Effect of feed-size segregation on energy consumption during jigging: A CFD-DEM study

Abstract

Segregation of feed based on size is used to increase the efficiency of gravity concentration by jig devices. Due to the variety of size and density of the particles in the feed, choosing how to segregate it before jigging is still a challenge. This article segregates the feed (with a size range of 3 to 8 mm) into the different states and then, simulates the jigging performance with the two-way coupling method of computational fluid dynamics and the discrete element method in 3 dimensions. In different states, the energy consumption and the number of cycles required for gravity concentration were compared, qualitatively. The simulation shows that the segregation of the jig feed into two size classes (3 to 4) and (5 to 8) mm decreases the energy consumption and the number of cycles. Therefore, the segregation state where the fine-grained part has a close size range and the coarse-grained part has a wide size range will have the lowest energy consumption and the number of cycles.

Keywords:

• Feed segregation
• gravity concentration
• two-way CFD-DEM coupling
• jigging
• energy consumption

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Central Complex Laboratory University of Kashan, Ultrafast Processing and Computing Center.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).