Evolutionary Design for Ore Processing Plants [ 2003 - 2005 ]

Research Grant

Researchers Dr RL While; Dr PF Hingston; Mr LC Barone

Brief description This project will investigate the use of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) in the design of ore processing plants. Ore processing is a major activity in the Australian mining industry, and a significant source of export dollars. Prior work has demonstrated that EAs can out-perform previous manual and automated design techniques for individual processing units. This project will apply EAs to the design of whole flowsheets containing arbitrary combinations of different types of units. The complexity of typical flowsheet layouts will require new algorithms to discover improved designs in practical time, so parallel hardware, and new parallel EAs, will be utilised.

Funding Amount $167,000

Funding Scheme Linkage Projects