Virtual simulation increases safety of processing technology

Large-scale calciners used in mineral processing can be analysed at the design stage to mitigate the technical risk associated with the process technology and materials used in construction of these plants. Advanced analysis implemented at the start of a project takes pressure off the EPCM (engineering, procurement and construction management) companies who may be expected to hold liability for any failure of equipment or materials provided by technology and material suppliers.

Calciners are used for processing materials in a high-temperature furnace and a series of cyclones to achieve finer particle sizes and uniform quality. It is a thermal treatment method applied to ores and other solid materials to bring about thermal decomposition, phase transition or the elimination of a volatile fraction.

Advanced analysis, according to SOTO Consulting Engineers, is a double-barrelled assurance and safeguard for all parties. This genuine value proposition, using computational analysis in the digital environment to speed up the design process, validates that what is designed will actually perform as intended when constructed.

  

“Calciners are challenging to the EPCM - in particular, the issues or problems that arise with the thermal ceramics lining the inside walls of the calciner vessel,” said SOTO Consulting Engineers Managing Director Frank Soto.

“The thermal ceramic providers are expected to give a warranty on their product, but because the EPCMs overseeing the project aren’t ceramics experts, there is an obvious call for a third party that is knowledgeable to study the design, all its tolerances and limitations, and prove that it can either work or where failures can be anticipated.

“So advanced analysis is valuable for calciner design in that it doesn’t only just provide a level of assurance that it will achieve its projected duty cycles, etc; it also significantly speeds up the design, planning and construction process.”

In recent years, six calciners have been built in Australia, three of which had the performance parameters verified by SOTO Consulting Engineers within weeks. These three worked to specification requirements from the start, while the others experienced significant delays and ongoing operational issues and didn’t achieve nameplate capacity of the plant in the time required.

“Calciners are just one of the process technologies for which SOTO has been able to provide a true value proposition using the high power of computational analysis in the digital simulation environment and enact it accordingly to save our client from wasting much of its capital,” said Soto, who added that the company is “reactive, responsive and attentive to project and client needs, and everything is completed in house”.

“Nothing is outsourced, so there is no risk of any sort of compromise where the analysis may be exposed to different standards of engineering, or where lesser levels of compliance checking may come into play,” he noted.

Based in the Illawarra region of NSW, SOTO Consulting Engineers has partnered with many Australian companies to solve difficult challenges and develop solutions for processing technology. To date, the company has successfully been able to simulate and analyse process technology associated with calciners, blast furnaces, retorts, roasters and fluidised bed reactors.