Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397

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Discrete element method (DEM) modelling of evolving mill

liner profiles due to wear. Part II. Industrial case study
J.T. Kalala *, M. Bwalya, M.H. Moys
School of Process and Materials Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, P.O. WITS 2050, South Africa

Received 27 January 2005; accepted 23 February 2005

Available online 19 April 2005

Abstract

The wear of tumbling mill liners influences the load behaviour and consequently the performance and efficiency of tumbling mills.
The ability to accurately predict the evolving mill liner profile due to wear is therefore of great economic significance since it can be
used to determine the optimal initial lifter design for a particular operation. In this paper, we use the discrete element method
(DEM) to simulate the load behaviour and predict the wear of two different liners used in industrial mills for the grinding of coal
in dry conditions. Our simulated results are compared to industrial measurements in both cases. A good agreement is found between
those measurements. Moreover a quick empirical equation is derived for a particular lifter in order to predict the wear without using
the DEM.
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Discrete element method; Liner wear

1. Introduction Despite the importance of modelling the wear of lift-

Mill liners/lifters protect the mill shell, transfer energy
from the mill shell to the load and produce the motion
(hopefully near optimal!) of the load in tumbling mills.
They play therefore a key role in the performance of
tumbling mills. Since liners wear and change profiles,
mill performance will correspondingly vary over the use-
ful lifter life. The ability to simulate the evolving lifter
profile due to wear and to quantify the change in mill
performance is therefore of great economic significance
since it can be used to choose for a particular condition
of milling the optimal initial lifter profile which opti-
mizes the mill performance over its useful life.
ers, not much emphasis has been given to this field in
comparison to the prediction of mill power draw. Few
papers have been found in the literature related to this
topic. Two problems emerge from the review of pub-
lished papers: firstly, mathematical models used to pre-
dict the wear of lifters do not take into account all
types of wear which occur in the milling environment.
Secondly, simulated profiles must have the same charac-
teristics as observed practically. In this paper, both
problems are tackled in order to produce realistic re-
sults. Our simulated results are compared to industrial
data.

2. Mathematical model of wear

*
Corresponding author. Tel: +27 011 717 7511; fax: +27 011 403
The mathematical wear model used in order to pre-
1471. dict the volume of material removed on liners must take
E-mail address: jkalala@prme.wits.ac.za (J.T. Kalala). into account all the types of wear which occur in the

0892-6875/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2005.02.010
 J.T. Kalala et al. / Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397 1393

milling environment. In dry milling, the following types
of wear occur: adhesive, abrasive and impact.
Assuming that the total wear occurring on a surface i
is the sum of adhesion/abrasion and impact wear, we
deduce the following equation:
V i ¼ W ðaad–abr  Ead–abr;i þ aimpact  Eimpact;i Þ
where Vi is the volume of material removed on a surface
i, W is the wear rate (m3/J), aad–abr and aimpact are weight
factors (dimensionless) given to adhesion/abrasion
and impact energy depending on material properties,
Ead–abr,i and Eimpact,i are adhesion/abrasion and impact
energies (J) dissipated on surface i.
To obey these rules, we used, like Qiu et al. (2001), in
our simulations a very high wear rate in comparison to
the experimental one allowing a high volume of material
to be removed in less time as predicted by Eq. (1).
To implement our wear mathematical model in our
ð1Þ DEM code and removed material on liners we need to
discretise our liner into small surfaces. The vertical dis-
cretisation presented on Fig. 1 is the simplest.
It is experimentally recognised that worn profiles tend
to be ‘‘smooth’’, in other words, the difference of two
consecutive slopes of worn profiles is small. To take into
account this factor, we have defined an objective func-
tion S2 with components: S 21 ; S 22 ; S 23 ; S 24 , which have
the following functions:

3. Modelling of the evolving lifter profile
In dry conditions, mill liners last several years before
their replacement. In order to simulate the wear of a lif-
ter within a reasonable time, there is a need to reduce the
industrial time. In simulating the wear of lifters using the
discrete element method, the reduction of industrial or
experimental time must be achieved while the following
conditions are respected:
– The mechanism and type of wear in the mill must be
the same practically and in the simulation. In our
milling case, the load behaviour and particle interac-
tions must be the same. This condition eliminates the
possibility of increasing the mill speed or the charge
mass in order to have the same worn profiles in less
time.
– The lifter profile predicted must be function of oper-
ating conditions in the mill and the initial profile.
– S 21 minimises for each segment the difference of vol-
ume predicted by our wear model and the volume
actually removed.
– S 22 minimises the difference of two consecutive
slopes of the worn profile (in order to get a smooth
profile).
– S 23 minimises the difference of discretised slope
between the ith and the (i + 1)th profile. This crite-
rion prevents a dramatic change of the simulated
profile.
– S 24 maintains a steadily decreasing profile height at
any longitudinal position by penalising heavily any
tendency for y 0 to increase with time.
Mathematically we have:
S ¼ S 21 þ k  S 22 þ a  S 23 þ S 24
2
ð2Þ
where k and a are weight factors which decide the
importance to give to S 22 and S 23 , respectively.

16
Vertical discretisation
y4 y5

12
Unworn
y'5
Worn simulated
y3 yn-1
8
y'4
y'n-1

yn
y2 Mill rotation
y'3
4
y'n
y'2
∆x2 ∆x3 ∆x4 ∆ x5 yn+1
y1 ∆ ∆xn
x1
0
0 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 15 17.5 20 22.5

Fig. 1. Vertical discretisation of a trapezoidal lifter.

1394 J.T. Kalala et al. / Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397

For the vertical discretisation, the objective function air swept through the mill. The characteristics of these
is given by: mills are reported in Table 1.
Xn  2
ðy i  y 0i Þ þ ðy iþ1  y 0iþ1 Þ
S2 ¼ Dxi  L  V i
i¼1
2 5. DEM simulations
X  
n1
y iþ2  y iþ1 y iþ1  y 0i 2
þk  DEM simulations have been conducted in order to
Dxiþ1 Dxi
i¼1 simulate the wear of the lifter profile used in these mills.
Xn  2 X nþ1 Parameters used in the DEM simulation are reported in
y iþ1  y i y iþ1  y i 
þa  þ ebðy i y i Þ ð3Þ Table 2.
i¼1
Dxi Dxi i¼1
A full three-dimensional (3D) simulation with full
where n is the number of segments of the discretised lif- range of balls size distribution is required to simulate
ter, yi is the ordinate of the initial position of the lifter accurately the behaviour of industrial mills. However,
profile with i = 1 to n + 1, y 0i are the ordinate of the worn this approach takes several weeks to have the results
lifter profile with i = 1 to n + 1, L is the mill length, Dxi of one complete revolution. To reduce this time, the
is the width of the element i with i = 1 to n, Vi is the pre- 3D simulation was reduced to one ball slice simulation
dicted volume removed by our wear equation on the ele- using only the top ball size (this is effectively a 2D sim-
ment i with i = 1 to n, b is a large number (more than ulation). Having only the unworn and the completely
1000), so that y 0i is always less than yi. worn lifter profiles in both cases, we used a constant
The ordinates y 0i of the worn lifter profile are found simulated wear rate and parameters in the wear model
after minimisation of the objective function (achieved to predict the worn profile from the unworn.
2
by setting oSoy 0i
¼ 0). A program written in Matlab in con- A new simulated profile is calculated after one revo-
junction with Excel solver function were used to find the lution by subtracting from the previous profile a volume
ordinates of the worn profile. of material according to our wear mathematical model
During the mill revolution, if there is no contact be- and using our objective function.
tween the balls and any particular discretised lifter divi- We found recursively that the contribution of impact
sions, the volume of material removed on these energy to the wear of the lifter is more important that
particular discretised lifter divisions should strictly be the contribution of abrasive energy. This observation
equal to zero. We introduce therefore a constraint in agrees with preliminary results found by Radziszewski
our objective function. (2001) in his attempt to determine impact, abrasive
Mathematically: and corrosive contributions to total media wear. We
When Vi = 0 used in our wear mathematical model predicting the vol-
For the vertical discretisation: y i ¼ y 0i and y iþ1 ¼ y 0iþ1 . ume of material removed due to wear a weight factor

Table 2
4. Industrial tumbling mills Parameters used in the DEM simulation
Ball Wall
The industrial tumbling mills studied in this paper are Coefficient of friction 0.2 0.2
used for the grinding of coal in dry conditions at Kendal Coefficient of restitution 0.5 0.4
and Lethabo, ESKOM (Ltd) power stations in South Normal stiffness (N m1) 400 000 400 000
Tangential stiffness (N m1) 300 000 300 000
Africa. The coal ground in the mill is removed in the

Table 1
Description of tumbling mills used at Lethabo and Kendal power stations
Kendal Lethabo
New Lifter profiles

Mill diameter to the shell 4692 mm 4267 mm

Mill length 6557 mm 5790 mm
Mill speed 14.9 rpm 15.7 rpm
Percentage of filling 22.9% 24.2%
Top ball size dimension 50 mm 50 mm
Number of circumferential lifters 30 30
 J.T. Kalala et al. / Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397 1395

Fig. 2. Modelling of evolving lifter profile used at Kendal power station.

given to impact energy equal to 1 (aimpact = 1) and a The DEM simulated results and the worn out profile
weight factor given to adhesion/abrasion energy equal after 57 726 h are represented in the same figure. The
to 0.1 (aad–abr = 0.1). wear rate chosen allows reaching the worn profile in
eight steps. The last simulated profile is in good agree-
ment with the worn out profile measured.
6. Modelling of the wear of lifters used at Kendal power The lifter was vertically discretised in 42 equally spaced
station divisions. DEM predictions of impact and abrasion ener-
gies dissipated on the discretised lifter divisions as a func-
ESKOM Kendal power station tumbling mills are tion of time are also represented in the same figure. It can
equipped with lifters represented in Fig. 2. The average be seen from Fig. 3 that high impact energies are recorded
profile of 12 worn out lifters after 70 900 h and their at the front of the lifter waves as the lifter is wearing. It
standard deviation is also represented in the same figure. can also be seen that the impact energy is always higher
Fig. 2 shows also the DEM simulated evolving lifter than the abrasion energy at the front of lifter profiles
profiles due to wear. The wear rate chosen allows reach- and the opposite applies at the back. These results were
ing the worn out profile in nine steps. Good agreement is expected from observation of the simulated load behav-
found except for a short section between 8 and 14 cm. iour in the mill where most of impact occur at the front
of the lifters waves while at the back, balls are sliding.
An analysis of impact energy dissipated on discretised
7. Modelling of the wear of lifters used at Lethabo power lifter division in Fig. 3 shows that the impact energy Yi
station dissipated on a lifter division i is a function of the
height hi and angle ai of that discretised lifter division.
Tumbling mills used at Lethabo power station are Fig. 4 represents the correlation between the impact en-
equipped with double wave lifters shown in Fig. 3. ergy and discretised lifters divisions angle and height.

Impact Abrasion/Adhesion energies Vertical lines of lifter discretisation

26 energies 16
24 14
Energies on simulated 7 profile
22
Impact and Abrasion energies [joules]

12
20 Energies on simulated 6 profile

18 10
Energies on simulated 5 profile
16 8
Lifter height [cm]

Energies on simulated 4 profile

14 6
Energies on simulated 3 profile
12
4
10 Energies on simulated 2 profile

8 Energies on simulated 1 profile

2
6 0
Energies on the unworn profile
4 -2
Unworn new
2 profile
αi -4
0 Worn out profile Simulated
after 57726 Hours
hi
1 2 34 5 6 profiles -6
-2 Mill rotation function of time
Lifter divisions
-4 -8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42
Lifter width [cm]

Fig. 3. Modelling of evolving double wave lifter profile used at Lethabo power station.
1396 J.T. Kalala et al. / Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397
Fig. 4. Impact energies as a function of Lethabo double wave discretised lifter divisions normalized angle and height.
Negative angle refers to angle greater than 90° (located
at the back of the lifter waves). Table 3 gives the detailed
results of the correlation. A good correlation has been
found between these data. Poor correlation (R2 = 0.65)
has been found relating the abrasion energies as a func-
tion of angle and height. Since the impact energy is the
main parameters in the contribution of lifter wear, it is
possible to use the empirical equation found in order
to predict the wear of this particular lifter. Fig. 5 shows
the results of the simulation of the wear of the double
wave Lethabo lifter using the empirical model.
The comparison between the simulated profiles using
our DEM approach and the profiles derived from the
Table 3
Correlation results of impact energy function of discretised lifter
divisions height and angle for the Lethabo mill
Number of observation 292
Empirical model equation y i ¼ aX b1;i  ðcÞX 2;i
Yi Impact energy
X1,i = hi/hmax Normalised height
X2,i = ai/90 Normalised angle
a 0.573
b 1.082
c 14.464
Coefficient of correlation R2 = 0.934
Fig. 5. Modelling of the wear of the Lethabo double wave lifter profile using the empirical model (no DEM simulation involved).
empirical model shows a better prediction using the
DEM. The empirical model offers nevertheless the
advantage of simulating the wear of this lifter in less
time than using the DEM. The empirical model should
be useful in modelling profile wear where the profiles
are similar to the double wave lifter profiles used at
Lethabo power station.
8. Conclusion
Our approach to modelling the wear of lifters using
the discrete element method was tested to predict the
evolving lifter profiles used in ESKOM (South Africa)
tumbling mills at Kendal and Lethabo power stations.
A good agreement has been found between the worn
out and the last simulated profile for the double wave lif-
ter used at Lethabo power station. Moreover, an empir-
ical equation has been derived in order to predict rapidly
the wear of that lifter. Good agreement has also been
found for the prediction of the wear of lifter used at
Kendal power station. We expect an improvement in
our predictions using a full 3D simulation with all ball
size classes. At present such simulations are prohibi-
tively costly.
 J.T. Kalala et al. / Minerals Engineering 18 (2005) 1392–1397
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank ESKOM for their
support of this research project and for their permission
to publish this paper.
References
Qiu, X., Potapov, A., Song, M., Nordell, L., 2001. Prediction of wear
of mill lifters using discrete element method. International AG and
SAG Grinding Technology IV, 260–271.
Radziszewski, P., 2001. Determining impact, abrasive and corrosive
contributions to total media wear. AG and SAG Grinding
Technology IV, 252–259.
1397
Further reading
Archard, J.F., 1953. Journal of Applied Physics 24, 981–988.
Cleary, P.W., 1998. Predicting charge motion, power draw, segregation
and wear in ball mills using discrete element methods. Minerals
Engineering 11 (11), 1061–1080.
Glover, G., de Beer, J.C.K. The application of the discrete element
method to the optimisation of mill liner systems. In: Proceedings of
the XX IMPC–Aachen, September, 1997, 21–26.
Hutchings, I.M., 1992. Tribology, Friction and wear of engineering
materials, London.
Rabinowicz, 1965. Friction and Wear of Materials. John Wiley, New
York.
Radziszewski, P., 1993. Simulation of ball charge and liner wear. Wear
169, 77–85.
Wellinger, K., Breckel, H., 1969. Wear 13, 257–281.