oil-sand, oil-chalk, oil-shales, ozokerite, bitumen, or the like
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- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Food Science & Technology (AREA)
- Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
- Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
- Geology (AREA)
- Oil, Petroleum & Natural Gas (AREA)
- Disintegrating Or Milling (AREA)
Abstract
In the field of mining an improvement in process flowsheet logic for the preparation of run-of-mine ore for a subsequent process step in which flowsheet simplification can be achieved by implementing at least one step of single-pass crushing to eliminate the conventional processing steps of screening, internal material re-handling and the creation and accumulation of a rejects stream. The simplified facility has fewer items of equipment to maintain and is more amenable to relocation within the mining areas.
Description
1 TITLE: SINGLE PASS CRUSHING FL~SHEET
3 INTR~DUCTI~N AND PRI~R ART
In the field of mining the technology of Oil-sand recovery and processing is unique to the 6 deposits found in Northern Alberta, Canada in terms of the evolution of process logic 7 and equipment suitable for mining and processing the oil-sand. In the oil-sand mine, 8 equipment used to excavate and transport the run-of-mine (ROM) oil-sand are is as 9 large in scale as at any world-wide mining operations, typically using electric-hydraulic shovels of up to 62 cubic metre capacity buckets loading into haulage trucks of up to 400 11 tonnes capacity to transport the ROM oil-sand ore to a centralized oil-sand slurry 12 preparation facility.
14 ~ue to the massive scale of the mining equipment and the characteristics of the oil-sand itself, the ore received from the mining operation typically contains a very large range of 16 lump sizes spanning from 3,500 mm and weighing up to 30 tonnes down to sand 17 particles of a few millimeters. The ROM ore typically contains up to 30°/~ moisture, 2%
18 to 18% bitumen and 45% to 55% sand content by weight and also contains amounts of 19 siltstone rock having an unconfined compressive strength of 165 to 221 MF'a as a waste component.
22 The harsh environmental conditions at oil-sand operations encompass an ambient 23 temperature range from +35 degrees Celsius down to -51 degrees Celsius. All mining 24 and slurry preparation equipment is required to function with unhindered effectiveness and productivity under these ambient conditions. Materials handling properties of the 26 ROM ore are highly variable over this temperature range. 'The oil-sand ore comprises 27 frozen, highly abrasive lumps in winter but exhibits sticky, e;ohesive behaviour in summer, 28 largely due to the influence of the contained moisture and k~itumen components.
A slurry preparation process step is typically required to prE:pare all ROM
ore to be 31 suitable for long-distance transport as a water-based slurry to a remote upgrading facility, 32 at single-stream production rates exceeding 10,000 tonnes per hour of ROM
oil-sand.
33 Typical prerequisites for efficient slurry pumping are crushing the oil-sand ore to minus 1 100 mm followed by the preparation of a homogeneous water slurry, typically with a 2 consistency of about 64% solids by weight at a specific gravity of 1.5.
4 Current practice for oil-sand slurry preparation in the industry requires the use of multiple series-wise equipment processing steps to accomplish controlled ore feeding, screening 6 and crushing prior to slurry pipelining. Designers and equipment vendors are challenged 7 to create a facility containing multiple items of processing equipment With intermediary 8 gravity feed and conveying transfer stages. The oil-sand slurry preparation equipment is 9 typically housed within large, structural steel modules located within the active oil-sand mining area. These modules must be constructed suitably for re-location on a typical 11 frequency of 1 to 3 years per operating location.
13 Disadvantages of the prior art for oil-sand slurry preparation arise largely from adapting 14 conventional process equipment and conventional process flowsheet logic to the Canadian oil-sand context. Disadvantages include the primary constraint of requiring a 16 screening process step to ensure control of the maximum size of lumps, with the 17 corollary requirement of adding oil-sand re-handling process steps and the creation and 18 accumulation of a "rejects" waste pile adjacent to the slurry preparation facility.
19 Maintenance effort is also high due to the large quantity of equipment used to implement the required flowsheet. The prior art can therefore be characterized as "process 21 flowsheet deficient" with respect to inherent limitations in meeting modern oil-sand 22 mining plant requirements in a practical and efficient manner.
24 A preferred embodiment of this invention comprises an improved oil-sand process flowsheet logic utilizing unique, enabling oil-sand handling and processing equipment 26 innovations. These improvements include eliminating all screening and internal re-27 circulation process steps, primarily by introducing single-pass primary and secondary 28 crushing process steps to eliminate all screening requirements. These process 29 flowsheet improvements beneficially impact the design of the slurry preparation plant and also facilitate design for portability or mobility of the slurry preparation plant facility.
32 The need for limiting oil-sand maximum lump size lies in the slurry transportatian step in 33 which minimum pumping velocity is strongly dictated by maximum lump size. A
corollary 34 need for controlling the flow rate of oil-sand feed to the slurry preparation plant lies in the 1 need to prepare homogeneous oil-sand slurry density at a constant rate in order to 2 prevent plugging in the final oil-sand delivery pipeline.
4 Specification & Drawings The preferred embodiments of an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant comprise 6 the following series-wise process steps:
7 (a) Receive ROM oil-sand ore from haulage trucks into an adequately sized 8 receiving hopper;
9 (b) Reclaim and feed ROM oil-sand ore to the primary single-pass crusher at a controlled rate to create primary crushed oil-sand;
11 (c) Receive and feed primary crushed oil-sand to the secondary single-pass 12 crusher at a controlled rate to create secondary crushed oil-sand;
13 (d) Receive and feed secondary crushed oil-sand to the slung preparation 14 process step.
16 In process step (a) the receiving hopper will be required to accommodate one or more 17 haulage trucks of the mining fleet dumping into the receiving hopper at frequent but 18 random intervals. If a receiving hopper is arranged to accommodate a single truck 19 dumping position, it has been observed by the inventor that the hopper size should be at least 1.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck, equating to 600 tonnes or about 21 286 cubic metres of volumetric capacity. If a receiving hopper is arranged to 22 accommodate two truck dumping positions, it has been observed by the inventor that the 23 hopper size should be at least 2.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck to 24 accommodate the event of two trucks dumping simultaneously. A supporting rationale for these minimum capacities follows.
27 In process step (b) the receiving hopper must be equipped with a "live bin bottom" type 28 of reclaim conveyor. This function is typically satisfied by use of a steel pan-type apron 29 feeder operated at steady or variable speeds to provide a continuous, controlled flow rate of reclaimed ROM oil-sand ore to the primary single-pass crusher. Known practice 31 for the protection of the steel apron pans is to avoid emptying the receiving hopper 32 completely between haulage truck loads; it is preferred to leave a protective bed of oil-33 sand material on top of the pans to prevent impact damage from the next haulage truck 34 dumping its load. This latter requirement is satisfied if the receiving hopper and reclaim 3l8 1 steel pan conveyor are controlled to retain about half of a prior haulage truck load at the 2 time of dumping an additional load of oil-sand ROM ore, for a total minimum receiving 3 hopper capacity of 1.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck.
It is also known in the art that process step (c) beneficially incorporates a second surge 6 control process step before the secondary single-pass crusher, caused by the 7 unavoidable occurence of large, irregularly shaped oil-sand lumps in the feed to the 8 primary single-pass crusher which momentarily interfere with the flow rate of oil-sand 9 through the crusher. Flow rate variability includes both reductions due to momentary blockage of the single-pass crusher gap by the large lumps and also increases due to 11 the lumps becoming caught by the single-pass crusher teeth and being crushed and 12 forced through the gap at high speed. This is a known output characteristic of primary 13 crushing in oil-sand ROM ore, but it has been observed by the inventor that this 14 variability can be "averaged out" by sizing the second receiving hopper to contain a minimum volumetric equivalent of about 20 seconds of running time of the slurry 16 preparation plant. At 10,000 tonneslhr this equates to about 55 tonnes or 26 cubic 17 metres volumetric capacity. As with the first receiving hopper, the reclaiming and 18 feeding function is typically satisfied with a steel pan-type apron feeder operated at 19 steady or variable speeds to provide a continuous, controlled flow rate of reclaimed primary crushed oil-sand to the secondary single-pass crusher.
22 Following process step (c) all oil-sand material will have been reduced to minus 100 mm 23 lump size in preparation for the first stage of introducing water to make slurry. It is 24 critical that the discharge rate of secondary crushed oil-sand be relatively constant.
These requirements will be readily accomplished by the combined operation of process 26 steps (c) and (d) with the beneficial use of primary and secondary single-pass crushing 27 and the use of appropriately sized receiving hoppers, all as described in this 28 specification.
It will be readily appreciated by one practiced in the art that although steps (a) to (c) are 31 represented as "dry" process steps prior to the introduction of water to make the oil-sand 32 slurry, water could be introduced earlier in the process. For example it may be desirable 33 to begin to introduce water in the feed to the secondary single-pass crusher to benefit 34 the subsequent slurry preparation process steps and, in fact, to improve oil-sand 1 through-put rate at the secondary single-pass crusher. Also, the quoting of specific 2 capacity or dimensional data for equipment or process steps of the overall process is not 3 intended to limit the use of other capacities and dimensions when such use falls within 4 the spirit of the invention.
6 With reference to the Figures:
7 Figure 1 is a conventional oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet illustrating 8 best practices of the prior art.
Figure 2 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 11 preferred embodiments of the invention.
13 Figure 3 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 14 preferred embodiments of the invention as in Figure 2 but further including a second receiving hopper prior to the secondary single-pass crushing process step.
17 Figure 4 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 18 preferred embodiments of the invention as in Figure 3 but substituting chutes for some of 19 the conveyors of Figure 3.
21 In Figure 1 haulage truck 1 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 2 from which 22 reclaim conveyor 3 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 4 to primary conventional 23 crusher 5. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 6 to second receiving 24 hopper 7 from which reclaim conveyor 8 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 9 to conveyor 10 feeding via chute 11 to multi-deck screen 12. Oversize rejects from screen 26 12 feed via chute 13 for storage in rejects pile 14. Oversize oil-sand from screen 12 27 feeds via chute 15 to secondary conventional crusher 16. The secondary crushed oil-28 sand passes through chute 17 to conveyor 18 to chute 19 and conveyor 20 to feed oil-29 sand via chute 21 back onto screen 12 in a closed circuit re-handling loop.
In this context a re-handling loop is comparable to a recirculation loop in which a portion of the 31 oil-sand material in the full stream flow must be returned back to an earlier step of the 32 process flowsheet to be processed again, by multi-deck screen 12 in this case.
33 Undersize from screen 12 feeds via chute 22 to conveyor 23 and chute 24 to tank 25;
34 tank 25 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit.
Water addition 26 1 controlled by valve 27 is also added to tank 25 fieeding slurry pump 28 delivering oil-2 sand slurry through pipeline 29 to a remote facility (not shown).
4 In Figure 2 haulage truck 30 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 31 from which reclaim conveyor 32 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 33 to primary single-pass 6 crusher 34. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 35 to conveyor 7 feeding via chute 37 to secondary single-pass crusher 38. Secondary crushed oil-sand 8 feeds via chute 39 to conveyor 40 and chute 41 to tank 42; tank 42 representing a 9 simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit. Water addition 43 controlled by valve 44 is also added to tank 42 feeding slurry pump 45 delivering oil-sand slurry through pipeline 11 46 to a remote facility (not shown).
13 In Figure 3 haulage truck 47 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 48 from which 14 reclaim conveyor 49 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 50 to primary single-pass crusher 51. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 52 to second receiving 16 hopper 53 from which reclaim conveyor 54 withdraws oil-sand feeding via chute 55 to 17 conveyor 56 feeding via chute 57 to secondary single-pass crusher 58.
Secondary 18 crushed oil-sand feeds via chute 59 to conveyor 60 and chute 61 to tank 62;
tank 62 19 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit. Water addition 63 controlled by valve 64 is also added to tank 62 feeding slurry pump 65 delivering oil-sand slurry 21 through pipeline 66 to a remote facility (not shown).
23 In Figure 4 haulage truck 67 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 68 from which 24 reclaim conveyor 69 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 70 to primary single-pass crusher 71. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 72 to second receiving 26 hopper 73 from which reclaim conveyor 74 withdraws oil-sand feeding via chute 75 27 directly to secondary single-pass crusher 76. Secondary crushed oil-sand feeds via 28 chute 77 directly to tank 78; tank 78 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation 29 circuit. Water addition 79 controlled by valve 80 is also added to tank 78 feeding slurry pump 81 delivering oil-sand slurry through pipeline 82 to a remote facility (not shown).
32 The conventional oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet of Figure 1 is 33 clearly more complex and contains many more process steps and items of processing 34 equipment than the improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheets of 1 Figures 2, 3 and 4. In particular the oil-sand screen 12 and the oil-sand re-handling 2 conveyors 18 and 20 and chutes 19 and 21 and chute 13 feeding a rejects storage pile 3 14 of the prior art flowsheet of Figure 1 are not required in the improved flowsheets of 4 Figures 2, 3 and 4.
6 Figure 4 is a further simplification of Figure 3 in which conveyors 56 and 60 and chutes 7 55, 57, 59 and 61 of Figure 3 have been replaced by chutes 75 and 77 of Figure 4.
9 In this patent disclosure the "simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuits" beginning at tanks 25, 42, 62 and 78 of Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, could also represent any 11 "subsequent process step" of any ore preparation plant whether or not it involves the 12 preparation of a slurry. An alternate subsequent process step, for example, may be a 13 milling and grinding process step in which lump size received from the ore preparation 14 plant will still be required to be closely controlled.
15 The primary enabling technology of the improved process flowsheets of Figures 2, 3 and 17 4 is the beneficial use of single-pass crushing means instead of conventional crushing 18 means. The primary single-pass crushers 34, 50 and 71 and secondary single-pass 19 crushers 38, 58 and 76 of Figures 2, 3 and 4, respectively, can be provided with geometry, arrangement and design of the teeth, size, speed and horsepower 21 improvements such that the secondary crushed oil-sand will be adequately reduced in 22 lump size in one or more single-pass crushing process steps, unlike conventional 23 crushing flowsheet provisions. conventional prior art uses a screening process step 24 rather than a crushing process step to ensure adequate lump size control and typically requires the addition of closed circuit re-handling conveying means. A key benefit and 26 characteristic of the improved process flowsheet is that the full stream of run-of-mine ore 27 undergoes size reduction to become suitable for any subsequent process step without 28 creating a separate reject stream and without requiring re-handling steps in the process 29 flowsheet.
31 It will be clear to one practiced in the art that the elimination of screening and re-handling 32 conveying equipment in the improved process flowsheet makes the design and 33 construction of plant equipment modules to be suitable for portability or mobility much 1 easier, enabling more efficient relocation of the oil-sand slurry preparation plant within 2 the mining areas.
4 It will also be clear to one practiced in the art that means to remove tramp metal such as a conventional belt magnet must be provided both for the conventional and the improved 6 process flowsheets. Although not shown on any of the figc,ires this tramp metal removal 7 means is understood to be present on at least one of the conveyors on each flowsheet.
14 ~ue to the massive scale of the mining equipment and the characteristics of the oil-sand itself, the ore received from the mining operation typically contains a very large range of 16 lump sizes spanning from 3,500 mm and weighing up to 30 tonnes down to sand 17 particles of a few millimeters. The ROM ore typically contains up to 30°/~ moisture, 2%
18 to 18% bitumen and 45% to 55% sand content by weight and also contains amounts of 19 siltstone rock having an unconfined compressive strength of 165 to 221 MF'a as a waste component.
22 The harsh environmental conditions at oil-sand operations encompass an ambient 23 temperature range from +35 degrees Celsius down to -51 degrees Celsius. All mining 24 and slurry preparation equipment is required to function with unhindered effectiveness and productivity under these ambient conditions. Materials handling properties of the 26 ROM ore are highly variable over this temperature range. 'The oil-sand ore comprises 27 frozen, highly abrasive lumps in winter but exhibits sticky, e;ohesive behaviour in summer, 28 largely due to the influence of the contained moisture and k~itumen components.
A slurry preparation process step is typically required to prE:pare all ROM
ore to be 31 suitable for long-distance transport as a water-based slurry to a remote upgrading facility, 32 at single-stream production rates exceeding 10,000 tonnes per hour of ROM
oil-sand.
33 Typical prerequisites for efficient slurry pumping are crushing the oil-sand ore to minus 1 100 mm followed by the preparation of a homogeneous water slurry, typically with a 2 consistency of about 64% solids by weight at a specific gravity of 1.5.
4 Current practice for oil-sand slurry preparation in the industry requires the use of multiple series-wise equipment processing steps to accomplish controlled ore feeding, screening 6 and crushing prior to slurry pipelining. Designers and equipment vendors are challenged 7 to create a facility containing multiple items of processing equipment With intermediary 8 gravity feed and conveying transfer stages. The oil-sand slurry preparation equipment is 9 typically housed within large, structural steel modules located within the active oil-sand mining area. These modules must be constructed suitably for re-location on a typical 11 frequency of 1 to 3 years per operating location.
13 Disadvantages of the prior art for oil-sand slurry preparation arise largely from adapting 14 conventional process equipment and conventional process flowsheet logic to the Canadian oil-sand context. Disadvantages include the primary constraint of requiring a 16 screening process step to ensure control of the maximum size of lumps, with the 17 corollary requirement of adding oil-sand re-handling process steps and the creation and 18 accumulation of a "rejects" waste pile adjacent to the slurry preparation facility.
19 Maintenance effort is also high due to the large quantity of equipment used to implement the required flowsheet. The prior art can therefore be characterized as "process 21 flowsheet deficient" with respect to inherent limitations in meeting modern oil-sand 22 mining plant requirements in a practical and efficient manner.
24 A preferred embodiment of this invention comprises an improved oil-sand process flowsheet logic utilizing unique, enabling oil-sand handling and processing equipment 26 innovations. These improvements include eliminating all screening and internal re-27 circulation process steps, primarily by introducing single-pass primary and secondary 28 crushing process steps to eliminate all screening requirements. These process 29 flowsheet improvements beneficially impact the design of the slurry preparation plant and also facilitate design for portability or mobility of the slurry preparation plant facility.
32 The need for limiting oil-sand maximum lump size lies in the slurry transportatian step in 33 which minimum pumping velocity is strongly dictated by maximum lump size. A
corollary 34 need for controlling the flow rate of oil-sand feed to the slurry preparation plant lies in the 1 need to prepare homogeneous oil-sand slurry density at a constant rate in order to 2 prevent plugging in the final oil-sand delivery pipeline.
4 Specification & Drawings The preferred embodiments of an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant comprise 6 the following series-wise process steps:
7 (a) Receive ROM oil-sand ore from haulage trucks into an adequately sized 8 receiving hopper;
9 (b) Reclaim and feed ROM oil-sand ore to the primary single-pass crusher at a controlled rate to create primary crushed oil-sand;
11 (c) Receive and feed primary crushed oil-sand to the secondary single-pass 12 crusher at a controlled rate to create secondary crushed oil-sand;
13 (d) Receive and feed secondary crushed oil-sand to the slung preparation 14 process step.
16 In process step (a) the receiving hopper will be required to accommodate one or more 17 haulage trucks of the mining fleet dumping into the receiving hopper at frequent but 18 random intervals. If a receiving hopper is arranged to accommodate a single truck 19 dumping position, it has been observed by the inventor that the hopper size should be at least 1.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck, equating to 600 tonnes or about 21 286 cubic metres of volumetric capacity. If a receiving hopper is arranged to 22 accommodate two truck dumping positions, it has been observed by the inventor that the 23 hopper size should be at least 2.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck to 24 accommodate the event of two trucks dumping simultaneously. A supporting rationale for these minimum capacities follows.
27 In process step (b) the receiving hopper must be equipped with a "live bin bottom" type 28 of reclaim conveyor. This function is typically satisfied by use of a steel pan-type apron 29 feeder operated at steady or variable speeds to provide a continuous, controlled flow rate of reclaimed ROM oil-sand ore to the primary single-pass crusher. Known practice 31 for the protection of the steel apron pans is to avoid emptying the receiving hopper 32 completely between haulage truck loads; it is preferred to leave a protective bed of oil-33 sand material on top of the pans to prevent impact damage from the next haulage truck 34 dumping its load. This latter requirement is satisfied if the receiving hopper and reclaim 3l8 1 steel pan conveyor are controlled to retain about half of a prior haulage truck load at the 2 time of dumping an additional load of oil-sand ROM ore, for a total minimum receiving 3 hopper capacity of 1.5 times the volumetric capacity of a single truck.
It is also known in the art that process step (c) beneficially incorporates a second surge 6 control process step before the secondary single-pass crusher, caused by the 7 unavoidable occurence of large, irregularly shaped oil-sand lumps in the feed to the 8 primary single-pass crusher which momentarily interfere with the flow rate of oil-sand 9 through the crusher. Flow rate variability includes both reductions due to momentary blockage of the single-pass crusher gap by the large lumps and also increases due to 11 the lumps becoming caught by the single-pass crusher teeth and being crushed and 12 forced through the gap at high speed. This is a known output characteristic of primary 13 crushing in oil-sand ROM ore, but it has been observed by the inventor that this 14 variability can be "averaged out" by sizing the second receiving hopper to contain a minimum volumetric equivalent of about 20 seconds of running time of the slurry 16 preparation plant. At 10,000 tonneslhr this equates to about 55 tonnes or 26 cubic 17 metres volumetric capacity. As with the first receiving hopper, the reclaiming and 18 feeding function is typically satisfied with a steel pan-type apron feeder operated at 19 steady or variable speeds to provide a continuous, controlled flow rate of reclaimed primary crushed oil-sand to the secondary single-pass crusher.
22 Following process step (c) all oil-sand material will have been reduced to minus 100 mm 23 lump size in preparation for the first stage of introducing water to make slurry. It is 24 critical that the discharge rate of secondary crushed oil-sand be relatively constant.
These requirements will be readily accomplished by the combined operation of process 26 steps (c) and (d) with the beneficial use of primary and secondary single-pass crushing 27 and the use of appropriately sized receiving hoppers, all as described in this 28 specification.
It will be readily appreciated by one practiced in the art that although steps (a) to (c) are 31 represented as "dry" process steps prior to the introduction of water to make the oil-sand 32 slurry, water could be introduced earlier in the process. For example it may be desirable 33 to begin to introduce water in the feed to the secondary single-pass crusher to benefit 34 the subsequent slurry preparation process steps and, in fact, to improve oil-sand 1 through-put rate at the secondary single-pass crusher. Also, the quoting of specific 2 capacity or dimensional data for equipment or process steps of the overall process is not 3 intended to limit the use of other capacities and dimensions when such use falls within 4 the spirit of the invention.
6 With reference to the Figures:
7 Figure 1 is a conventional oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet illustrating 8 best practices of the prior art.
Figure 2 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 11 preferred embodiments of the invention.
13 Figure 3 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 14 preferred embodiments of the invention as in Figure 2 but further including a second receiving hopper prior to the secondary single-pass crushing process step.
17 Figure 4 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet incorporating 18 preferred embodiments of the invention as in Figure 3 but substituting chutes for some of 19 the conveyors of Figure 3.
21 In Figure 1 haulage truck 1 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 2 from which 22 reclaim conveyor 3 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 4 to primary conventional 23 crusher 5. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 6 to second receiving 24 hopper 7 from which reclaim conveyor 8 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 9 to conveyor 10 feeding via chute 11 to multi-deck screen 12. Oversize rejects from screen 26 12 feed via chute 13 for storage in rejects pile 14. Oversize oil-sand from screen 12 27 feeds via chute 15 to secondary conventional crusher 16. The secondary crushed oil-28 sand passes through chute 17 to conveyor 18 to chute 19 and conveyor 20 to feed oil-29 sand via chute 21 back onto screen 12 in a closed circuit re-handling loop.
In this context a re-handling loop is comparable to a recirculation loop in which a portion of the 31 oil-sand material in the full stream flow must be returned back to an earlier step of the 32 process flowsheet to be processed again, by multi-deck screen 12 in this case.
33 Undersize from screen 12 feeds via chute 22 to conveyor 23 and chute 24 to tank 25;
34 tank 25 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit.
Water addition 26 1 controlled by valve 27 is also added to tank 25 fieeding slurry pump 28 delivering oil-2 sand slurry through pipeline 29 to a remote facility (not shown).
4 In Figure 2 haulage truck 30 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 31 from which reclaim conveyor 32 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 33 to primary single-pass 6 crusher 34. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 35 to conveyor 7 feeding via chute 37 to secondary single-pass crusher 38. Secondary crushed oil-sand 8 feeds via chute 39 to conveyor 40 and chute 41 to tank 42; tank 42 representing a 9 simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit. Water addition 43 controlled by valve 44 is also added to tank 42 feeding slurry pump 45 delivering oil-sand slurry through pipeline 11 46 to a remote facility (not shown).
13 In Figure 3 haulage truck 47 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 48 from which 14 reclaim conveyor 49 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 50 to primary single-pass crusher 51. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 52 to second receiving 16 hopper 53 from which reclaim conveyor 54 withdraws oil-sand feeding via chute 55 to 17 conveyor 56 feeding via chute 57 to secondary single-pass crusher 58.
Secondary 18 crushed oil-sand feeds via chute 59 to conveyor 60 and chute 61 to tank 62;
tank 62 19 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuit. Water addition 63 controlled by valve 64 is also added to tank 62 feeding slurry pump 65 delivering oil-sand slurry 21 through pipeline 66 to a remote facility (not shown).
23 In Figure 4 haulage truck 67 dumps ROM oil-sand into receiving hopper 68 from which 24 reclaim conveyor 69 withdraws oil-sand and feeds it via chute 70 to primary single-pass crusher 71. The primary crushed oil-sand passes through chute 72 to second receiving 26 hopper 73 from which reclaim conveyor 74 withdraws oil-sand feeding via chute 75 27 directly to secondary single-pass crusher 76. Secondary crushed oil-sand feeds via 28 chute 77 directly to tank 78; tank 78 representing a simplified oil-sand slurry preparation 29 circuit. Water addition 79 controlled by valve 80 is also added to tank 78 feeding slurry pump 81 delivering oil-sand slurry through pipeline 82 to a remote facility (not shown).
32 The conventional oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet of Figure 1 is 33 clearly more complex and contains many more process steps and items of processing 34 equipment than the improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheets of 1 Figures 2, 3 and 4. In particular the oil-sand screen 12 and the oil-sand re-handling 2 conveyors 18 and 20 and chutes 19 and 21 and chute 13 feeding a rejects storage pile 3 14 of the prior art flowsheet of Figure 1 are not required in the improved flowsheets of 4 Figures 2, 3 and 4.
6 Figure 4 is a further simplification of Figure 3 in which conveyors 56 and 60 and chutes 7 55, 57, 59 and 61 of Figure 3 have been replaced by chutes 75 and 77 of Figure 4.
9 In this patent disclosure the "simplified oil-sand slurry preparation circuits" beginning at tanks 25, 42, 62 and 78 of Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, could also represent any 11 "subsequent process step" of any ore preparation plant whether or not it involves the 12 preparation of a slurry. An alternate subsequent process step, for example, may be a 13 milling and grinding process step in which lump size received from the ore preparation 14 plant will still be required to be closely controlled.
15 The primary enabling technology of the improved process flowsheets of Figures 2, 3 and 17 4 is the beneficial use of single-pass crushing means instead of conventional crushing 18 means. The primary single-pass crushers 34, 50 and 71 and secondary single-pass 19 crushers 38, 58 and 76 of Figures 2, 3 and 4, respectively, can be provided with geometry, arrangement and design of the teeth, size, speed and horsepower 21 improvements such that the secondary crushed oil-sand will be adequately reduced in 22 lump size in one or more single-pass crushing process steps, unlike conventional 23 crushing flowsheet provisions. conventional prior art uses a screening process step 24 rather than a crushing process step to ensure adequate lump size control and typically requires the addition of closed circuit re-handling conveying means. A key benefit and 26 characteristic of the improved process flowsheet is that the full stream of run-of-mine ore 27 undergoes size reduction to become suitable for any subsequent process step without 28 creating a separate reject stream and without requiring re-handling steps in the process 29 flowsheet.
31 It will be clear to one practiced in the art that the elimination of screening and re-handling 32 conveying equipment in the improved process flowsheet makes the design and 33 construction of plant equipment modules to be suitable for portability or mobility much 1 easier, enabling more efficient relocation of the oil-sand slurry preparation plant within 2 the mining areas.
4 It will also be clear to one practiced in the art that means to remove tramp metal such as a conventional belt magnet must be provided both for the conventional and the improved 6 process flowsheets. Although not shown on any of the figc,ires this tramp metal removal 7 means is understood to be present on at least one of the conveyors on each flowsheet.
Claims (8)
1. In an ore preparation process for preparing the full stream of ore to become suitable for a subsequent process step requiring strict control of maximum lump size, controlling the maximum lump size by at least one process step of single-pass crushing.
2. In a slurry preparation process for preparing run-of-mine oil-sand ore to become suitable for subsequent slurry transportation, the series-wise oil-sand ore preparation process steps comprising receiving said run-of-mine oil-sand ore from haulage truck means into an initial receiving hopper means and feeding said run-of-mine oil-sand ore into a primary single-pass crushing means using a first conveying means to create primary crushed oil-sand and feeding said primary crushed oil-sand into a secondary single-pass crushing means using a second conveying means to create secondary crushed oil-sand and feeding said secondary crushed oil-sand into a slurry preparation means using a third conveying means, the improvement over prior art being the elimination of oil-sand screening and re-handling process steps by the beneficial use of said primary single-pass crushing means and said secondary single-pass crushing means.
3. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 in which said first conveying means is a steel pan conveyor for controlling the feed rate of said run-of-mine oil-sand ore into said primary single-pass crushing means;
4. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 in which said second conveying means comprises a series combination of an initial conveying means feeding a second receiving hopper means and a subsequent conveying means feeding said secondary single-pass crushing means at a controlled rate;
5. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 and Claim 4 in which said subsequent conveying means is a steel pan conveyor for controlling the feed rate of said primary crushed oil-sand into said secondary single-pass crushing means;
6. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 and Claim 4 in which any or all of said first or said second or said third or said initial or said subsequent conveying means comprise a chute means for conveying said oil-sand by gravity means;
7. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 in which said initial receiving hopper means and said first conveying means and said primary single-pass crushing means and said second conveying means and said secondary single-pass crushing means and said third conveying means and said slurry preparation means are constructed in one or more separable modules for purposes of relocation of said slurry preparation plant to alternate locations.
8. A slurry preparation process as in Claim 2 and Claim 4 for preparing run-of-mine oil-sand to become suitable for subsequent slurry transportation, in which said initial receiving hopper means has a minimum volumetric capacity of 1.5 times the capacity of a single one of said haulage truck means and said second receiving hopper means has a minimum volumetric capacity equal to 20 seconds of running time of said slurry preparation process.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2440312 CA2440312A1 (en) | 2003-09-04 | 2003-09-04 | Single pass crushing flowsheet |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2440312 CA2440312A1 (en) | 2003-09-04 | 2003-09-04 | Single pass crushing flowsheet |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA2440312A1 true CA2440312A1 (en) | 2005-03-04 |
Family
ID=34230745
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2440312 Abandoned CA2440312A1 (en) | 2003-09-04 | 2003-09-04 | Single pass crushing flowsheet |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA2440312A1 (en) |
Cited By (9)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US7651042B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2010-01-26 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| US8016216B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2011-09-13 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8136672B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2012-03-20 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8328126B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2012-12-11 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| US8393561B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2013-03-12 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| CN106563553A (en) * | 2016-08-25 | 2017-04-19 | 中冶北方（大连）工程技术有限公司 | Crushing system for iron mine underground mill and crushing process |
| CN113146845A (en) * | 2021-04-25 | 2021-07-23 | 王海强 | Highway engineering is with corrosion-resistant concrete processing equipment that permeates water |
| CN113286658A (en) * | 2018-11-27 | 2021-08-20 | 福特斯丘金属集团 | Apparatus and method for treating iron ore |
| WO2021222981A1 (en) * | 2020-05-05 | 2021-11-11 | Leschenault Industries Pty Ltd | Mine site comminution arrangement and methodology |
-
2003
- 2003-09-04 CA CA 2440312 patent/CA2440312A1/en not_active Abandoned
Cited By (14)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US8136672B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2012-03-20 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8851293B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2014-10-07 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8393561B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2013-03-12 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| US8025341B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2011-09-27 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8317116B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2012-11-27 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing a sized ore feed |
| US7651042B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2010-01-26 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| US8016216B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2011-09-13 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US9016799B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2015-04-28 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8328126B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2012-12-11 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| US8622326B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2014-01-07 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| CN106563553A (en) * | 2016-08-25 | 2017-04-19 | 中冶北方（大连）工程技术有限公司 | Crushing system for iron mine underground mill and crushing process |
| CN113286658A (en) * | 2018-11-27 | 2021-08-20 | 福特斯丘金属集团 | Apparatus and method for treating iron ore |
| WO2021222981A1 (en) * | 2020-05-05 | 2021-11-11 | Leschenault Industries Pty Ltd | Mine site comminution arrangement and methodology |
| CN113146845A (en) * | 2021-04-25 | 2021-07-23 | 王海强 | Highway engineering is with corrosion-resistant concrete processing equipment that permeates water |
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