The capability for on-line measurement of the quality characteristics of conveyed coal now enables mine operators to take advantage of the inherent heterogeneity of those streams and split them into wash and no-wash stocks. Relative to processingthe entire stream, this reduces the amount of coal that must be washed at the mine and, thereby reducing processing costs, recovery losses and refuse-generation levels. In this paper, new approaches for optimal control of the segregation process usingtime-series models and empirical distributions are presented and demonstrated using field data.
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