Design and Optimization of Sluice Box for Small - Scale Mining Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Abstract

This research seeks to optimize the efficiency of the sluice box by performing CFD simulations considering varying the slope angles in order to determine the optimal slope angle that will produce the highest recovery of gold particles. The optimal sluice box angle which was able to retain most gold particles was found to be 10° angle with a gold retention rate of 98.81 %. The flow velocity obtained, and the number particles trapped were 0.311 m/s and 7905 particles. This study therefore provides the foundation for numerical technique (CFD) to be used for analyzing fluid flow on a sluice box.