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MIN 313

Handout 6: Grinding Introduction Grinding is the final stage of comminution. Particles are reduced from 5 to 250 mm to a final size of 10 to 300 micrometers. Careful control of the grinding circuit is important to grind the ore fine enough for mineral recovery, but not so fine as to become uneconomical or cause sliming during flotation. The finer the ore is ground, the better the liberation of the target mineral. However, the finer the ore is ground, the more energy it takes. Each halving of an ore particle consumes four times the energy as in the previous halving. For this reason, ore is ground to the point where the additional recovery no longer pays for the added energy input into the grinding and recovery process. Grinding, by far, consumes the most energy of the comminution and recovery process. In Fairbanks, the 13 MW SAG mill at Ft Knox consumes 13% of the electricity that comes to the Fairbanks area. Mechanisms of grinding: (a) Impact (compression) (b) Chipping (c) Abrasion

Grinding is usually performed wet, although dry grinding is sometimes employed.

Material Motion
The Figure shows the motion of material inside the mill. Governance of mill speed is important. Speed determines path of the charge. At low speed, most of the charge cascades, while at high speeds, most of the charge cataracts. Low speed and hence cascading results in fines and increased liner wear. Cataracting charge results in coarse grinding and reduced wear. However, too high a speed will wear-out the liner since the charge cataracts past the toe. As material spins around faster and faster in the mill, it will reach a point where the centripetal acceleration on the mill charge caused by the wall of the mill will equal gravitational acceleration. The critical speed occurs when the mill charge remains against the wall of the mill at all times (centripetal acceleration and gravitational acceleration are equal at the top).

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Centripetal force is given by: mV 2 aC = R

Eq.1

gravitational force (component NORMAL to the mill wall, draw an arrow from the wall to the center of the mill) is given by: aG = mg cos So the critical speed occurs when: mV 2 = mg cos R
V =

Eq. 2

And when =0

Eq. 3

2RN = 0.0011N 2 R 60 2 g

If D is the mill diameter and d is the rod diameter, then (D-d)/2 is the radius of the outermost path.
cos = 0.0011N 2

(D d )
2

and, finally, the critical speed is: 42.3 Nc = RPM (D d ) In practice mills are run at 50% to 90% of their critical speed. Increased speed increases capacity. However, above 40%-50% Nc, there is little increase in efficiency. High speeds are used for coarse grinding.

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Construction:
Shell: rolled mild steel, butt welded, must sustain heavy impact. Trunnion Heads (mill ends): cast iron or cast steel for larger than 1 m diameter. Trunnion: cast iron or steel. Polished surface. Inner ring of trunnion bearing. Liners: bolted to the inside of the shell; replaceable; usually made from manganese or chrome-moly steel. Liners are a major cost component. A variety of types including rubber and magnetic. o Rubber: Advantage of rubber include low noise levels, easy installation, and low impact forces. However, extremely high wear rate in primary grinding increases the frequency of replacements causing too many interruptions/mill stoppages. In processes that require addition of flotation reagents or temperatures greater than 80oC during grinding, rubber liners do not work out. Increased thickness required for rubber liners reduces capacity. Combo liners are used where rubber between liner and shell provides cushioning, while the liner itself is steel. o Magnetic: In magnetic liners, no bolts are used. Instead, magnets ensure that the liner is attached to the shell. A protective layer is formed over the liners by magnetic minerals. Hence, liner wear is minimized. Also, liners are thinner resulting in higher mill

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

metsominerals.com Tumbling mills are of three types Rod Ball Autogenous

Rod Mills:
Rod mills are considered fine crushers or coarse grinders. They are preferred over fine crushing machines when the ore is clayey or damp. When used, they are normally the first stage in grinding after crushing. Rod mills use rods almost the same length of the mill (within a couple cms) to crush the ore between. The rods must be almost the same length as the mill so they remain parallel to the mill walls. Otherwise they could turn and get jammed. Normally wet grinding. Dry grinding should be avoided. Feed as large as 50 mm. Product as fine as 300 micrometers 15-20:1 reduction ratio. Shell length is 1.5-2.5 times its diameter. Length limited to 6.4 m since rods longer than that would bend.

www.mine-engineer.com

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Rod diameters: 25mm to 150 mm Run at 50 to 65% Nc for cascading rods. Many run them at 80% Nc. Mechanism of breakage ensures almost uniform product size (grinding focuses on coarse particles). Therefore, used in open circuit.

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Center peripheral discharge: Short and steep path of material before discharge results in coarse grind. Limited reduction ratio. Used in sand industry. End peripheral discharge: Moderately coarse particles. Trunnion overflow: Most common. Primarily used to prepare crusher product for ball mill feed.

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Ball Mills:
Ball mills are the choice for fine finishing. They have a length to diameter ratio of 1.5 to less than 1. Some ball mills do have a length to diameter ratio of 3 to 5. But those are considered tube mills.
From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Operated at 70%-80% Nc. Rated by power, rather than capacity. 4MW-15MW Used for fine grinding (~80% passing 6 mm feed). Used in closed circuit. Grinding efficiency controlled by: o Contact between ball and ore particle. Random event. Ensuring sufficient grind may increase chances of overgrind. Therefore, operated in closed circuit whereby there is no need to increase residence time of ore. o Pulp density. Should be high so that the balls have a layer of ore (to reduce ball wear). % solids by weight should range between 65-80%. For very fine grinding, viscosity should not be too high as to hurt flow; lower pulp densities preferred. o Surface area of medium (balls). Smaller the better. However, medium should be a good mix of large (for larger particles) and small balls. Correct ball mix is usually arrived at after experimentation in the plant. Ball charge is about 40-50% of mill by vol. 40-50% of this is voids. Most efficient (power consumption wise) at 50% ball charge. Higher ball charge results in higher required optimum speed (cataracting reduces with increased ball charge as mill gets heavier). Media can be different in shape from spherical. Cylpebs are cylindral media, with D/H = 1. Produced slightly coarser product than balls.

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Metsominerals.com

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Autogenous mills:
Can achieve size reductions from 25 cm to 75 microns in one stage. Lower capital cost Handles wet and sticky material well Uses a combination of the ore itself and a reduced load of steel balls. When balls are used, they are called Semi-Autogenous grinding (SAG) mills. Ball charge is usually 4-15% of mill volume. Most effective when steel ball load is 6-10% mill volume. Aspect ratio (Diameter:Length) ranges from 1:3 (South Africa, Scandinavia) to a high of 3:1 (US, Aust). Low aspect mills use more power/ton.

Metsominerals.com

From JKMRC Comminution and Classification Lecture

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Breakage mechanism is mainly abrasion and impact. Breakage occurs around grain/crystal boundaries. AG results smoother particles. Since they are not contaminated with iron from steel balls, they float better (faster and more selective) than with non-AG. AG/SAG are more sensitive to feed hardness and size than ball/rod mills. Power draw is hence more variable with AG/SAG mill than with ball/rod mills. Example: In Ok Tedi mine (PNG), power ranged from 5-16 kwh/t, and product ranged from 700-3000 tph. AG work better with coarse feed since large rocks help breakage. SAG mills work better with fines (than AG) since breakage is mostly from balls. Increasing size does not help much. Difficult to estimate AG/SAG grinding from lab tests. Fine/Ultra Fine grinding (100 micron and less) SAG/Ball mills are not very good at fine/ultra-fine grinding. Yet, many times, grinding is needed at that level (example: ultra-fine grained disseminated mineral). Some alternatives for these are: Tower/Vertimill: Charge (ore + small balls/pebbles) is stirred by a screw type stirrer. Fines leave from the top. Stirrer tip speed < 3m/s to prevent media overflow. This also limits media size. Example capacity: 100 t/h. Product 1-100 microns

Vertimill from metsominerals.com

Svedala VertiMill. Weller and Gao

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Horizontal stirred mills are also available. These consume a lot more power than tower mills (300-1000 kW/m3 vs. 20-40 kW/m3). Media and product separated by screen. Therefore, stirrer tip speed can be higher resulting in finer grind. However, these are difficult to design for higher volumes.

Stirrer types. Weller and Gao

Stirred Media Detritor: Similar to vertimill except uses slow speed impellers. Silica or ceramics used as grinding medium. Shallow charge depth. Screens inside the mill define product sizes. The same mill can have various product sizes at the same time.

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

Weller and Gao

MIN 313

Grinding Circuit Dry Grinding Water changes chemical structure. Therefore, wet grinding not amenable to certain ore types. Less wear. More fines. Wet Grinding Lower power consumption. Higher throughput. Amenable to wet downstream process (incl. addition of wet screening/cyclone possibilities). Removes dust problems. Easier transportation and handling (using pumps, sumps etc). Open Circuit (OC) Operation of Mills Mill product proceeds to the next stage as is. The only control on product size is careful grinding. Therefore, susceptible to overgrinding. Low throughput (when grinding is overtly careful). Usually done when feed to next stage is not size sensitive, such as another mill. Closed Circuit (CC) Operation of Mills Mill product is classified (screens for large sizes and cyclones for fine sizes). Residence time is less and hence no overgrinding. Oversize (called circulating load, CL) returned to mill. As feed increases, so does (naturally) the CL. However, increase in CL (which is ground material) reduces the overall particle size in the mill, which is good, since it improves grinding (since more particles fall under the various nip angles, getting crushed). Also, smaller balls can be used due to the increased fineness. Usually CL is 100-350% of the new feed. Classification, following milling, can be mechanical (screens) or hydraulic (cyclone). Mechanical classification is limited by size and throughput (since flow through depends on gravity alone), especially for finer material. Cyclones handle smaller sizes better. More compact. Quick classification reduces oxidation time for CL. However, cyclones impacted by density as much as the size. Therefore, fines for heavy minerals can report to the oversize (the underflow) and get ground even more. In such cases, the cyclone oversize is screened (despite inefficiencies) before being sent back to the mill.

The fines could end up in the cyclone underflow due to their heavier density. To take care of that, the underflow is screened, with the finer particles ending up in the product stream.

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Problems also arise with mineral such as gold ore. Gold is dense and malleable. When it is liberated, it reports to the oversize due to the density. Repeated grinding doesnt help since its shape/size merely changes due to malleability rather than getting ground. It, therefore, can endlessly re-circulate. Gravity concentrators can help in such situation.

Typical gold recovery circuit

Operation Grinding can be in parallel or series. In parallel, there is flexibility. Individual units can be shut down for repair. Product tough to control since all units must be adjusted. In series, grinding can be done in stages. An alternate is to grind in a single stage. However, whenever this is done, it increases ball size and hence reduces efficiency of grinding of fines. AG/SAG mills Two stage AG/SAG + ball mill circuit are now the mainstay. AG/SAGs can be operated in closed circuit or open circuit. Note that even in OC, a trommel screen (a rotating perforated drum) is used to recirculate the coarse rock. Note that CC has a bad side effect. CC reduces the size of rock in the mill, resulting in increase of rock in the critical (25-50 mm size) size range. These size rocks are too small to make for a good grinding medium and yet are too big to get broken. Therefore, AG/SAG mill grates may have larger holes to let rocks of <100 mm leave (balls leave as well, causing problems). This problem is not solved by even using a cyclone and recycle crusher. Since the recycle crusher removes all particles in that size range (this size range is a good grinding media for finer particles), grinding of finer material is hurt in the AG/SAG mill, resulting in their accumulation.

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

-150 m

-12 to 16 mm

20MW, 8% vol balls, 74% Nc, 80mm grates

-12 mm

9.7MW, 3032% balls, 78.5% Nc

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

Mill Control Typical control objective(s): i) Max throughput with a constant product size, ii) constant feed rate in a narrow product size range and iii) efficient throughput without hurting downstream processes. Typically, new feed rate and addition of water are really the only independent controlling parameters. Feed size and rate impacts product size. Coarse feed or higher feed rate coarser product increased CL higher volumetric flow hurts cyclone performance affects both CL and final product. Water impacts slurry density (in mill and cyclone). In the mill higher viscosity helps protect the balls. In a cyclone, density changes affect performance. MW readings indicate mill loading, as does the noise (in dry grinding) and viscosity. Noise has also been found to be useful in determining viscosity inside a mill.

Control involves monitoring the mill (MW, noise, pulp density, charge volume), flow (recycle tons) and classifier. If you need to change the PSD fast, then control with the classifier water. However, PSD is also controlled by the feed rate, but not as quickly as the classifier water. In a closed loop system, control can be complex since sometimes a factor that reduces product size will tend to also increase product size (due to its impact on other parameters). See a plot (data @1 min intervals) from Ft Knox mine plant. The SAG mill product oversize is returned as recycle. Note how the recycle and new feed seem related.
3500.0 3000.0 2500.0 2000.0 1500.0 1000.0 500.0 0.0 1 21 41 61 81 101 121 141 161 181 201 221 241 261 281 301 321 341 361 381 401 421 441 461 481 Time, minutes Recycle new feed(tph)

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

MIN 313

The below is from another time period.


SAG Mill Control 3500.0 3000.0 2500.0 2000.0 1500.0 1000.0 500.0 0.0 1 28 55 82 109 136 163 190 217 244 271 298 325 352 379 406 433 460 487 Time, minutes 82.0 80.0 78.0 76.0 74.0 72.0 70.0 68.0 66.0 64.0 62.0 new feed(tph) recycle(tph) SAG density(%solids)

Relationship between % solids and noise. The noise data comes from noise measuring devices near the SAG mill.
160.0 140.0 120.0 100.0 80.0 60.0 40.0 20.0 0.0 1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191 201 % Solids Noise

Are noise and new feed related?


SAG Mill Control 3000.0 2500.0 2000.0 1500.0 1000.0 500.0 0.0 1 25 49 73 97 121 145 169 193 217 241 265 289 313 337 361 385 409 433 457 481 Time, minutes Noise new feed(tph)

Handout prepared by Rajive Ganguli and Michael Anderson. Based on book by BA Wills.

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