A study of pinched sluice concentrator

Abstract

The pinched sluice concentrator is a device for the separation of heavy minerals particularly beach sands. They come in a variety of sizes and shapes and have been used extensively overseas in the beach sand industry for over a century. Previous work to study the mechanisms of separation of these units have been of a purely empirical nature and thus required experienced and skilled operators to achieve acceptable level of separation. More recent work has shown that the performance characteristics of a pinched sluice could be analysed using the established theories of fluid mechanics and mineral processing. This paper outlines the work published up to date and also the progress of research in this field at the Department of Mining and Mineral Engineering, University of Moratuwa.