ACOUSTIC MONITORING OF HYDROCYCLONE PERFORMANCE

This paper describes a convenient PC-based acoustic signal processing system and its application for monitoring hydrocyclone performance. Ac oustic emissions generated from a five inch diameter hydrocyclone unde r different operating conditions were collected using a single 190 KHz passive acoustic sensor mounted externally an the conical section of the hydrocyclone. Subsequent analysis shows that the spectral characte ristics of the signal are sensitive to the variations of operating par ameters (feed pressure, solid concentrations, mass and volume flowrate and underflow solid concentrations). Use of multivariate statistical analysis techniques allows the quantitative relationships between vari ous operating parameters of the hydrocyclone and the statistical and s pectral characteristics of the acoustic signals to be established. The application of this sensor technology to audit classifiers and its po tential for real-time control is demonstrated based on a laboratory ca se study. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.