Evolutionary Modelling and Optimisation of Grinding Processes

Grinding circuits have many interacting variables and a cost surface with more than one minimum, which is exactly the problem evolutionary algorithms are good at. This week covers population models of breakage and classification, fitting them to plant data, and then the optimisation itself: defining an objective that reflects what the plant actually wants, encoding constraints honestly, and running genetic and related algorithms. The validation session is the important one, because a model that fits history and fails forward is worse than no model.

It runs 7 times over the published calendar, in 6 cities and live online. Every date is the same programme with the same content and the same certificate.

• Build a population balance model of a grinding circuit.
• Fit model parameters to plant survey data.
• Define an objective function reflecting real plant economics.
• Apply evolutionary optimisation with constraints encoded.
• Validate a model against data it was not fitted to.

Process engineers with a quantitative background, modelling and simulation specialists, advanced process control engineers, and technical services staff.

Short input, then work. Across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each, the balance sits deliberately with the second: a programme where the trainer talks for six hours produces notes rather than capability.

• Your own material

  Exercises run on situations delegates bring, not on a case study written for a different organisation in a different decade.

• A capped cohort

  Small enough that everybody is asked something. Executive programmes are capped tighter still.

• Practice under scrutiny

  The difficult conversation, the challenged assumption, the decision defended out loud. Judgement is not built by watching.

• Something to take back

  Each day ends with a thing you can use on Monday rather than a slide deck you will not reopen.

• A fitted circuit model.
• An optimisation run with results interpreted.
• A validation report, including where the model fails.

A GATI certificate recording what you attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended.

Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record, which is what makes it worth holding. It records participation. This site will not imply one it does not have.