Effective use of bubble size distribution measurements

Accurate bubble size distributions of flotation froths are now available. This paper shows that reducing data from a distribution to a single value descriptor is often inappropriate. Froths with "dynamic" (rapidly changing) bubble size distributions are introduced, and ways of dealing with them are investigated. A variety of measurements of froth bubble size are tested to determine their ability to discriminate between froth classes. Data reduction based on principal component analysis and frequently occurring bubble size distributions are found to be the most appropriate ways of dealing with bubble size distribution data. Increasing sample duration is shown to help resolve the problem of "dynamic" bubble size distributions by improving the ability to discriminate between froth classes.