In this paper, heat balance calculations were performed on a clinkering plant based on the dry process, no calciner. Parameter values were iteratively averaged over different time periods. The purpose of this work is to determine the influence of the averaging time interval on the precision and accuracy of the calculations and to extract some useful information about the process itself.

Five parameters that were selected by a simple statistical correlation analysis were considered. For each parameter two series of data of the same length (256 hours) of uninterrupted processing were used. Ordinary variations for the process parameters’ evolution and for the particular plant were recorded.

Fractal dimension calculations were made on each parameter, for both hourly and averaged sequences of data and for the two series (this has been done for confirmation). Results clearly show that each parameter can be identified by a particular fractal dimension. This simple technique can be used, for instance, to detect abnormal trends that can escape visual analysis.