IDEAS SAG General Description

AG/SAG Mill dynamic object is used to simulate the operation of autogenous or semi-autogenous
grinding equipment in mineral processing plants.

The object receives a feed stream with certain particle size distributions of the solid components (ores)
and calculates the exit size distributions based on the properties of the ores, as defined by their
breakage rates and breakage functions. The power required to reduce the size of solid particles is also
calculated. The effect of certain mill parameters such as rpm, ball charge, or liner wear can be included
in the calculations for training purposes.

The material inside the mill is assumed to be well mixed. The solids inside the mill are subjected to
three comminution processes: self-breakage, impact breakage, and attrition. As the mill rotates, the
grinding media and ore lumps are continuously lifted in the ascending part of the mill and they fall and
tumble over the material at the bottom of the mill. The self-breakage is caused by ore lumps falling on
one another and breaking into smaller parts. The impact breakage is caused by the action of grinding
media (steel balls) which hit the ore lumps and break them. The attrition process has to do with small
amount of mass being sheared from large ore lumps as they tumble which results in the original
particles hardly changing their size but producing a number of very fine particles.

IMPACT BREAK

There are two functions that describe the breakage of ore particles caused by the impact of the grinding
media (the balls). The first, called either a Breakage Rate or a Selection Function (depending on the
reference used), describes the rate at which a particle of a given size will be subjected to an impact
from the balls causing the particle to break. In general terms, this function describes the probability for
a given size particle in the mill to be impacted by the grinding media and broken into smaller particles.

SAG Mill objects use the modeling approach proposed by King, R.P. (2001) where the breakage rate
function is represented by the Austin formula:
IDEAS SAG General Description

The breakage distribution function is calculated by the following formula;

The two functions are defined by the ore properties and the mill parameters. Their coefficients must be
determined by fitting the functions to experimental data. The publication by King, R.P. (2001) gives
some suggestions on how to fit the experimental data on pages: 139 -143 and 188 - 189. This
methodology is only applicable when the breakage rate and breakage matrix data are explicitly
available.

The two functions must be defined for each ore present in the model. Different functions will need to
be defined for each ore if the ores differ in their hardness (soft ores vs. hard ores). With these data, the
mill can dynamically predict changes in the mill operation (power, P80) when the feed is transitioned
from one type of ore to another.
IDEAS SAG General Description
SELF BREAK

The general structure on the input data is similar to that in the Impact Breakage tab. The Breakage
Rate vector can either be entered manually or pasted from another source of data. But if no such data
is available, it can be generated locally using the following formula:

The self-breakage function, if not available otherwise, can be generated using the methodology
proposed by Napier-Munn et al. (1996).
IDEAS SAG General Description

ATTRITION

The rate of attrition is calculated from the equation proposed by Goldman & Barbery and Austin as
reported by King, R.P. (2001).

The Breakage Matrix for attrition used two coefficients t10 and dmax. The cumulative distributions of
particles after attrition are related to the t10 parameter by the following formula (Napier-Munn et al.,
1996).

The resulting throughput change with load increase is a complex function of the ore breakability, the
retention time, the flow rate through the grate, and the grate screening properties. It should be noted
that these load effects are not modeled here from first principles, and therefore, the coefficients k and
Vo must be custom-tuned to each application. It will be up to the model developer to adjust V0 and
k coefficients to emulate the expected throughput behavior.

The second group of input parameters may be used to simulate the effect of SAG mill overloading on
its power consumption. This is done by capturing the load position change through changing the angle
of repose of the mill charge.
IDEAS SAG General Description