Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

Performance characterisation of AG/SAG mill pulp lifters using CFD

techniques
N.S. Weerasekara ⇑, M.S. Powell
University of Queensland, JKMRC, 40 Isles Road, Indooroopilly, QLD 4068, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The pulp lifter is an integral component of autogenous (AG) and semi-autogenous (SAG) grinding mills as
Available online xxxx it controls the throughput, performance and efficiency of mills. The slurry transport from the AG/SAG mill
through grate holes into the discharge trunnion is the main function of the pulp lifter. This process devel-
Keywords: ops complex flow behaviour in the region of the grate and pulp lifter. Efficient and effective removal of
CFD pulp/slurry from the mill is the key objective of the pulp lifter design.
Grinding mills This work aims to understand slurry flow behaviour in pulp lifter sections and its contribution to mill
Pulp lifter
performance using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling and Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA)
Discharge
measurements applied to a laboratory scale mill. The CFD model is validated against the LDA measure-
ments, and then used to build a cohesive computational framework for modelling industrial pulp lifters,
to investigate unique problems associated with their design and performance.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
AG and SAG mills of 12–23 MW power draw are at the forefront
of size reduction for mineral extraction in most of the mining oper-
ations around the world. The pulp discharge mechanism, consist-
ing of a grate and pulp lifter arrangement, is an integral
component of these mills. The grate retains over-size particles in
the mill charge. The pulp lifters transport the slurry, which has
passed through grate holes, into the discharge trunnion. The slurry
discharge function plays an important role in the overall perfor-
mance of the mill. The removal process has been the subject of
considerable controversy in recent years as inadequate slurry re-
moval capacity can constrain mill throughput (Cleary et al.,
2006; Powell and Valery, 2006; Royston, 2000; Warder and Davies,
1994). If the mill cannot effectively remove the slurry it forms an
internal slurry pool, which reduces the milling efficiency and
capacity to produce fine particles by up to 20% (Latchireddi and
Morrell, 2006). This in turn reduces the recovery of the valuable
minerals. Both the throughput and recovery issues influence mine
profitability (and viability in some instances) and have a negative
effect on the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the
operation.
Some previous work has been carried out in computational
modelling of pulp lifter sections using Discrete Element Method
(DEM) (Alkac, 2011; Rajamani et al., 2011; Rajamani, 2007) and
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) (Cleary et al., 2006).
These modelling exercises concentrated on the flow though the
grate only, rather than on the flow in the pulp lifter chamber. They
also lack the all-important influence of the porosity or hold-up of
the mill contents, and the build-up of slurry in the discharge cham-
ber providing a back-flow into the milling chamber. In addition,
limited work has being presented in terms of using CFD and cou-
pled CFD–DEM to give a more realistic simulation of the interac-
tion of the fluids and solids in the slurry.
The aim of this work is to understand slurry flow behaviour in
pulp discharge sections (Fig. 1) and its interface to the mill using
the CFD technique compared with laboratory experiments. CFD
studies of multiphase flow in a lab scale 300 mm diameter mill
with a discharge pulp lifter and a water medium were used. The
studies used FLUENT with a 3D body fitted grid and used the Vol-
ume of Fluid (VOF) model to model the two phases, with an open-
channel flow model for modelling the flow in the mill section and
standard k–e turbulence model for turbulence. The model is
validated by a laboratory test-work program conducted using a
specially designed pulp chamber test rig.
2. CFD model description

Flows in mills are multiphase, consisting of various sizes of ore

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 733655966. particles in a slurry media. This mixture tumbles inside a mill shell
E-mail address: n.weerasekara@uq.edu.au (N.S. Weerasekara). where atmospheric air is present. At a minimum this is a 3-phase

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.02.001
0892-6875/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Weerasekara, N.S., Powell, M.S. Performance characterisation of AG/SAG mill pulp lifters using CFD techniques. Miner.
Eng. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.02.001
2 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Fig. 1. Graphical representation of the slurry transport in an AG/SAG mill.
flow problem. Multiphase flows can be solved by a number of CFD
techniques. These include the full Eulerian multiphase approach,
simplified Eulerian approaches such as the mixture and VOF mod-
els and the Lagrangian approach.
The VOF model (Hirt and Nichols, 1981) and the mixture model
(Manninen et al., 1996) are simplified Eulerian multiphase ap-
proaches where the equations of motion are solved for the mixture,
with additional transport equations for the volume fractions of
additional phases. The VOF model and the mixture model solve sig-
nificantly less transport equations than the full Eulerian approach
and thus are numerically more efficient. The VOF model is in-
tended for modelling flows where there are two or more continu-
ous phases separated by a phase boundary. A procedure to sharpen
the interface between the liquid and the air is applied. There is no
slip between the phases. The VOF and mixture models are imple-
mented in commercial CFD codes such as ANSYS FLUENT with
the option of being used for turbulent flows with the turbulence
model enabled for the mixture.
The effects of open channel flow are modelled in the mill sec-
tion of the rig using the VOF formulation and the open channel
boundary condition. These flows involve the existence of a free sur-
face between the flowing fluid and fluid above it (which is the
atmosphere). In such cases, the wave propagation and free surface
Stationary section
Inlet
air
Inlet
water
(a)
Fig. 2. Illustration of the computational mesh of (a) the 300 mm diameter mill and (b) the pulp lifter.
Please cite this article in press as: Weerasekara, N.S., Powell, M.S. Performance characterisation of AG/SAG mill pulp lifters using CFD techniques. Miner.
Eng. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.02.001
behaviour becomes important. Flow is generally governed by the
forces of gravity and inertia.
The dynamic mesh model (ANSYS, 2011) is used to model flows
where the shape of the domain is changing with time due to mo-
tion on the domain boundaries. The motion can be a prescribed
motion, which in this case is the angular velocity about the central
axis of the mill with time. The update of the volume mesh is han-
dled automatically at each time step based on the new positions of
the boundaries. To use the dynamic mesh model, the starting vol-
ume mesh and the description of the motion of any moving zones
in the model are specified. Since the model contains moving and
non-moving regions, they are identified by grouping them into
their respective face or cell zones in the starting volume mesh. A
sliding interface capability is used to connect the various zones
in the final model. The sliding mesh model is a special case of
the general dynamic mesh motion wherein the nodes move rigidly
in a given dynamic mesh zone. Additionally, multiple cell zones are
connected with each other through non-conformal interfaces. As
the mesh motion is updated in time, the non-conformal interfaces
are likewise updated to reflect the new positions of each zone.
2.1. Geometry and meshing
As shown in Fig. 2 mesh, the pulp-lifter and the rotating section
are defined as one geometric meshed region. The 31 grate holes
were carefully meshed to connect the mill section and the pulp-
lifter section to produce one meshed region thought. This entire
section is then defined as a rotating section, which is attached to
a stationary section using a sliding mesh arrangement. The geom-
etry was meshed by means of the multi-block strategy such that
the mesh was contiguous across block interfaces and each block
could be mapped to a cuboidal and tetrahedral mesh by means
of curvilinear transformations. The geometry was constructed from
butter O-type mesh for the cylindrical sections, the mill body and
cylindrical open connecting holes to the lifter. The mesh structure
of the mill including the lifter and the inlet is separated by an inter-
face section to form a narrow cylindrical section to include the
inlet to the main body, shown in Fig. 2. The size of the narrow
section was selected in such a way that it would not disturb the
overall motion of the flow and yet was relatively easy to generate
a mesh. The tetrahedral mesh was then converted into a polyhedral
mesh. This method has minimised the overall cell skewness as this
has a significant effect upon numerical stability and accuracy.
Outlet
Rotating
section (b)
 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Table 1
Mill-lifter rotational speeds.
Speed (rpm) 12.2 24.4 30.5 36.6
Critical speed (%) 15.8 31.6 39.5 47.3
Flow-back discharge
Carry-over
Fig. 3. Lab scale pulp lifter (Table 2). The right image is an exploded view.
2.2. Boundary and initial conditions
Water and air were defined as incompressible fluids with den-
sity values corresponding to 1000 and 1.25 kg/m3 respectively,
and are introduced through the stationary section of the mill.
Two inlets were defined in the stationary section, with one on
the top for atmospheric air and one on the bottom for water. Since
the inlets are defined in the stationary section of the mesh, it elim-
inates the need for inlet surfaces that change with time. The air in-
let was a pressure inlet with atmospheric conditions. The water
inlet was defined as a pressure inlet with open channel flow. This
allowed a steady stream of flow into the drum with a free surface
at a rate of 2200 ml/min through the water inlet, as in the case of
the experimental setup. The outlet located on the lifter section was
defined as a pressure outlet with atmospheric conditions. As la-
belled in Fig. 3, three outlets were used for measuring the flows
in the physical system, but in the CFD mesh not all the outputs
are not needed as backflow and carry over can be calculated at
the corresponding locations inside the mesh. So only the inlets
and the discharge outlets need to be defined, which are shown in
Fig. 2. This system was simulated for known rotational speed
(47 rpm) until flow had achieved a numerical and experimental
stability. Using this stable solution, a series of CFD simulations
were completed for rotational speeds corresponding to the exper-
iments (Table 1) while keeping the water flow at 2.2 L/min.
3. Experimental setup
A brief description of the laboratory-scale pulp lifter used in the
experiments and the experimental setup used to capture flow data
using LDA (Laser Doppler Anemometry) are presented in this section.
3.1. The laboratory-scale pulp lifter
The experimental rig (Fig. 3) consists of the end section of a mill
drum with a single pulp lifter made of Perspex attached to it. This
is a simplified form of the real pulp lifter arrangement, designed to
Please cite this article in press as: Weerasekara, N.S., Powell, M.S. Performance characterisation of AG/SAG mill pulp lifters using CFD techniques. Miner.
Eng. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.02.001
3
42.7 48.8 54.8 57.3 60.9 65.0 67.0 73.1
55.2 63.1 71.0 74.2 78.9 84.1 86.8 94.7
separate out the three distinct regions of slurry flow within and out
of the pulp lifter chamber. The mill is attached to a variable speed
AC motor, which is used to achieve the rotational speed in Table 1.
For the different operating experimental conditions (Table 1), flow
out of the three ports were collected using the containers as shown in
Fig. 3 (Table 2), to measure discharge, flow back and carry over.
3.2. LDA apparatus and techniques
The Laser Doppler Anemometer (Durst et al., 1976; Foreman
et al., 1965), or LDA, is a widely accepted tool for fluid dynamic
investigations in gases and liquids (Morud and Hjertager, 1996;
Ng et al., 1998) and has been used as such for more than three dec-
ades. It is a well-established technique that gives information
about flow velocity. The LDA employed is a commercial Dantec
Ltd. system and comprises three different probes, one two-
dimensional (2-D) and two one-dimensional (1-D) probes that
can measure at the same time four velocity components in the
same or in different locations of the flow under study. The probes
are designed to work in back-scatter mode: the devices transmit
and receive laser beams and the scattered light respectively are
integrated in a single unit. A sketch of a single Dantec probe
working in back-scatter mode is shown in Fig. 4.
This so-called backscatter LDA allows for the integration of
transmitting and receiving optics in a common housing, saving
the user tedious and time-consuming work aligning separate units.
The beam from the laser is split into two beams of identical inten-
sity under the laser diffraction crystal. In one of the beams, an
acousto-optical component known as a Bragg cell is inserted. This
introduces a fixed frequency shift in that particular beam, which is
used to determine the sign of the measured velocity. The front lens
deflects the two beams so they intersect, and in the intersecting
volume, seed particles scatter the incoming laser light. Part of this
light is scattered backwards toward the front lens (back scatter),
and registered in the receiver (normally a photomultiplier). Seed
particles passing the laser beams outside of the measuring volume
will of course also reflect light, but the receiving optics are focused
4 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Fig. 4. Lab scale pulp lifter with the LDA and the laser pointing into the flow. The right image shows LDA principle (Dantec, 2013).

Fig. 5. LDA measured average velocity field in water phase (the mill rotates in clockwise direction).

on the measuring volume, so this will be out of focus, and thus only
increase the background noise slightly (Dantec, 2006). The photo-
multiplier amplifies the signal which is processed by a Burst Spec-
trum Analyser (BSA) to determine the dominant frequency in the
spectrum of the burst corresponding to the velocity of the particle
that crossed the measuring volume. The primary result of a laser
anemometer measurement is a current pulse from the photodetec-
tor. This current contains the frequency information relating to the
measured velocity. The optimum probe configuration was deter-
mined for the rig employed based on the optical accessibility of
the charge region in the rig through the transparent measuring
section (Fig. 4).
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Comparison of CFD and LDA flow fields
Using the method described above, a series of LDA measurements
were performed in the bulk water region of the mill, when the mill
was running at 47 rpm while maintaining an inlet flow rate of
2200 ml/min. LDA measured velocities presented in the comparison
are phase-averaged measurements. The mean velocities from the
CFD simulation were averaged over one revolution of the simulation.
The flow field predicted by the CFD simulation is compared with
experimental LDA results in Figs. 5 and 6. Overall features of the flow

Fig. 6. CFD simulated flow field (a) regions of water and air phases and (b) velocity vectors in water phase (the mill rotates in clockwise direction).

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 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 5

simulations were performed for the different operating experimen-

tal conditions (Table 1).
The CFD simulated the mass of water inside the pulp-lifter
(Fig. 7) for a given number of revolutions, and an average was cal-
culated for each mill speed (Fig. 8). In an average mill revolution of
the pulp-lifter, the water mass inside the pulp-lifter initially starts
increasing, and when it reaches the top position (180°), the cap-
tured water mass starts to decrease. At slow speeds (or low critical
speeds Fig. 8), the amount of water mass inside the pulp-lifter
peaks at higher values, and as the speed increases it reduces. At
slower mill rotation speeds the water mass inside the pulp-lifter
empties, but at higher speeds it does not fully empty. This indicates
that with a higher speed, speeds closer to 100% critical speed, cen-
trifuging starts to occur, resulting in water carry-over. The amount
of water carried over increases with mill rotation speed (see
Table 1).
Similarly, flow rate out of the pulp-lifter was calculated as an
average discharge flow rate for a single revolution, using several
revolutions of CFD simulated data. The average discharge flow
rates were plotted against the pulp-lifter rotation angle (Fig. 9).
Fig. 7. CFD predicted water flowing into the pulp-lifter through grates at 47 rpm. It is noted that at lower speeds, discharge starts around 90° and
at higher speeds around 150–180°. This indicates that, as the speed
field on the plane plotted by the LDA data are qualitatively repro- increases, there is a delayed discharge. It is also shown that the rate
duced by the CFD simulation. A strong rotational velocity field pre- of discharge peaks across a broad speed range of 50–80% of critical.
vails in the bulk charge region in the LDA data (Fig. 5) and the CFD
simulations (Fig. 6b) with comparable magnitudes. The flow in the
smeared lift up region was not compared, as it was experimentally Table 2
difficult to measure using the LDA. The CFD simulation reasonably The lab-scale pulp lifter employed in LDA experiments.
predicted the charge shape (Fig. 6a). The main purpose of this qual- Description
itative comparison was to establish that the CFD simulates reason-
Internal diameter, mm 300
able flow patterns comparable to those experimentally observed Internal length, mm 100
by the LDA, and that the numerical techniques adapted in this work Pulp lifter depth, mm 20
resolve the complex flow patterns observed. For a more quantitative Pulp lifter wedge angle, deg 30
Pulp lifter radial length, mm 120
comparison, move detailed LDA measurements would be needed.
Numbers pulp lifters 1
Grate hole size, mm 3
Number of grate holes 31
4.2. Comparison of CFD flow field against bulk flow measurements Speed, rpm 10–73
Speed, % critical 15.8–94.7
Mill filling, % 40
In order to calculate the influence of the slurry flow behaviour
in the pulp lifter sections under different operating speeds, CFD

Fig. 8. CFD predicted mass of water inside the pulp-lifter.

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6 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Thus, optimal flow discharge rates are achieved by adjusting the

mill rotational speeds.
The flow through the grate into and out of the pulp-lifter was
also calculated, for all the CFD simulated speeds (Fig. 10). The flow
into the pulp-lifter through the grate holes is considered to be po-
sitive and the flow out of the pulp-lifter though the grate holes is
considered to be negative. With an increase in rotational speed,
the flow rate into the pulp-lifter chamber reduces, with less flow
out of the pulp-lifter through the grates (flow back). This also
shows higher amounts of flow back at lower rotation rates, and
with higher speeds the flow back is delayed and at a lower rate.
The CFD data in Figs. 8–10 are summarised to provide per min-
ute values and normalised by inlet flow rate to plot the discharge,
carry over and flow-back as a function of mill rotational speed
(shown by lines in Fig. 11). The CFD simulated discharge, carry over Fig. 11. CFD and experimental discharge, carry over and flow-back.
and flow-back are compared with experimental measurements
(Fig. 11). The CFD simulated carry-over and flow-back have similar
trends as to be expected, but the experimental measurements are observed experimentally, showing that when the speed increases
lower than simulated. The low measured values could be attrib- the flow back starts reducing and the carry over starts increasing
uted to mass loss at carry-over and flow-back measuring ports dur- (Fig. 11). The CFD simulated discharge has a similar trend to the
ing the measurement process. CFD clearly predicts the trends as experimental discharge with a peak around 60% critical speed.

Fig. 9. CFD predicted discharge flow rate.

Fig. 10. CFD predicted flow in (positive) and out (negative) of pulp-lifter though the grate holes.

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 N.S. Weerasekara, M.S. Powell / Minerals Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
5. Conclusions
The CFD approach has been applied to water–air two-phase
flows in a laboratory scale pulp-lifter mill arrangement. This is
compared against experimental LDA flow data and bulk flow mea-
surements. The CFD simulation reasonably predicts the charge flow
velocity and shape measured by LDA, showing strong rotational
flow fields. This establishes that the CFD modelling technique is
adequate to resolve the complex flow in the pulp-lifter mill
arrangement. The CFD predicts, at lower mill speeds that discharge
starts at rotational angles of around 90° and at higher speeds
around 150–180°. This indicates that, as the speed increases, there
is a delayed discharge. It also predicted the measured carry-over
and flow-back trends reasonably well, while predicting a maxi-
mum discharge and an optimum operation as observed in the
experiments.
The potential of this approach to model complex flows in pulp-
lifters and flow through grates is demonstrated. This modelling
technique was able to capture the complex flows through pulp-lif-
ter grates, inside pulp-lifter chambers and out the discharge. The
work presented here is a preliminary validation of the method,
and needs further testing incorporating slurry viscosity and scale
up effects in order to apply the method to full scale grate and
pulp-lifter flow modelling.
Acknowledgement
This project was carried out under the auspice and support of
the JKMRC.
Please cite this article in press as: Weerasekara, N.S., Powell, M.S. Performance characterisation of AG/SAG mill pulp lifters using CFD techniques. Miner.
Eng. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.02.001
7
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