Abstract

Minera Michilla is located in the II Region of Chile, where copper oxide ore processed, from the Lince deposit, third deposits and sulfide minerals from the underground mine Estefanía and mixed sulfide minerals from deposits exploited by others. The metallurgical processes involved are crushing - agglomeration - heap leach - solvent extraction and electrowinning. For metallurgical balances is essential to know the copper concentration and the solutions flow, by this reason the information provided by online flowmeters is necessary for reliable results. Conventional flowmeters installed in pipes may suffer disruptions or failures by corrosion, fouling, presence of elements in the water such as acids, salts and suspended solids. Radiotracers use is advantageous to determine fluid velocities which are transported by pipelines, and which are detectable by means of the radiation emitted by applying the technique of the transit time between sensors at known distances, and determining the time of passage of the radiotracer. Pumped flow velocities have been measured from 11 pipe solutions transport, obtaining velocities between 0.58 m/s and 2.5 m / s., corresponding to flows between 7710 and 15107 lts / min. Contrasting the measured flow from radiotracer technique with the information provided by the flowmeters were obtained differences: smaller than 5 % in 4 flows, between 5 and 10 % in 5 flows and 11 and 18 % in 2 flows. With these new measured flows from radiotracer technique, the metallurgical balances have a better fitting that the flowmeters information provided.