Study On Optimal Heavy Oil Flux And Its Monitoring And Control System Of An Anode Furnace For Copper Refining

Refining is an important working procedure for copper pyrometallurgy, which is generally performed in an anode furnace. The operation of the anode furnace is a periodical process, consisting of several phases such as pouring liquid copper, heat preservation, oxidation, reduction and casting, and involving chemical reactions, heat transfer, mass transfer, and fluid flow. At present, there exists a common problem in the process of copper refining in our country that the heavy oil flux for heat preservation and oxidation is set experientially, then monitored with single looped instruments and controlled manually. Such a control method is unreasonable, and it will not only affect the quality of product but also result in tremendous energy waste and serious pollution, which will restrict the advantages of the anode furnace and limit the benefit of the enterprise radically. Hence, it is especially crucial to study optimization control and monitoring for heavy oil flux in order to enhance the operational scientificity and decrease the influence of operators' subjective factors on production.The optimization models of heavy oil consumption and the on-line measurement model of heavy oil flux are central contents of this paper. In order to be accurate and applicable, the optimization models of heavy oil consumption of heat preservation phase and oxidation phase are established by functional analysis based on refining mechanism and the theory ofconversation of energy, and the corresponding optimal heavy oil fluxes are extracted by Euler Equation, which lays a solid academic foundation for the monitoring and control system. In the meanwhile, in order to measure heavy oil flux rapidly and precisely, the linear regression equation of temperature and density is obtained by Least Square Method, and the on-line measurement model of heavy oil flux with precision amendment and density compensation is established based on Oval Geared Flowmeter, which enhances the precision of measurement of heavy oil flux. The software system of this paper is developed in the visualization programming language Visual Basic 6.0, combined with the communication technology OPC, which makes the interfaces of system friendly and the operation easy and facile.The production practices have proven that the system runs well and can execute on-line control and real-time monitoring for heavy oil flux efficiently, which is of academic significance and application value for energy saving, pollution reducing, and increasing operational level and technical index of refining process in the anode furnace.