LINER DESIGN SERVICES

MILLTRAJ – LINER DESIGN SOFTWARE

MillTraj utilises a model based on the correct analytical solution of the physics of motion of
particles to predict the motion of the outermost grinding media in a rotary grinding mill, as affected
by the design of the lining. This provides a fundamental guideline to the design of efficient mill
liners. The theoretical basis of the software has been published in the international literature 1,4. The
theoretical understanding behind this has been further investigated with advanced X-ray analysis
techniques, as given in the papers on charge motion in rotary mills 5,6,7.

THE MOTIVATION FOR USING MILLTRAJ

Poor liner design has a detrimental affect on milling performance and on liner life 2,3. This results
in a loss of revenue and increased operational costs. Poor milling performance can result in excess
power usage and decreased recovery of the valuable minerals. Excess liner wear results in
exorbitant liner materials costs, and excessive downtime which reduces mill availability and
impacts on plant throughput. For a plant with a number of mills this also entails the employment of
extra mill relining staff and the risks and costs associated with frequent relining.
Optimised liner design can be used to strike the best economic balance between liner life and mill
grinding performance, thus enhancing the profitability of a mining operation.

SYMPTOMS OF POOR LINER DESIGN

Noisy mill
This indicates that the grinding media is impacting directly on the liner, rather than on the toe of the
grinding charge.
Consequences of balls impacting on the liner:
1. Greatly accelerated liner wear due to high-energy impact on the liner. For a 5m diameter mill
these will be in excess of 8m.s-1, for a 10m diameter mill these exceed 12m.s-1. This will cause
high chrome liners to spall and crack and they may even fracture. This can reduce liner life from
a year to less than a month.
2. Reduced milling efficiency arises from the highest impact collisions occurring against the liner
instead of on the toe of the charge – where effective work can take place.
3. Lowered power draw from the ball returning energy to the mill shell rather than to the mill

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 charge.
4. Ball fracture from the high velocity impacts directly onto steel – an impulse force which many
balls cannot withstand. This results in a loss of top-size grinding media and reduced milling
efficiency, plus increased ball addition costs.
5. Loosening of liner bolts arising from high stress on the liners stretching the bolts.
Consequences of rocks impacting on the liner:
1. Accelerated liner wear. This is less severe than for balls, but non-the-less has a noticeable
impact on liner life.
2. Reduced milling efficiency as the high-energy collisions do not occur on the toe of the charge
where they are needed.
3. Lowered power draw.
4. Rock fracture from the high velocity impacts directly onto steel. This is most undesirable for an
autogenous mill as the large rocks form the grinding media which fractures the medium sized
rocks. Consequently this results in a lowered milling efficiency.
Broken liners
From media impacting directly on the liner. This is particularly severe for large AG/SAG mills.
Excessive liner wear
Without the symptoms of a noisy mill or broken liners this generally indicates excessive slip of the
grinding media on the liner.
Consequences of excessive slip
1. Liner wear increases substantially, and can even result in circumferential grooves around the
lining.
2. A substantial loss of energy transfer to the mill. Although a small fraction of grinding may take
place at the liner–ball interface, a 10% loss in energy due to slip basically results in a 10% loss
of energy transfer to the grinding media. This substantially reduces the mill efficiency.
3. Reduced mill throughput as a direct result of reduced milling efficiency.
Dramatic change in mill throughput / product during the life of the lining
It is often found that a lining wears through a favourable profile regime. This can occur in a number
of different manners:
1. Mill throughput drops markedly when new liners are installed. This can indicate an
unfavourable new profile, or an excessively thick new lining. A thicker than necessary new
lining may be installed to counteract excessive liner wear.
2. Mill throughput peaks sometime during the liner life. Often a symptom of over-sized lifter bars,
or lifters with too vertical a face angle.

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3. Mill throughput gradually decreases as the liners wear, especially towards the very end of the
liner life. Generally a sign that excessive slip is taking place on the lining as the liner profile
wears down.
Incorrect mill product size
This can arise from the incorrect tumbling action within the mill.
1. Primary mills require a vigorous action that provides a lot of high-energy impacts to fracture the
larger particles. If the action is primarily gentle cascading then a fine product and low
throughput would result.
2. Regrind mills require a cascading action that maximises the frequency of abrasion interactions.
If a high-energy impacting action of cataracting across the mill is taking place, this dramatically
reduces the rate of abrasion interactions, and even reduces the grinding pressure within the
charge, thus reducing the ability of the mill to produce many fine particles. This can result in a
high recirculating load of over-sized particles and a reduced mill throughput, as limited by the
cut-size of the classification device.

OPTIMISING LINER DESIGN

Liners can be tuned to suit the application of each particular mill. A primary input to this is the
profile of the liners. This can be selected to provide a suitable grinding action throughout the life of
the liner and to enhance liner life. One does not have to select either a good liner life or a high mill
throughput, the two can be optimised simultaneously with suitable liner selection. The direct
influence of liner design on mill efficiency was studied in a 1.8m diameter pilot mill 8, in which a
difference of up to 10% in the rate of production of fines was measured.
Tune liners to your application
1. Maximise media drop height for primary AG and SAG grinding to maximise impact grinding.
2. Ensure a cascading action for regrind mills.
3. Avoid impact on mill shell by ensuring that the balls and rocks land on the toe of the grinding
media.
4. Maximise liner life by providing sufficient protection with lifter bars or an integral liner profile.
5. Prevent ball breakage by promoting the correct cascading action and avoiding impacts directly
onto the shell.
6. Maximise mill throughput with the correct spacing and height of lifter bars, an essential factor
in liner design.
7. Balance liner life and mill throughput by maximising the protective profile of the lining while
retaining the correct charge motion of the grinding media.

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 SUCCESSFUL APPLICATIONS OF IMPROVED LINER DESIGN
Some successful applications of improved liner design are given in the references 2,3. This includes
an application at Deelkraal Mine of Goldfields limited, in which the liner life was increased about
seven-fold, equating to a direct savings in liner materials costs of hundreds of thousands of Rands a
year. In an application at Kloof Gold mine the liner life was dramatically improved, allowing the
shell backing plate thickness to be reduced, to yield a 2% improvement in mill throughput. In some
notable cases (generally unpublished) liner life and mill performance have been dramatically
improved once inappropriate initial liner design has been corrected. This is especially pertinent for
very large Primary mills in which incorrect charge motion can be disastrous for the liners and
throughput. The software has been used for liner design work in South Africa, Canada, the United
States, Sweden, Australia, and by international liner manufacturers.

MILLTRAJ SOFTWARE
Milltraj is a simple to use software package that provides reliable information upon which to base
liner design. MillTraj provides rapid and reliable simulation of the outer charge trajectories in rotary
mills, which is the key to the correct design of liner profiles. It can be purchased for use by
companies with a large number of applications, by consultants providing liner design services, or by
liner manufacturers. There is also a cheaper cut-down version for single end-users.

MillTraj 4/6
MillTraj has the following features:
1. It has a simple windows interface and drop-down menus.
2. Fixed liner selections for manufacturers or fully user-selectable liner designs.
3. A number of liner designs can be selected and displayed simultaneously for direct comparison
of different designs and of the performance of a liner during its life.
4. Graphic output of the media trajectories.
5. Dynamic graphical output of trajectories.
6. Table of key design information
7. Easy interpretation of the output data.
8. Key data for liner selection, such as favourable heights for given liner spacings.
9. Calculation of the charge trajectories in the instant of a keystroke. From starting the program to
the design output for a few different liners is only a matter of a few minutes, including the data
input stage.
10. Ideal for onsite and sales usage.

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 MILLTRAJ CONSULTING
For those with a single application or lacking the expertise to make full use of the trajectories and
design output data, the services of the Milltraj agents can be sought to conduct simulations and
provide appropriate design recommendations. Due to the rapid nature of the calculations, this can
usually be given with a turn-around of a single day.

CONTACT DETAILS
Prof Malcolm Powell
Chair in Sustainable Comminution - JK Mineral Research Centre - University of Queensland
Tel: +61 (0)7 3720 2989 email: admin@milltraj.com web: www.milltraj.com
22 Kiriwina Street Fig Tree Pocket Brisbane QLS 4069 Australia

REFERENCES
1. M S Powell, The effect of liner design on the motion of the outer grinding media in a rotary mill.
Int. J. Min. Process., Vol. 31. 1991. pp. 163-193
2. M S Powell,. The design of rotary-mill liners, and their backing materials. J. S.A. Inst. Min.
Metal., vol. 91, no. 2. Feb. 1991. pp. 63-75
3. M S Powell,. Improving the design of the liners of rotary mills. Int. deep min. conf., vol. 1.
Innovations in Metallurgical plant. Ed. G.A. Brown, and P. Smith. The SAIMM symposium series
S10. 1990. pp. 57-70
4. M S Powell,. The Selection of Materials for, and Design of Liners for Rotary Mills. Prep.
Antiwear '88, Sept. 1988. The Royal Society, London. pp. 14.1-14.9
5. M S Powell, G N Nurick, A Study of charge motion in Rotary Mills. Part 1 - Extension of the
theory. Minerals Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 2 pp 259 - 268, 1996.
6. M S Powell, G N Nurick, A Study of charge motion in Rotary Mills. Part 2 - Experimental
Work. Minerals Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp 343 - 350, 1996.
7. M S Powell, G N Nurick, A Study of charge motion in Rotary Mills. Part 3 - Analysis of
Results. Minerals Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp 399 - 418, 1996.
8. M S Powell, and L A Vermeulen,. The influence of liner design on the rate of production of fines
in a rotary mill. Minerals Engineering, vol. 7, No’s 2/3, pp. 169-183, 1994.
9. M.S. Powell, Liner selection – a key issue for large SAG mills. Proceedings International
autogenous and semiautogenous grinding technology 2001, Sep. 30 - Oct. 3, 2001, Ed. Barratt et
al, Published CIM, vol.III, pp. 307-322

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