Evaluation of spontaneous combustion tendency of sulfide ore heap based on nonlinear parameters

To explore a new evaluation method for spontaneous combustion tendency of different areas in sulfide ore heap, ore samples from a pyrite mine in China were taken as experimental materials, and the temperature variations of the measuring points of simulated ore heap were measured. Combined with wavelet transform and nonlinear parameters extraction, a new method for spontaneous combustion tendency of different areas in sulfide ore heap based on nonlinear parameters was proposed and its reliability was verified by field test. The results indicate that temperature field evolution of the simulated ore heap presents significant spatial difference during self-heating process. Area with the maximum increasing extent of temperature in sulfide ore heap changes notably with the proceeding of self-heating reaction. Self-heating of sulfide ore heap is a chaotic evolution process, which means that it is feasible to evaluate spontaneous combustion tendency of different areas by nonlinear analysis method. There is a relatively strong correlation between the maximum Lyapunov exponent and spontaneous combustion tendency with the correlation coefficient of 0.9792. Furthermore, the sort of the maximum Lyapunov exponent is consistent with that of spontaneous combustion tendency. Therefore, spontaneous combustion tendency of different areas in sulfide ore heap can be evaluated by means of the maximum Lyapunov exponent method.