Mass balancing is a key skill that many metallurgists and mining industry professionals are aware of, but often put in the ‘too hard’ basket.  Mass balancing is useful in reconciling feed and product streams through all processing plants.   It provides accounting of the material entering and leaving a system, and enables a better understanding of the flowrates within a system, as well as assessing the quality of data obtained from sampling and surveys.   

Mass balancing requires practice and experience to determine if the results are reasonable.  There are several programs developed at the JK Centre that are available to assist in mass balancing experimental data: 

·          JKMBal is used as the mass balancing program inside JKSimMet.  This program was written by Professor Bill Whiten and based on an algorithm developed by Dr Rob Morrison.  The algorithm was developed to balance data in one dimension, i.e. either sized data around a comminution or classification circuit OR assay data around a flotation or separation circuit. 

·          JKMultiBal is used as the mass balancing program inside JKSimFloat.  This program was developed by Dr Stephen Gay and enables the user to balance data in both one and two dimensions, i.e. either sized or assay data individually or together. 

Courses Available

Introduction to JKMBal
Mass balancing plant data