Optimization of Compositional and Technological Parameters for Phosphate Graphite Sand

In present work, the compression strength and tensile strength of phosphate graphite sand with compositional and technological parameters (phosphoric acid, Al₂O₃, drying temperature, and drying time) were experimentally investigated. An L₉ (3⁴) orthogonal array was employed to analyze the effect of these four parameters on the compression strength and tensile strength, respectively. In addition, the radial basis function artificial neural network (RBFANN) was used to establish the models for compression strength and tensile strength, respectively. Moreover, the simulation and prediction results by the RBFANN and linear and non-linear regressions are compared. The results are as follows: the optimum scheme for phosphate graphite sand designed by us is phosphoric acid 24%, Al₂O₃ 30%, drying temperature 400 °C, and drying time 60 min. The ascending sequence of the effect of four factors on both compression strength and tensile strength of phosphate graphite sand is drying time, drying temperature, Al₂O₃, and phosphoric acid. In addition, the prediction and simulation results show that RBFANN outperforms Taguchi approach for modeling.