Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SLURRY POOLING AND TRANSPORT ISSUES IN SAG MILLS The issues surrounding slurry pooling were highlighted by Morrell and
co-workers, and the consequences are elucidated in a number of
Malcolm Powell1 and Walter Valery2 publications, Latchireddi and Morrell (1997), Morrell et al. (1996, 2000).
1
Head Comminution Group, Mineral Processing Research Unit,
University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa, Shoulder
mpowell@chemeng.uct.ac.za. Cataracting material
2
General Manager, Metso Minerals Process Technology Australia &
Asia-Pacific, 24 Lavarack Ave, Eagle Farm, Brisbane, QLD 4009,
Australia. Walter.valery@metso.com Reduced attrition
ABSTRACT
Slurry pooling, excessive accumulation of slurry in the mill, and the Toe
associated loss of throughput and grind, are well recognised on low-
aspect, single-stage SAG mills. However, it is becoming apparent that a
wide range of the high-aspect mills also suffer from pooling issues. This
is associated with the high throughput of mills treating less competent
ores, excessive pebble porting, and large (>36ft) mills being closed with
Slurry pool
cyclones. Data are presented from a number of mills operating in
different applications to support this contention. The issue raised is that
mill throughput is controlled by discharge capacity, and a better
understanding of this is required to enable higher mill throughputs. Poor impact
Generally crash stopping entails tripping the mill, closing off inlet water, The open area of new grates can be calculated from drawings. It is not
and stopping the pumps to cyclones closed with the mill. A check should uncommon for the quoted open area figures to be markedly different to
be made that belt wash water is on the auto-valve, or it should be the final grate design, so beware of the figures quoted by liner suppliers.
switched off manually at the time of the stop. The auto switching off of For worn grates a sample of slot widths should be taken to check the
the water valves should be checked beforehand, to ensure that they do worn width. Two mm of wear on each edge for 15 and 20mm slot
switch off properly and to allow for shut-off time. It is sometimes widths, results in a 25% to 20% increase in open area.
necessary to activate the valves first, and stop the mill as they are almost
closed. As the cyclone underflow has to be stopped, the sump pumps The relative radial position is a number used to assess how close to the
have to be stopped, a particularly unpopular move with operators. periphery of the mill the open area is positioned, equation 1. In effect it
However, knocking open the pump drain valve as it stops allows the is the average radial position of the open area divided by the mill radius.
slurry to drain to spillage, and prevent blockages from occurring. Feed to This can be calculated for one panel, or any subset of panels that are
screens can be maintained, as only a small mass of screen oversize representative of the whole grate.
reports to the inlet of the mill, and can be ignored in mill filling
measurements.
∑ [slot area x r ]
all slots
slot
1
A crash stop is conducted to measure mill filling and slurry level, and the Rel. Radial Posn. = x Equation 1
mill internal dimensions. The mill filling should be measured in at least 3 total open area Rmill
points along the mill, preferably by the vertical height to the roof of the Rmill = mill radius to liner plate
mill (a laser range meter is ideal for this). The slurry level need only be Rslot = radial dist to centre of each slot
measured at one point, as the slurry is horizontal.
I-137 I-138
Morrell and Stephenson (1996) found this factor to impose a strong then being maintained, Figure 2. Upon inspection of the mill after a
influence on pulp discharge capacity, so it is important to include it in any crash stop it was found to be dramatically slurry pooling.
grate assessment.
Pulp lifter 9000 450
SAG 2 Power
The pulp lifters act as a pump to lift the pulp up from the pool to overflow
Loadx100
through the discharge trunnion They are radial vanes between the grate 8500
400
SAG 2 pebble discharge
and the end of the mill extending out from the discharge cone to the
feedrate/10
power, kW
300
7500
To measure the depth of the lifters it is easy to insert a tape measure 250
through a slot and push it against the rear wall. Measure the total depth
7000
to the rear wall, then measure the grate thickness and get the pulp lifter 200
depth by difference. This should be done in a couple of radial positions to
check that the chamber has a constant width. 6500
150
The number of pulp lifters must be counted and noted whether they 6000 100
extend the full radial length or, as is often the case, every second row is 10:04:48 10:19:12 10:33:36 10:48:00 11:02:24 11:16:48
only half length. This layout is to prevent flow constriction at the centre of time
the discharge, caused by the convergence of the thick pulp lifter bars.
Figure 2 Los Bronces onset of pooling
On 6m diameter single stage AG mill closed with a 1mm screen, it was
SLURRY POOLING ISSUE
found that the mill was usually in a slurry pooling condition. However,
A number of regions in the mill contribute to the hold-up and discharge of when a coarser feed was received the mill would suddenly experience a
the slurry. This is presented in some detail by Condori and Powell surge in power, increasing power draw by about 400kW in less than 2
(2006). A description of the key practical aspects is given here. minutes, despite feedrate being held constant and mill load not
changing. This could be reproduced by switching the coarse feeders on
Mill charge
and off, and correlated directly to slurry pooling.
Strangely this aspect of the slurry hold up is generally overlooked. The
physical composition of the charge has a significant influence on the Grate
resistance to flow that the charge contents present. There is a huge The grate can discharge a massive flowrate, well in excess of that
difference in flow resistance of the slurry from AG milling to ball milling, required by the mill. In fact an open ended mill, which means that there
and from a coarse to a fine mill charge. Thus in shifting from open circuit is only the grate retaining the mill charge and the slurry can pour out the
to closed with a fine screen, the slurry hold-up in a mill increases end of the mill, discharges at an excessive rate. This was found by
considerably, even though there is typically less than 10% recirculating Mokken et al. (1975) who tackled the slurry pooling issues in South
load when closing with a screen. The driving force here is the finer mill African Gold mine mills, by converting to open ended mills. They found
charge driven by the longer residence time and recycle of sandy (1- that they had to block off a considerable portion of the grate open area
10mm) material. to retain adequate slurry in the mill for efficient grinding. This clearly
indicates that the constraint to slurry discharge does not lie with the
This effect can also be observed when the feed to a mill changes in size grates.
distribution. This can lead to susceptible mills drifting in and out of slurry
Pulp lifters
pooling. This effect was observed at the Los Bronces site in Chile, on a
34ft mill, Powell et al. (2006). During a mill circuit survey the power to the The work of Mokken et al. (1975) forms an early record of the
no 2 SAG mill was found to have dropped by 1.5MW, despite load inefficiency of the pulp lifters, for it was through their removal that the
creeping up and ederate increasing at the onset of the power drop, and slurry discharge rate increased beyond the required limit in closed
I-139 I-140
circuit production mills with a recirculating load in excess of 200%. This • holes positioned flush with the leading face of the pulp lifter – the
was investigated in some detail on the pilot scale by Latchireddi and full depth of slurry flowing down the channel, it is exposed to the
Morrell (2003), who demonstrated that with a grate only discharge, the holes,
maximum discharge rate was more than double that for a standard radial • holes positioned towards the centre line of the mill – the slurry has
pulp lifter arrangement for the same slurry hold-up in the mill. more contact time with these and is deeper towards the centre of
the discharge.
What these studies highlighted is the inefficiency of the pulp lifter system. Additionally, the holes towards the centre line of the mill are not
When one considers that the pulp lifters are effectively a centrifugal exposed to charge on the inside of the mill, so have zero contribution to
pump running in the reverse direction to that required by a pump, one discharge capacity, they only contribute to flowback.
can begin to appreciate the issue. A pump draws liquid in at the centre
and flings it to the periphery, whereas the pulp lifters move slurry from Ultimate limit
the periphery to the centre. There is no realistically achievable limit to the slurry discharge capacity.
It has been noted that there appears to be a step increase in discharge
The slurry flows through the grate and into the pulp chamber. The capacity as the mill enters slurry pooling. This may correlate to the low
studies of Latchireddi and Morrell (2003) demonstrated that the majority flow resistance within the pool, that flows like a river above the toe of
of discharge takes place at the base of the charge. From there it is lifted the charge. There is then a dramatic increase in discharge capacity as
up but at the same time accelerated outwards by the rotary motion of the the level reaches the discharge trunnion and the mill switches to
pulp lifters. This is key, as it results in a net lowered radial acceleration overflow discharge. From this point on the discharge rate is not
towards the discharge end of the pulp lifter. This increases the residence controlled or limited by the pulp lifter arrangement, the slurry simply
time on the lifter, the slurry flows far slower down the lifter than if it was bypasses that. This has been observed on some single stage fine
poured onto a static sloping channel. grinding applications where the mill is operating with a high charge
Net acceleration = Acc = g sin(θ) − ϖ r
2 filling.
For: θ= instantaneous angle of the lifter from the horizontal The symptom of this is that after crash stopping the mill, the slurry
g = gravitational acceleration continues to flow out of the discharge trunnion. This is absolute
ω = angular velocity, in radians/s concrete evidence that it is dramatically slurry pooling and is operating
r = radius along the pulp lifter as an overflow mill. One such instance was reported by Powell et al.
Thus as the mill rotates faster, although the swept area of the pulp lifters (2001), for a mill treating UG2 platinum ore and operating with a charge
increases, which will increase pumping capacity, the flowrate off them filling of over 40%.
decreases. The net effect is that the pumping capacity of the pulp lifters
passes through a peak as mill speed is increased, and then decreases. What should be noted from this discussion is that being told that a mill is
This peak appears to be at over 85% of critical speed, so does not seem managing to discharge the full slurry requirements, does not imply that it
important to most mills. However, the pumping capacity is strongly is operating without a slurry pool.
levelling off from about 80% of critical speed, so will compromise the
discharge capacity of higher speed mills.
PEBBLE DISCHARGE
Flowback
What Latchireddi and Morrell (2003) did clearly identify is that a A throughput limiting factor in the large open circuit SAG mills is the rate
significant portion of the slurry does not reach the end of the pulp lifter in at which pebbles can be discharged. Massive increases in feedrate can
each revolution of the mill. Once the pulp lifter has passed the profile of be achieved by discharging pebbles at as high a rate as possible, and
the charge the very grate holes through which the pulp flowed out of the rates exceeding 50% of the RoM feedrate can be achieved. To obtain
mill are now available for the slurry to flow-back through into the mill as it these rates the discharge grate slots are enlarged to all be pebble ports.
flows rather slowly down the pulp lifter. Generally the total open area does not exceed 10%.
This effect is exacerbated by: It is proposed that the resulting massive slots in the grates allow
maximum flowback of the slurry and thus compromise slurry discharge
• large holes – minimal flow resistance,
I-141 I-142
capacity, which then becomes the new rate limiting factor to the mill slurry sprays out under pressure, indicating that the trunnion discharge
operation. Additionally, Installing ports increases the discharge is not coping with the slurry flowrate and it is producing slurry carry-over
requirements of the mill, as not only the extra pebbles are discharged, in the pulp lifter chamber. From these observations it was immediately
but also intermediate size material, that falls between the rammel concluded that the mill will slurry pool. Sure enough, upon entering the
aperture and the desired pebble size – about 15 to 30mm, is discharged mill after a crash stop, a massive slurry pool was found in the mill.
and has to be recycled to the mill.
The SAG 1 mill was used as base case in order to fit parameters of the
slurry hold-up model (Latchireddi and Morrell, 2003), after that the
Figure 3 Mill discharge and load for the Los Bronces mills model was applied to the SAG 2 mill under the current operating
conditions. From the simulation it was calculated that a deeper 550mm
The 28ft SAG mill 1 has good discharge, with the slurry flowing out in the pulp lifter is required, as opposed to the current depth of 465 mm. By
circled area on the photograph, and the charge being dry on the surface. reducing the open area, increasing the pulp lifter depth and increasing
Upon removing the hood that covers the discharge, the 34ft number 2 the trunnion discharge area, the slurry discharge restriction in the SAG
SAG mill was noted to have a violent splashing discharge. The slurry 2 mill should be reduced and the mill throughput can be increased. This
only begins to discharge after the vertical, to the left of the dotted line. is backed by the simulations in which the SAG 1 model was used for
This is observed on many mills, and graphically demonstrates how the SAG 2, and a 10% increase in throughput was achieved. This indicates
centrifugal force slows down the flowrate of the slurry, to such an extent that this is a crucial area of circuit optimisation that is well worthwhile
that it only reaches the centre as the pulp lifter reaches the vertical. The pursuing.
I-143 I-144
Clearly the impact of this on the pebble discharge rate has to be susceptible to slurry pooling issues, and this is not just a function of the
assessed. The procedure would be to remove slots from the inner radial extra flowrate from the recycle stream. The warning is that in closing a
edge of the grates to achieve the required open area. As can be seen in circuit, careful consideration must be taken of the mill discharge
the detail on the right of Figure 4, there is space at the periphery of the capacity, as it may be inadequate and consequently limit the grinding
grate. Placing a long slot in this area will replace the open area of two of potential of the mill.
the inner slots, and no flowback will result from this outermost slot. To
Influence of ball charge
achieve this, the filler ring behind the shell liner has to be reduced and
the grate lengthened to slide a bit behind the lifter bar, so that the outer It is not well appreciated how much of an influence the fractional ball
structure of the grate can be maintained. Chamfering of the end of the filling in a SAG mill has on the discharge capacity. The extremes are
lifter bar on the end shell liner will allow the grate to be removed without given by AG milling and operating in RoM ball mill mode, where the
removing liners. fraction of balls can exceed 0.8 of the total charge. The effect on slurry
hold-up is illustrated in Figure 6. The mill in the left images was
Open vs. closed circuit converted from AG milling to RoM ball milling, and the effect on the
In a set of work conducted at Morila Gold mine, an AngloGold slurry hold-up is dramatic, with the pooling and stickiness apparent in
Ashanti/Randgold Resources joint venture in Mali, the SAG mill was the AG mode being replaced by a dry charge surface. This is despite
operated in closed and open circuit configurations during a period of low the mill receiving considerably more feed in the RoM ball mill mode. The
throughput requirements. The data is presented in Table 1, courtesy of right images are two different mills, with the lower AG mill showing
Aubrey Mainza, of the MPRU of University of Cape Town. The open considerable pooling.
circuit has double the ederate of the closed circuit configuration, but
almost the same slurry discharge rate, due to the cyclone recycle
stream, giving almost the same SDV. This seems to indicate that the
absolute flowrate limit of the mill may be controlling the mill throughput.
80 discharge screen and pebble return conveyor and therefore, grates with
pebble ports were gradually replaced by grates with 20mm slots until
4%
60
6% design values for pebble production and mill feed rate were achieved.
The final design had 6 panels with 40mm ports, 6 panels with 70mm
40
8% ports and 24 panels with 20mm slots. The total open area has
8% decreased from 9.8% with all pebble ports to 7.4%. Plant operating
20 experience and inspections of mill internals suggest that slurry pooling
8% is not an issue. This mill has the highest SDV of the current database,
0 suggesting an efficient discharge design.
0 20 40 60 80 100
% pebble ports open area
CAPACITY RELATIONSHIPS
Figure 7 Relationship between pebble scats recirculation and open A summary of a selection of mills, with detailed information on operating
area, for different ball charges conditions and mill charge filling, is presented in Table 1. The analysis
presented below is in no way meant to be a modelling exercise, but
28ft AG mill treating a soft ore rather a demonstration of some of the key drivers in discharge capacity.
The AG mill discharge grate design in a moderately soft Pb/Zn/Ag ore However, the extension of this high quality data base will be used to test
plant, has been modified throughout the life of the circuit in order to existing relationships and develop new ones in the near future.
increase throughput. Initially, a grate with 17mm slots was used and at
one stage a grate with all 65mm ports was tested. It can be observed Two key areas are assessed from the data; slurry and pebble discharge
from Figure 7 that the pebble production increased from 20% for the capacity. Both are expressed as the superficial discharge velocity
(SDV), which is the volumetric flowrate per unit open area. For
grate without pebble ports to over 100% for the grate with all pebble
ports. Although the grate open area was also increased from 5.6% with convenience the units used are based on the figures familiar to mill
no pebble ports to 7.6% with all pebble ports, the fraction of pebble ports operators, of flowrate in m3/h and grate open area in m2, yielding an
SDV value in m/h. The usefulness of the SDV is that for a possible open
area dictates the amount of pebbles from the mill. An optimal grate
design with pebble ports at 65% of the open area was found to allow area and engineering design parameters, the likely maximum flowrate
high mill throughput (over 400tph) and to limit pebble production to the out of the mill can be calculated.
pebble conveyor capacity.
Trend lines are used to give a first view of the likely key parameters,
As shown in Table 1, this mill operates at high rock load, around 40%, at and simple linear regression analysis is used to weed out the non-
high slurry filling but rarely experience slurry pooling. This is due to dependent variables and highlight the important factors that influence
relatively moderate slurry recirculation around 150 – 250% sufficient the discharge rate.
discharge grate open area and pulp lifter capacity.
I-147 I-148
8000
pulp lifter, %mill Lx50
400
Equation 2 has great potential for quick engineering calculations, as for
mm
6000
300
a given pulp discharge requirement, and possible open area (usually 7
– 9% of the mill end area), and fraction of balls, a likely pulp lifter depth
4000
200 requirement can be calculated.
2000 Pebble discharge capacity
100
Amandel AG
The trends shown in Figure 10, show scattered trending with open area,
0 0 but this figure suffers from being interdependent as the SDV includes
50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190 the open area. There is no correlation with pebble port size, but a strong
superficial velocity, m/h relationship to the recirculating load of pebbles. The two outlier sets are
for mills for which the majority of pebbles are recycled with little or no
Figure 8 Correlations with superficial discharge velocity crushing, hence they build up an unusually high pebble recycle load.
130
110 The goodness of fit is rather good and is shown in Figure 11. The F80 is
90 an indicator of the fraction of coarse material in the feed that can form
70 Adjust ed R2 = 0.842
predicted super vel pebbles. It would be preferable to use the number of rocks in and above
Std Error = 12.6 out liers the pebble size class, but rather more detailed feed size information is
50
50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190
required. It is intended to test this more rigorously. The correlation with
e xpe ri m e n tal
the recirculation of pebbles was extremely strong, and using this
accommodated all the data, even the outliers that were noted in the
Figure 9 Correlation of simple fit to discharge data trending exercise of Figure 10 (page after next).
I-149 I-150
Table 1 Site data used in the analysis Equation 3 can be used to calculate the required grate open area for a
design pebble discharge rate, for a given feed size and an expected
recycle rate.
Lead/Zinc/Silver
Gold ore, SAG
Los Bronces 1
Los Bronces 2
28ft AG mill
Navachab
Navachab
Morila OC
Morila CC
UG2, AG
36ft mill
pebble discharge
80
site
14.00
Diam shell, ft 28 34 16 16 26 26 36 28 20
70
Length, shell, ft 14 17 32 32 20 20 18 15 24
12.00
Diam inside, m 8.26 10.12 4.72 4.72 7.80 7.80 10.81 8.37 5.92 60
Length inside, m 4.189 4.722 9.49 9.49 5.47 5.47 4.95 4.03 7.1
10.00
Aspect ratio 2.0 2.1 0.5 0.5 1.4 1.4 2.2 2.1 0.8 50
cone angle, O 12 12 0 0 0 0 15 17 22.5
8.00
rpm 11 10 17.3 17.3 11.35 11.35 8.8 11 13.2 40
spe
ed
% crit. 76.9 74.4 88.9 88.9 74.9 74.9 68.4 75.2 75.9
6.00
total, % 23.7 17.5 40.6 40.0 33.7 44.0 27.0 41.0 27.9 30
filling
number 30 32 8 8 13 13 18 14 20
shape radial radial curved curved radial radial radial radial radial 1800
% mill L 9.0 9.8 3.2 3.2 4.9 4.9 8.7 7.4 2.8 1600 SV pebble = 560-2.8*F80+27*% recirc pebbles
RoM tph 919 1505 137 153 411 188 550 410 377 1400
feed
predicted
% -1mm 1.18 1.18 5.7 5.7 10 12 7.0 11 41
A*b 38.0 38.0 84.1 81.1 37.9 37.9 35.0 88 145.0 1000
ta 0.62 0.62 0.51 0.48 0.39 0.39 0.24 0.34 1.25 800
density 2.59 2.59 2.84 2.84 2.75 2.75 2.80 3.40 3.40 600
solids, tph 919 1505 425 406.0 482 640 1781 1190 401
discharge product
CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES
In closing a SAG mill circuit, careful consideration must be taken of the Condori, P. and Powell, M.S. (2006). A Mechanistic model of SAG mill
mill discharge capacity, as it may be inadequate and consequently limit slurry discharge. Proceedings International autogenous and
the grinding potential of the mill. The examples presented here show that semiautogenous grinding technology 2006, Sep. 24-27, Ed. Mular et
mills can successfully operate with up to 250% circulating load, so long al, Published CIM.
as adequate pulp discharge capacity is available and the grate is Latchireddi, S. R. and Morrell, S., 1997. “A laboratory study of the
appropriately designed. It is generally reported that the recirculating load performance characteristics of mill pulp lifters”. Minerals Engineering,
should be kept below 300% otherwise the mill goes off the grind, and the Vol. 10, no. 11, pp. 1233-1244.
recirculating load then shoots up, coinciding with slurry pooling. The finer
Latchireddi, S.R. and Morrell, S., 2003, “Slurry flow in mills: grate-pulp
the mill product, the finer the mill charge and the more susceptible the
lifter discharge systems (Part 2)”. Mineral Engineering, 16, pp. 635-
mill is to pooling due to the charge flow resistance increasing. Higher ball
642.
loads decrease the slurry hold-up function of the mill and allow a higher
slurry discharge rate. Morrell, S., Stephenson, I., 1996, “Slurry discharge capacity of
autogenous and semi-autogenous mills and the effect of grate design”,
Pebble porting a mill dramatically increases its discharge requirements, International Journal of Mineral Processing, Vol. 46, pp 53 - 72.
and it has been shown that a large porting open area has an adverse Mokken, A., Blendulf, G., Young, G., 1975, “A study of the
effect on slurry discharge efficiency. It is therefore strongly arrangements for pulp discharge on pebble mills and their influence on
recommended that the mill discharge capacity is assessed, and possibly mill performance”, J. S.A. Inst. Min. Metal., May., pp. 257-280.
improved through careful grate design, and possibly even modification of Morrell, S. and Kojovic, T., 1996. “The influence of slurry transport on
the discharge chamber, before an entire circuit expansion is the power draw of autogenous and semi-autogenous mills”.
implemented that can be doomed to never achieving the expected Proceedings of International conference on Autogenous and
outcomes. Semiautogenous grinding Technology, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 373-
389.
The slurry superficial discharge flow velocities obtained from the data set
indicate a normal range of 100 to 150m/h, but that figures of up to 200 Morrell, S. and Latchireddi, S., 2000. “The Operation and Interaction of
Grates and Pulp Lifters in Autogenous and Semi-Autogenous Mills”. In
are attainable. The pebble SDV is in the range 500 to 1200 m/h, but
again a very high value of 1600m/h was obtained. In design these Proceedings of Seventh Mill Operators Conference. AusIMM,
guideline limits should not be exceeded. The SDV relationships given by Kalgoorlie, Australia,pp 13-20.
equations 2 and 3, allow a better indicator of the likely discharge capacity Powell, M.S., Morrell, S. and Latchireddi, S., 2001. “Developments in
for given milling conditions and discharge key design parameters, and the understanding of South African style SAG mills”. Minerals
should be useful in checking supplier equipment recommendations. Engineering. Vol. 14 No. 10, pp. 1143-1153.
Powell, M.S, Condori, P, Smit, I, and Valery, W. (2006). The value of
It is proposed to continue this work to develop more robust relationships rigorous surveys – the Los Bronces experience. Proceedings
that can link into the existing published modelling relationships. International autogenous and semiautogenous grinding
technology 2006, Sep. 24-27, Ed. Mular et al, Published CIM.
ACKNOWLEDEGEMENTS Mainza, A.N., Powell, M.S., and Morrison, R.D. (2006). A review of SAG
circuits closed with hydrocyclones. Proceedings International
To the hard work of our co-workers, including Aubrey Mainza, André van autogenous and semiautogenous grinding technology 2006, Sep.
der Westhuizen and Percy Condori, and of Ian Smit, of AngloGold 24-27, Ed. Mular et al, Published CIM.
Ashanti who was involved in a number of the surveys that contributed to
this excellent data base. We would also like to thank the numerous
mines who have supported the research work and allowed us to stop
mills. Some of the data was collected as part of AMIRA P9 projects, and
this research has been supported by the South African government Thrip
funding.