DETERMINATION OF THE SPECIMEN’S MINIMUM WEIGHT DURING THE ORE MASS TEST

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to determine the specimen’s minimum weight during the test of lump material. It is known that the larger the specimen weight, the greater the reliability of the obtained information. At the same time, the larger the specimen weight, the greater the unproductive costs for preparing an analytical specimen. Thus, the issue of specimen’s size minimization entails minimizing the costs of testing and control of technological indicators of mineral processing. However, the specimen weight should be selected taking into account the disclosure of a valuable mineral, which depends on the particle size, i.e. each class should be sufficient to determine the quality indicators in it. The paper presents algorithms for determining the function of the distribution of intergrowths with a known granulometric composition of the product and testing the ore mass by selecting individual pieces in order to form a representative specimen. For this, it is necessary to have a structural and textural characteristic of the tested ore, namely: the thickness of ore and non-ore layers and the content of useful minerals in them. The limits of possible changes in the mineral content in a single specimen depending on its size are found. The scientific novelty of the research results is the establishment of the factors that affect the amount of particles selected from each size class. The practical significance is the development of a method of determining the total specimen volume, and therefore its weight, during piecewise sampling of ore depending on the specified accuracy. The implementation of the obtained results may be useful for developing new methods for optimizing the processes of piecewise sampling of ore mass, based on the analysis of their structural characteristics and sampling accuracy.