Abstract

The hydraulic transport of slurries by means of piping systems is characterized by an elevated power consumption. This study investigates the relationships among the four variables that define the slurry transportation system: length L and diameter D of system and granulometry D50 and concentration Cv of iron ore with aiming to minimize the power requirements. A thermodynamic energetic indicator I, was computed via numerical simulation. Optimization of the computational effort was carried out by using the 2k factorial design. The results show that all variables are significant on the indicator I, with pipe length having the greatest amplitude of variation in the response. The second order interactions indicates that only two combinations are correlated, namely the granulometry and length and diameter and length. Trough the statistical approach, predictive models have been obtained. The results allow designers to identify which of the analysed pipeline system layouts represents the minimum power requirement.