Crushed skarn ore (mostly worthless gangue with a small fraction of dense scheelite, CaWO₄) is fed into a gravity-separation stage. Denser scheelite grains settle out into the concentrate stream while lighter gangue reports to tailings, governed by a recovery fraction:
rec = clamp(0.30 + 0.5·wash + 0.08·stage − 0.004·clog, 0.12, 0.96)
dC/dt = feed · stage · rec · k1 (concentrate accumulation)
dT/dt = feed · stage · (1−rec) · k2 (tailings accumulation)
dClog/dt = 8·feed − 3·wash (fines build-up in the circuit)
More wash water and a finer-separation stage (spiral → table → flotation) raise recovery; running the feed hot without enough wash lets fines clog the circuit and drag recovery back down, until a flush resets the clog term.
- Left stream — crushed ore particles entering the separator.
- Split point — each particle is probabilistically routed to concentrate (gold) or tailings (grey) using the current recovery fraction.
- Bins — fill level tracks accumulated concentrate/tailings mass on a log scale so both stay visible over a long run.