Flexible Flotation Circuit Design under Uncertainties

This study describes a flexible design strategy for the flotation circuit layout from the perspective of multiple criteria and multiple uncertainties. Moreover, a superstructure including possible flotation circuit alternatives is established for processing copper sulfide ores, and the performance evaluation comprehensively considers technology, economy and environment. Due to the uncertainties related to the metal price, feed property and model parameters, flexible fuzzy measures are adopted for uncertainty quantification. In the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), feasible alternatives under uncertainties are ranked by combining the technique for order performance by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) and fuzzy expected-interval values. Also, user-defined parameters can guide the flexible design under different strictness of design requirements. In general, the presented method here overcomes the limitations of traditional method in dealing with uncertainties.