FUZZY MODELING OF PULPCHIP DISCHARGE
RELEVANCE. Pulpchip hoppers are ones of the most important installations in pulp and paper production (PPP) equipment. The effective use of the hopper is the condition of effective operation of the entire production. The main parameter in the design of the hopper is its discharge rate, which depends on many parameters and, first of all, on humidity and bulk density. However, this issue has not been sufficiently studied due to the lack of sufficiently correct research methods of the process. The latter is a serious handicap to the improvement of pulp and paper technologies. The PURPOSE of the paper is to obtain a functional dependence of the pulpchip discharge rate from the hopper depending on the parameters of chip moisture and bulk density on the basis of a fuzzy inference. METHODS. Due to the fact that input data are uncertain, insufficient, inaccurate and indeterminate we have used fuzzy modeling as a tool of the theory of fuzzy sets. RESULTS. We have performed the procedures of fuzzy modeling problem description, reduction to fuzziness and development of the rule base for fuzzy products. The Fuzzy Logic Toolbox of the Matlab application has been used to synthesize the fuzzy model of the resulting dependence of the pulpchip discharge rate from the hopper on the parameters of pulp humidity and bulk density. CONCLUSIONS. The proposed fuzzy inference-based function of chip discharge rate takes into account the main technological parameters of humidity and density; comparison of simulation results with experimental data shows sufficient adequacy of the developed model and allow to recommend it to be used in the design practice of pulp and paper production equipment.