A novel two degrees of freedom system for measuring iron ore water content on a conveyor belt.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
Water content or moisture of materials is a
parameter widely used in the industry. In mining, it is an
important variable to control in iron ore production. High
moistures may cause instability of iron ore piles and may
make transport by ship unfeasible. Therefore, this paper
presents the development of a system for measuring iron ore
moisture on a conveyor belt (laboratory-scale). The structure
that supports the sensor has two degrees of freedom, which
allow perpendicular and parallel movements. The parallel
movement makes the relative velocity between the
measurement cell and the ore almost zero. The vertical
movement allows the sensor to be placed at different depths in the ore. These sets enable real-time and in situ
measurements. The system uses the capacitive method to determine the dielectric constant of the iron ore located
between the sensor electrodes and, consequently, the moisture. This system has a measuring range of 0 to 14% on a
dry basis and presents an uncertainty up to 0.07 percentage points for a 2-standard-deviation confidence level. In the
validation process, the absolute error was less than 0.34 percentage point in the mining interest range of 6 to 14%.
The founded results achieve a significant advance in the development of real-time equipment for measuring ore
moisture since there is no device capable of doing it with the necessary level of accuracy and precision. For mining,
this kind of system represents a big step to take corrective and preventive decisions around iron ore moisture control.
Description
Keywords
Complex impedance, Moisture, Real-dual frequency method, Relative dielectric constant
Citation
PINTO, E. S. et al. A novel two degrees of freedom system for measuring iron ore water content on a conveyor belt. IEEE Sensors Journal, v. 21, 2021. Disponível em: <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9419052>. Acesso em: 29 abr. 2022.