The purpose of this work was to analyze the requirements for the operational feasibility of flotation systems as well as the effects of the selection of flotation equipment and metal price uncertainty. A procedure based on mathematical optimization and uncertainty analysis was implemented to achieve this aim. The optimization included flotation and grinding stages operating under uncertainty, whereas the uncertainty analysis considered the Monte Carlo method. The results obtained indicate a small number of optimal flotation structures from the economic point of view. Considering the relationship between the economic performance and metallurgical parameters, we established that these structures exhibited favorable conditions for operating under uncertainty. Such conditions were proportional to the percentages representing each structure in the optimal set; i.e., a higher percentage of a structure implied a greater capacity to face operational and metal price changes. The set of optimal structures included configurations implementing cell banks, flotation columns, or both, indicating the influence of the flotation equipment type on the optimal structures. We also established the influence of metal price on the number of optimal structures. Therefore, the results obtained allowed us to separate the design of the flotation systems into two stages: first, a set of optimal structures exhibiting favorable conditions for facing uncertainty is determined; second, the optimal operation is established via resilience/flexibility approaches after the previous determination of the equipment design parameters.

中文翻译：

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在不确定性下实现浮选系统的可操作性

这项工作的目的是分析浮选系统操作可行性的要求以及浮选设备选择和金属价格不确定性的影响。为实现这一目标，实施了基于数学优化和不确定性分析的程序。优化包括在不确定性下操作的浮选和研磨阶段，而不确定性分析考虑了蒙特卡罗方法。获得的结果表明，从经济的角度来看，少数最优的浮选结构。考虑到经济性能和冶金参数之间的关系，我们确定这些结构表现出在不确定性下运行的有利条件。这些条件与代表最优集合中每个结构的百分比成正比；即，更高的结构百分比意味着更大的能力来应对运营和金属价格变化。优化结构集包括实施单元库、浮选柱或两者的配置，表明浮选设备类型对优化结构的影响。我们还建立了金属价格对最优结构数量的影响。因此，获得的结果使我们能够将浮选系统的设计分为两个阶段：首先，确定一组表现出面对不确定性的有利条件的最佳结构；其次，在预先确定设备设计参数后，通过弹性/灵活性方法建立最佳操作。