Grinding is a critical part of nearly all mineral processing operations. It is the largest consumer of energy on the mine site (and thus indirectly a producer of greenhouse gas through the generation of electrical energy at the power station). Since comminution is one of the main consumers of electrical energy worldwide, efficient control of grinding mills is of paramount importance._x000D_
Mill Auto-Pilot is a control system developed for SAG mills to stabilise load and power and improve the efficiency of control and increase throughput. A dynamic, mechanistic model of the grinding circuit is used to determine circuit parameters which can not normally be measured using conventional instrumentation. The circuit model is built from models of the unit operations (such as conveyors, SAG mills, cyclones, sumps, etc), and so captures the dynamic complexities and interactions of real circuit operation._x000D_
CSA Mines at Cobar NSW accepted an offer to be the reference site for Mill Auto-Pilot and the system was installed in March 2004. In this application the model is used to predict mill load mass, mill solids residence time and cyclone underflow density. These parameters are used to control mill load, power and mill discharge density._x000D_
The outcomes of the introduction of Mill Auto-Pilot at the CSA Mine are discussed._x000D_
FORMAL CITATION:Schroder, A J, Thornton, A, Englehardt, D and Woodgate, J, 2004._x000D_
Mill auto-pilot at CSA Mines, in Proceedings Metallurgical Plant Design and Operating Strategies 2004, pp 105-116 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).