Method and apparatus for optimising the utilization of the processing capacity of a material processing plant

摘要

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for optimising the utilization of the processing capacity of a material processing plant for processing mined ore, which includes a first process stream (5) which feeds a first processing unit (7) for processing a fine size fraction of the process material and a second process stream (6) which feeds a second processing unit (8) for processing a coarser size fraction with optimal efficiency. The method includes sorting (1) the process material into a fine size fraction, a coarse size fraction and a middling size fraction having a size range between that of the fine and coarse size fractions. The fine and coarse fractions are directed to first and second process streams, respectively, and the middlings fraction is directed to the first and second process streams whenever the processing units associated therewith have spare processing capacity thereby to maximise utilization of the processing capacity of the processing units.