Thickener modelling - incorporating shear effects

Abstract

The prediction of suspension dewatering behaviour is critical to better water recovery and higher solids products in the minerals industry. Material properties that describe the rate and extent of dewatering can be characterised over a wide range of solids concentrations using batch settling, centrifugation and pressure filtration tests. Use of 1-D computational models has enabled accurate prediction of dewatering performance in sedimentation, centrifugation and filtration processes in both the laboratory and industry. However, for processes involving shear, such as gravity thickening, performance has been observed to significantly exceed predictions by up to a factor of 100 for a given unde..