Development of the Algorithm for Energy Efficiency Improvement of Bulk Material Transport System

Abstract

The paper presents a control strategy for the system of belt conveyors with adjustable speed drives based on the principle of optimum energy consumption. Different algorithms are developed for generating the reference speed of the system of belt conveyors in order to achieve maximum material cross section on the belts and thus reduction of required electrical drive power. Control structures presented in the paper are developed and tested on the detailed mathematical model of the drive system with the rubber belt. The performed analyses indicate that the application of the algorithm based on fuzzy logic control (FLC) which incorporates drive torque as an input variable is the proper solution. Therefore, this solution is implemented on the newvariable speed belt conveyor system with remote control on an open pit mine. Results of measurements on the system prove that the applied algorithm based on fuzzy logic control provides minimum electrical energy consumption of the drive under given constraints. The paper also presents the additional analytical verification of the achieved results trough a method based on the sequential quadratic programming for finding a minimum of a nonlinear function of multiple variables under given constraints

Hydrodynamic Model of Transport System

“…The first group includes models for calculating the flow parameters of the conveyor line. When building models of this group are used: the finite element method (FEM) [6]; finite difference method (FDM) [7]; Lagrange equations [8]; aggregated equation of state [9,10,11]; equations for neural network layers [12]; system dynamics equations [13] and multiple regression equations [14][15][16]. The models of the first group are used in the tasks of operational planning of production activities of the enterprise.…”

Method for Generating a Data Set for Training a Neural Network in a Transport Conveyor Model

“…As the uneven loading of the transport system with material increases, the load factor decreases, which leads to a nonlinear multiple increase in transport costs [7,8]. To reduce transport costs, systems are developed to control the speed of the conveyor belt [9,10], to control the flow of material from the accumulating bunker [11][12][13], combined control systems [14]. Cost reduction methods using energy management methodology are also proposed [15].…”