Owing to a requirement to increase the value of iron ores products and extend the life of the mine through wet beneficiation, iron ore suppliers are revisiting industrial practices which would allow pumping of iron ore tailings at high solid ratios. Understanding of the suspension environment of slurries/slimes is critical to the transport of iron ore concentrates and tailing, and is the subject of increased scrutiny. Cost and social pressures to use less water and operate at higher concentrations directly affects process suspension rheology; warranting examination of process conditions, not typically applied for the handling of iron ore slimes.
This manuscript describes the use of the Bingham-Plastic-Rheological-Model (BPRM) to explain thickened iron ore suspension rheology behaviour, to elucidate their impacts on: 1. transitional pipe flow, 2. particle settling (in laminar shear flow), 3. losses in valves and fittings, 4. centrifugal pump de-rating, and 5. launder flow, for the sound and sustainable pipelining of thickened iron ores. CITATION:Slatter, P and Ooi, T C, 2019. The impact of sustainable industrial practice on process suspension rheology in iron ore, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2019, pp 796804 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).