According to the top-priority trends and challenges in the mineral sector, and as per the mining science strategy, it is highly critical to arrange enhanced control, prediction and safety of production objects and their functioning for the preservation of automation sustainability. Improved control of databases, regulatory bonds, management, logistics and principles of sustainable development in mining makes it possible to reduce technological deviations and accidents at large mining and processing plants. Most procedural violations and accidents in surface and underground mines occur because of the unskilled actions of process flow operators. Damage in this case can be considerable, especially as compared with the expenses connected with qualitative training and persistent development of personnel engaged with supervisory control and data acquisition for the efficient operation of SCADA-systems within the automation framework of mining and processing plants. Definition of digital systems and their interrelation with multilevel automated control can be incorrect. The review of new principles can awaken interest in the conceptual assessment of digitalization processes using such notions as: numerical models, simulator, and artificial intel-ligence. Often applied formulations and principles of a digital model are substituted without justification of functional connections. On the other hand, a digital system today can be assumed as robotic lines and other numerical models and smart technologies, for instance, machining sta-tions with numerical program control. It is necessary to define the practical significance of conceptual modifications and digital transformation regarding objects of the mineral sector, using Big Data; to understand how a digital twin can influence a changeable process situation; to provide prompt prediction; to eliminate an accident; and to preserve the physical balance in the whole production system. Such intelligent and flexible productions particularly need computer-based simulators and digital twins based on technologies of Industry 4.0–extended and virtual reality on the basis of digital twins. Digital twins allow maximal simulation of real-life activity of process flow operators. The skills acquired by personnel after such simulation training enable operators to master the optimized procedure for functioning in emergency situations in mineral mining and processing. This paper exemplifies the remote training and control of process flows, which is of concern in the current international situation.

Nowadays pelletizing drums are widely used in the steel industry. These units are characterized by high endurance and low cost of maintenance. However, use and control of these units in the process of coarsening have a number of issues. For most of the cases pelletizing drums are “black box” and control accuracy can not be estimated exactly. It is explained by low existing theoretical basis of this production process. Particularly it is tied up with the variability of the bulk materials (charges) parameters supplied to the unit. Overcome of this issues can be reached with development of intelligent control systems for drum pelletizing machines. Main requirement for such systems is possibility to level or consider the effect of charges properties variability in control. However, it is necessary to study the behavior of bulk materials inside the units. Visual assessment of pelletization does not allow to evaluate the ongoing physical processes. Development of mathematical and numerical models can help studying the process and take a lot of parameters into account including charges properties and even interaction with water. But the adequacy of the resulting models also has to be clarified using physical devices to record or capture bulk materials behavior inside the units. This research proposes a DEM simulation test of the concept for bulk material behavior control through the recognition of the mixture movement fragments using special capsules. This part is dedicated to the simulation model set up and extracting the particles trajectories for further processing.

This paper presents a numerical simulation of powder sintering. The numerical model presented in this paper uses the discrete element method, which suggests that the material can be modeled by a large set of discrete elements (particles) of a spherical shape that interact with each other. A methodology has been developed to determine the DEM parameters of bulk materials based on machine vision and a neural network algorithm. The approach is suitable for obtaining the exact values of the DEM parameters of the investigated bulk material by comparing the visual images of the material’s behavior at the experimental stand in reality and in the model. Simulation of sintering requires an introduction of cohesive interaction between particles representing interparticle sintering forces. Numerical sintering studies were supplemented with experimental studies that provided data for calibration and model validation. The experimental results have shown a significant capability of the designed numerical model in modeling sintering processes. Evolution of microstructure and density during sintering have been studied under the laboratory conditions.