Wills' Mineral Processing Technology, 8th Edition

(3.36)

In the above equation, i stands for an assayed metal and j for a process unit.

The calculation of these best estimates requires the calculation of the derivatives of S for each of the unknowns, that is, the non-measured solid mass flowrates. The best estimates are those unknown variable values for which the derivatives are all together equal to zero:

$\frac{\delta S}{\delta W_K}=0$ (3.37)

(3.37)

It is worth noting that with the obtained best estimates the mass conservation equations are not rigorously verified; essentially, the node imbalances are only minimized. ...