• Pålsson, Bi
• Toivakka, Martti
• Stener, Jf
• Carlson, Je
• Sand, A.

Abstract

The dynamic behaviour of μm-scale ferromagnetic particles in suspensionis of interest for various mineral beneficiation processes. It is,however, difficult to experimentally study such processes at theparticle-level. In these instances it can be advantageous to resort tosuitable particle simulation methods.Stokesian dynamics is amesh-free numerical technique developed for suspensions of nm to mm sizeparticles. The method inherently considers hydrodynamic interactions,but additional interaction models can be included depending on thesystem under investigation. We here present a Stokesian dynamics (SD)implementation, which allows for simulation of the motion of suspendedmagnetic particles in presence of an external magnetic field. Themagnetic interaction model includes particle-field interactions as wellas pairwise interactions between magnetised particles.Simulationsare compared with experiments using a laboratory-scale flow cell. Themethod is shown to be realistic for studying ferromagnetic suspensionsin mineral processing applications, and can be useful in understandingand predicting the efficiency of mineral separation processes.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• mineral
• experiment
• simulation