Ball Sizes As mentioned earlier, years of operating experience indicated that the maximum ball size for the 2.93 m Climax mills was 76 mm. Application of Azzaroni’s equation confirmed that 76 mm was the correct maximum size. The selection of the second, smaller ball size was made by analyzing historical screen analyses representing composite ball … Read more
Autogenous and semi-autogenous grinding have experienced renewed interest as efforts to reduce operating and capital costs have increased. As a result, the mill operator is faced with new equipment perhaps ten times as large as was common in the sixties and new circuit designs with different operating characteristics. No longer can he grab a handful … Read more
The two largest cost components in comminution circuits are energy consumption and metal wear which, for cone crushing, rod milling and ball milling, can be established by conducting laboratory bench scale tests. Pilot plant testing for these comminution methods is not normally required. Laborary testwork performed by Allis-Chalmers to identify these parameters are covered by: … Read more
Size reduction is the most expensive operation in most mills. Crushing and grinding usually require the greatest portion of capital costs and often make up 60-70 percent of total mill operating costs as shown in Figure 1. Selection of the proper crushing and grinding method must, therefore, be done with great care to be sure … Read more
These programs and the simulation algorithms are discussed below. Note that in some Grinding Circuit Simulations, a residence time distribution model is used. In the MRRC simulation package, however, only the two extremes of well mixed and plug flow through the mill are considered. This approach reduces the amount of input information and computation required … Read more
A laboratory stirred ball mill was used in a batch manner, with the milling time being varied so as to produce a number of different product size distributions diameter ratio of one, and has a jacket through which cooling water is passed. The vessel is mounted on a turntable which is located on a thrust bearing. The turntable is restrained … Read more
Does a SAG Mill reduce steel consumption? Do SAG mills cost less to operate compared to conventional rod or ball mill grinding circuits? Mining companies are always searching for new ways to cut costs. In order to be competitive and justify the tremendous capital costs of new projects, there has been a strong trend toward … Read more
A detailed experimental study of breakage kinetics in a batch rod mill indicates that while the system is inherently nonlinear, the feed disappearance kinetics for the finer sizes and the coarser sizes at high holdups is well represented by first-order behavior. The set of breakage distribution functions was found to be normalizable and independent of … Read more
Through a cooperative agreement, the Carondolet Foundry Co. of St. Louis, Mo., supplied 1,000 pounds of 2-inch Ni-hard balls for comparison with balls of other composition. Ni-hard balls are said to contain 2.5 to 6 percent nickel and 0.5 to 1.5 percent chromium. They have a Brinell hardness of 548. The company also furnished a … Read more
Operators in the metallics industry, sometimes forget that pebble mills are an important factor in fine grinding. However, pebble mills are not extinct, as is shown by reference to a recent paper on ore milling, wherein it was shown that five of the 44 so-called “ball” mills mentioned actually were pebble mills. If the nonmetallics … Read more