INDUSTRIAL SCREENING

A.K.MAJUMDER

Screening:
Screening is the mechanical separation of mineral fragments by size, which to some
extent is influenced by the shape of the fragments. The particles which are smaller than
screen opening pass through the screen while larger particles either remain on the
screen or fall off at a designated place.
The purpose of screening is splitting the feed into
two or more, differing in sizes, products.
The main parameter, due to which separation takes
place, is the particle size.
Each screen usually provides two products. To
obtain more products it is necessary to use
additional screens. Particles going through the
screen form a product usually called undersize,
minus, or lower product, while the ones remaining
on the screen are known as oversize, plus, or upper
product.
Screening is a continuous process performed on a
large scale while sieving is performed on sieves on a
small batch laboratory scale.

Screen

Screening and Sieving:

In the metallurgical industry a distinction is made between screening and sieving. The
mechanism of size separation by both is the same, but screening generally applies to
industrial scale size separations while sieving refers to laboratory scale operations.

Industrial sizing is extensively used for size separations from 300mm down to around 40m,
although the efficiency decreases rapidly with fineness.
Dry screening is generally limited to material above about 5mm in size, while wet screening
down to around 250m is common. Although there are screen types that are capable of
efficient size separations down to 40m, sizing below 250m is also undertaken by
classification.
Selection between screening and classification is influenced by the fact that finer separations
demand large areas of screening surface and therefore can be expensive compared with
classification for high throughput applications.

Particle Size Analysis

Different mesh screens are used to measure particle size

Our interest is the particle size distribution
The machine used is called a Ro-Tap or Sieve Shaker
Screens with increasing mesh number from top to bottom

Particle Size Analysis

Lab screens are made of brass or stainless steel

Sieve diameters (3", 6". 8", 10", 12", 18", 200 and 300 mm)
Sieve hole sizes (square) range from 5" to 20 microns
Typically, 75-100 g. sample is placed on the top screen
Sieves are shaken and tapped for 15-20 minutes
Analysis is dry; for sizes < 200 mesh, wet screening is done

Need for Industrial Screening

Screening is used in coal-preparation operations for the following applications:
1. Sizing/Grading or Classifying:
To separate particles by Size , usually to provide a down stream unit process with the particle size range
suited to that unit operation. To Prepare a number of products within specified size ranges, where final
product size is important for downstream processes.

2. Scalping/Pre-screening:
To remove the coarsest size fractions in the feed material, usually so that they can be crushed or
removed from the process. The oversize is then crushed, and the resulting raw coal fed to the plant.

3. Media Recovery:
For washing magnetic media from ore in dense medium circuits; or to retain grinding media inside the
grinding mill

4. Dewatering: To drain free moisture from a wet coal and refuse.

5. De-sliming/ De-dusting: To remove fine material, generally below 0.5mm, from a wet and dry
feed.

6. Trash Removal: Usually to remove coarse wood fibers or tramp material from a slurry stream

Factors affecting Screen Performance

1.Particle Size: The chance of passing an aperture increases with increase in aperture to particle size ratio.
2.Particle shape: Mica, for instance, screens poorly on square aperture screens, its flat, plate like crystals tend to
ride over the screen apertures.
3.Near Mesh Size Particles: The overall screening efficiency is markedly reduced by the proportion of near-size
particles because these particles tend to plug the apertures, reducing the available open area.
4.Feed rate: Residence time effect.
5.Capacity: Screen effectiveness must always be coupled with capacity.
6.Vibration: Stratification and reduces blinding. Screen performance is affected by factors that influence the
probability of particle passage and factors that influence the number of opportunities the particles are given to
pass through the screen mesh.
7.Screen angle: The slope of the screening surface affects the angle at which particles are presented to the screen
apertures. Where screening efficiency is important, horizontal screens are selected. It also affects the residence
time of particles on the screening surfaces.

Factors Affecting Screen Performance

8.

Open area: The chance of passing through the aperture is proportional to the percentage of open area in
the screen material. Open area generally decreases with the fineness of the screen aperture. In order to
increase the open area of a fine screen, very thin and fragile wires or deck construction must be used. This
fragility and the low throughput capacity are the main reasons for classifiers replacing screens at fine
aperture sizes.

9. Moistures: Efficiency goes down with sticky materials.

10.Bed Depth:
The bed depth of material on the screen affects the efficiency and the performance of a screen. The profile of a bed of material
on the surface of a screen is far from uniform. The feed end of the screen surface is overloaded while the rest of the screen
surface is thinly spread with the material.
The fraction of particles in the feed stream that is smaller than the sieve openings and occupying upper layers of the feed
stream need time and agitation to work their way down to the screen surface. Agitation of the screen surface imparts fluid
properties to the bed of particles to impart stratification. Thus the depth of the bed, the rate of feed and the inclination of
the screen are of major importance to the screen operation.
Too thick a bed will tend to delay stratification, while too thin a bed reduces the efficiency as it allows unconstrained movement
of particles on the screen. Hence the bed thickness at the discharge end is more important than the feed end. The bed
thickness at the discharge end will in turn depend on the length of the screen.
According to Matthews for screens of length from 1.8 m, the bed depth at the discharge end should be a minimum of about 1.5
-2.0 times the average particle size, and for screen lengths of about 7.2 m the thickness of the discharge end should be about
2.5 to 3.0 times the average particle size. Thus if the screen length was 2 m and the average particle size 850 microns, then
the minimum bed height at the screen discharge end should be about 1.3 mm.

Particle size Very Important Issue

Taggart calculates some probabilities of passage related to the particle size which are shown in
the following Table. The figures relate the probable chance per thousand of unrestricted passage
through a square aperture of a spherical particle and give the probable number of apertures in
series in the path of the particle necessary to ensure its passage through the screen.
It can be seen that as the particle size
approaches that of the aperture, the chance of
passage falls off very rapidly. The overall
screening efficiency is markedly reduced by the
proportion of these near-size particles.
The effect of near-size particles is compounded
because these particles tend to "peg" or "plug"
the apertures, reducing the available open
area. This problem is often found on screens
run in closed circuit with crushers, where a
build-up of near-mesh material can occur and
progressively reduce screening efficiency.

Capacity and Screen Selection of Straight Screens

The above discussion indicated that the capacity of a screen is related to the screen
characteristics and the material characteristics. The screen characteristics include:
1. available area,
2. aperture (size and type),
3. slope,
4. method of vibration, and
5. number of decks.
The material characteristic include:

1. size and shape of material,

2. moisture content,
3. rate of throughput, including depth of material layer,
4. dry or wet screening.

Classification of Screens:
(According to Mode of Work)

Basic Design features in Screens

The three most important design features of screens are:
1. Surface and aperture

2. Types of screens
3. Screen movement

1. Surface and Aperture

Coarse Screen Surface
Grizzly
Medium Screens and
Screen Surfaces
Woven Wire Screens

2. Types of screens

Stationary and straight

Stationary and curved
Vibrating straight
Vibrating and curved or
Cylindrical and revolving

3. Screen movement:

Stationary Screen
Sieve Bend
Grizzly etc.
Moving Screen
Revolving Screen
Oscillating Screen
Rotating Screen

Surface and Aperture:

Coarse Screen Surface - Grizzly
For the metallurgical industry coarse scalping screens are generally fabricated by welding
steel rails, rods or bars forming grids of a desired pattern. These are usually known as
grizzly screens. The selection of rails varies in size from about 7.4 kg/m to about 225 kg/m.
The rails usually run parallel to each other for the entire length of the screening surface.
The spacing in between are of the order of 5 - 200 mm. For smooth flow of materials the
openings are tapered, the top being wider than the bottom.
Heavy-duty grizzly bars are cast from manganese steel having double tapers. These are
designed to receive lump ore from railroad wagons, tipper cars and other bulk material
handling systems that discharge from considerable heights. They are therefore very
robustly built.

The rail grizzlies can be installed to operate in a horizontal flat plane, but they are often
inclined to aid transport of ore across the screen. The inclination is of the order of 30
40. For sticky ores the inclination could be up to 45. For very sticky ores, vibrators are
employed to facilitate continuous operation.

When rods are used to fabricate grizzlies, they are usually free rotating, or mechanically driven. The
rods rest on bearings and rotate in the direction of material flow acting like a conveyor. The space
between the rolls is the aperture of the grid.
While designing a grizzly for a specific purpose, the openings between the grizzly bars should be
commensurate with the size of the receiving hopper where the product has to be discharged. Usually
the maximum distance between the grizzly rails is 0.9 times the maximum hopper opening feeding say,
a crusher.
Grizzlies can be designed with more than one deck (usually not more than two). The top deck has a
scalping action while the lower deck aims to yield the final size. The two decks produce a coarse,
middle and finer fraction.

Medium Screens and Screen Surfaces

These are used for screening medium size particles that are less than 100 mm but greater
than about 2 mm. The screens are fabricated from:
1. Plates mainly by drilling or punching to produce a perforated pattern
2. Woven wire surfaces to various designs.

Woven Wire Screens

For woven screens, wires of uniform cross section are usually taken for both warp and
weft strands. Occasionally the diameter of the warp is greater than the weft.
The wire material used depends on the environmental circumstances. Thus plain carbon
steel wires are used for general purposes but for corrosive atmospheres stainless steel
wires are used. Other types of metal wires commonly used are brass, bronze, monel metal
(Ni-Cu alloys) and different types of aluminium alloys. Wires or threads made of plastics
material, especially polyurethane are increasingly being used for areas where strong
acidic, caustic or wet environments prevail.
When screens are woven with straight profile wires with circular cross-section, the wires
have a tendency to move during the screening operation. Crimped wires help to lock the
wires in place. Weaves with double crimped wires are now common. For smoother
operation the weave is designed to provide a flat top.
The patterns of weaves are usually square, but rectangular weaves with length to width
ratio of 2 or more are also common in the mineral industry.

The available aperture per unit area of

screen is the most important criteria of
screens. The apertures may be
determined if the diameters of the weft
and warp wires are known.

The mesh of a screen is defined by the relation

measurements in inches or M = 25.4
millimetres.

Mesh size of square opening,

for
for measurements in

Assignment
A stainless steel woven wire screen with a square aperture had an aperture 3.18 mm square.
The diameter of the wire was 1.2 mm. Determine:
1. The percent open area when the screen was operated in an horizontal position,
2. The percent open area when the screen was operated at a slope of 20
3. The mesh size of the screen.
Types of Screens
The usual industrial screen is either a stationary or dynamic type. They may be
described as:
1. Stationary and straight
2. Stationary and curved
3. Vibrating straight
4. Vibrating and curved or
5. Cylindrical and revolving.

Stationary and Straight Screens Surfaces

Both A and C particles are prevented from passing through, A being larger in size than the
aperture while C is elongated with one dimension greater than the size of the opening.
Particle C will however pass through in any subsequent encounter if it approaches the screen
at a suitable angle as shown in aperture D. Particle size B will always pass through.
Thus both shape and size are of importance in a screening operation. Particle sizes that are
near to the aperture size are the most difficult to screen. It is a general observation that
particles having a size 0.75 to 1.5 times the aperture are the most difficult to screen.

When a screen is overloaded such that the top layer does not come in contact with the
screen surface, the top layer will be discharged as oversize while containing fine particles.
In such cases the movement of the bottom layer of particles on the screen, aided by the
movement of the screen, will promote the possibility of particles at the top surface
approaching the screen surface.

Increasing the length of the screen and the screening time will likewise improve the
probability of particles in the stratified top layer approaching the screen surface. Thus
both time of screening and the movement of particles on the screen surface are important
criteria in the designing and operation of screens.
Stationary Curved Screens
The commonly used stationary and curved
screen is known as the DSM screen or
sieve bend.
It is named after the Dutch State Mines who
first developed and introduced it to the
mineral industry. It is used for wet
screening and for dewatering slurries.

Operation of Straight Screens

Two criteria are used to assess screen performance, Capacity and Efficiency. Capacity is simply the
quantity of material fed to the screen per unit time per unit area of screen surface.
In reality capacity should be quoted along with efficiency. Capacity and efficiency are generally
conflicting quantities. Any screen can have its capacity increased, but this is likely to be achieved at the
expense of efficiency.

The basic purpose of screening is to separate particles larger or smaller than the aperture of a screen.
An ideal screening condition would be to have a monolayer of a mixture of sizes of particles on the
screen surface so that the probability of each and every particle passing or not passing can be
determined.

Particle size distribution during a

screening operation and the profile of
screened undersize

Screening Efficiency?

Screen Efficiency and the Tromp Curve

Since a feed may contain a whole range of particles of different properties, such as grade or
size, then the separation efficiency may be different for different particles. That is, we need
to take into account the amount of misplaced material that can occur or the difficulty of
separation of some of the particles.
In 1937, Tromp introduced a graphical method of assessing separation efficiency which is
universally used and is alternatively referred to as; Tromp Curve, Partition Curve or
Performance Curve.

We can refer to any characteristic in the feed or any other stream, in general terms as
characteristic i, where i can refer to a size interval for size separators. The amount of
misplaced material to an output stream is referred to as the partition coefficient (also called
the distribution factor or probability factor). The partition coefficient is then defined as:

Practice Problem
The size fractions of a screen oversize and undersize stream sample are given in the
table below. The oversize represented 62.5% of the feed mass flow rate. Draw the Tromp
curve for the separation and determine:
1. The separating size
2. The probable error

Ecart probability or probable error

Well discuss this in detail later

Sieve bend:
The screening device most commonly used in coal-preparation plants is the sieve bend.
The sieve bend was originally developed by DSM (Dutch State Mines) to provide a method of
size separation at small particle sizes this was difficult to achieve with conventional screens.
A sieve bend is an inclined, curved, wedge wire screen with the slot openings of the screen arranged
perpendicular to the direction of flow of slurry.
As slurry flows over the sieve be d, thi layers of the fluid are shaved fro the slurry by the ope i gs
in the screen surface. The fine particles contained in the slurry are carried by the flow passing through
the screen apertures and are thus removed from the main slurry stream.
The sizes are available from 2 mm to 0.125 mm. The sieve bend is also widely used in coal preparation
for preliminary dewatering.
The 45 angle screen is widely applied as a classification unit but finds its greatest application as a
dewatering or drainage unit where it can handle 3- 10 m3/h of minus 0.5 mm coal fines slurry at 30-50
%solids (by- weight) for a one- metre wide unit. A 60 angle bend is also commonly used in coal
application, 'especially for classification.

Sieve Bend

Vibrating Screens:
When the smaller rock has to be classified a vibrating screen will be used.
The simplest Vibrating Screen Working Principle can be explained using the single deck screen
and put it onto an inclined frame. The frame is mounted on springs. The vibration is generated
from an unbalanced fly wheel. A very erratic motion is developed when this wheel is rotated.
These simple screens are found in smaller operations and rock quarries where sizing is t as
critical.
As the performance of this type of screen is t good enough to meet the requirements of most
mining operations two variations of this screen has been developed.
The pattern of vibration for the horizontal screen deck is back and forth while the inclined
vibrating screen is circular.
These screens are vibrated is to ensure that the ore comes into contact will the screen. By
vibrating the screen the rock will be bounced around on top of it. This means, that by the time
that the rock has travelled the length of the screen, it will have had the opportunity of hitting
the screen mesh at just the right angle to be able to penetrate through it. If the rock is small
enough it will be removed from the circuit. The large rock will, of course, be taken to the next.
The reason for using two decks is to increase the surface area that the ore has to come into
contact with. The top deck will have bigger holes in the grid of the screen. The size of the ore
that it will be removed will be larger than that on the bottom. Only the small rock that is able
to pass through the bottom screen will be removed from the circuit. In most cases the large
rock that was on top of each screen will be mixed back together again.

 The main cause of mechanical failure in screen decks is the vibration. Even the frame, body and bearings are
affected by this. The larger the screen the bigger the effect. The vibration will crystallize the molecular structure
of the metal causing what is known as METAL FATIQUE to develop. The first sign that an operator has indicating
that the fatigue in the body of the screen deck is almost at a critical stage in its development are the hair line
cracks that will appear around the vibratio s point of origin.
The bearings on the bigger screens have to be watched closer than most as they tend to fail suddenly. This is
due to the vibration as well.

Commercial Screens
Vibratory motion of particles on commercial screen deck surfaces
Coarse Separation low speed and long stroke
Fine Separation high speed and short stroke

Commercial Screens
Stratification and Probability determine how and where particles pass
through or over the screen deck.

a b: stratification at feed end;

b c: saturation screening ;
c d: separation by repeated trials.

Commercial Screens
Plugging of Screen Deck with near-size particles.
Leads to decrease in %Open Area and loss of efficiency.

Other Screen Designs

Four Deck Vibrating Screen

Trommel Screen

Roller Screen

Gyratory Screen

THANK YOU