Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181

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

A new predictive model of lifter bar wear in mills

M. Rezaeizadeh a, M. Fooladi a,⇑, M.S. Powell b, S.H. Mansouri a, N.S. Weerasekara b
a
Mech. Eng. Dept., Kerman University, Kerman, Iran
b
University of Queensland, SMI, JKMRC, 40 Isles Road, Indooroopilly 4068, Australia

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

Article history: The cost of mill relining and the influence of the liner profiles on mill performance provide a strong moti-
Received 18 January 2010 vation to improve liner selection. However, the capability to predict liner life and progressive profile is
Accepted 28 July 2010 poorly developed in the industry. A new model has been developed to predict the rate of liner wear based
on the main parameters affecting the wear process such as; ore type, relative velocity between the ore
and the liners, liner hardness and friction conditions. The resultant model is capable of determining
Keywords: the wear as a function of mill operating and discharge conditions based on the variation of specific gravity
Mineral processing
of mill contents, geometrical characteristics of the mill and mill velocity. The results from this model are
Comminution
Grinding
in good agreement with the measured data from the SAG mill at Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex, Iran.
Particle size Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Liners are used to protect the mill shells from wear and impor-
tantly, but often not fully appreciated, to transfer energy to the
grinding charge. Good liner design can enhance the grinding effi-
ciency, whilst also providing a long wear protection life to mini-
mise liner costs. The liner profile influences the grinding
efficiency and lifter bars are commonly used to provide the profile
in SAG/AG and primary mills. They generate a fraction of cataract-
ing load which increases the energy of impact-breakage and gener-
ates a velocity gradient within the cascading region for abrasion
and attrition. As the liners wear their dimensions change during
the course of operation, thus it is not possible to hold a single ideal
design profile. The changing geometrical dimensions of the worn
liners affect aspects of mill performance such as; trajectory of ore
and balls, power consumption, average pressure on the liners
and stress in the liners. This change in profile has been noted by
many investigators to have a significant influence on the overall
economic performance of the mills (Bird et al. (2001), Hart et al.
(2001), Kendrick and Marsden (2001), McIvor (1983) and Meekell
et al. (2001)). Therefore, it is of economic importance to know
the relationship between the operating condition of the mills and
the liner wear processes.
As the liner profile wears, the reduction in its dimensions will
ultimately lead to breakage of the liner. Random breakage and
replacement of liners cause unwanted interruptions or ‘down time’
to mill operation. Thus if there is uncertainty about liner life there
is a need to replace them early, which results in poor utilisation of
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 341 2111763; fax: +98 341 2120964.
E-mail address: fooladi@mail.uk.ac.ir (M. Fooladi).
the liners and increased liner cost. Predicting the rate of liner wear
helps to correctly time the replacement of worn liners and thus
facilitates the scheduling of preventative maintenance of the mill.
As liners are very costly, one of the main goals set for the manufac-
turers by users is to increase the life of liners.
A model that can predict the life of the liners and the evolution
of the liner profiles will be most useful for reliably designing liners
for a required life and providing a profile that provides optimal
overall mill performance over the life of the liner. The lifter profile
has the prime influence on the charge motion, so this is the focus of
this work.
Various approaches have been proposed to predict the wear of
liners and to increase liner life. Radziszewski (1997) utilises a sim-
plified DEM code and a series of wear testing devices to model ball
wear and has proposed the same approach to model liner wear.
Teeri et al. (2006) studied impact wear in mineral crushing. Some
work has been conducted on utilising the DEM outputs of contact
force and frequency to model the wear of mill liners: Cleary (1998),
Kalala et al. (2005a,b) to inform a simplified wear model of liner
wear in dry coal grinding; Powell et al. (2006), McBride and Powell
(2006), Makokha and Moys (2006), Makokha et al. (2007). Banisi
and Hadizadeh (2006) conducted detailed liner wear measure-
ments along the liners of a SAG mill and based on the outcomes
proposed a wear relationship.
In these works a model was usually applied for a particular con-
dition by back-fitting it to the measured data, but in this work a
new method is proposed for predicting the wear of liners in the
mill based on the important underlying parameters such as abra-
sion angle, coefficient of friction, liner hardness, pressure and rela-
tive velocity. In the present work it is attempted to find the
variation of force on the liners and relative velocity between the

0892-6875/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2010.07.016
 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181 1175

Nomenclature

A lifter area (m2) r radial position (m)

E fractional porosity of charge ri radial position of charge surface (m)
F force on liner (N) rm effective radius of mill inside liners (m)
fcg centrifugal force (N) S fractional solids content of discharge slurry
fweight gravitational force (N) t time (h)
g acceleration due to gravity (ms2) U fraction of charge voids occupied by slurry
H height of liners (mm) Vr slippage velocity on top of liners (ms1)
Ho initial height of liners (mm) Vs slippage velocity on inclination surface of liners (ms1)
Jt fraction of mill volume occupied by ore and ball Hs angular displacement shoulder position (rad)
JB fraction of mill volume occupied by ball Ht angular displacement toe position, (rad)
k empirical factor for wear q density of total charge (tm3)
l effective length of mill (m) qB density of balls (tm3)
Nm mill rotation rate (rev s1) qs density of ore (tm3)
Nc critical mill rotation (rev s1) g fraction of critical speed
Nr rotation rate of particle at radial distance, r, from centre u face angle (°) (measured from the vertical)
of mill (rev s1) l coefficient of friction
Pave average pressure on top of lifters (pa) b abrasion angle (°)
P0av e average pressure on inclination surface of lifters (pa) xr angular velocity at radial distance (r), (rad/s)

ore and the mill shell based on the mill operation as key input data and the surface they are in contact with, along with the contact
to the liner wear model. pressure. Using the EDEM code, a set of DEM simulations were per-
formed with inputs as shown in Table 1. The information derived
from DEM is then fed into the wear model described in the follow-
2. Model description
ing section.
It is well known that the wear process entails the removal of
material from solid surfaces under mechanical action during the 2.2. Wear model description
operation of a system under conditions such as impact, sliding mo-
tion and chemical reaction such as corrosion. In general the wear The recent work of Radziszewski et al. (2005) reports that im-
process is primarily related to the sliding contact conditions and pact wear provides a negligible contribution to ball wear in SAG
impact action. Wear in general depends upon the properties of mills. Based on this it is proposed that abrasion wear provides
the material surfaces, the surface roughness, the sliding distance, the prime contribution to liner wear in primary and SAG mills.
the sliding velocity, normal force or pressure, impact conditions So in this work only abrasive wear is considered and the effect of
and angle of impingement. To describe the wear mechanism the impact load in the normal direction only is thought to be neg-
through constitutive equations and evolution laws the aforemen- ligible. A normal loading with a tangential sliding component
tioned parameters need to be applied. forms the basis of the wearing mechanism.
The relationship of Radziszewski et al. (2005) for the rate of
wear, as given in Eq. (1), is used as the wear model in this work.
2.1. DEM model description
tanðbðFÞÞ
The wear is related to relative velocity between the mill shell x_ ¼ q lF x_ ð1Þ
pHr
and particles, but measuring the relative velocity between the mill
shell and particles is difficult. It was assumed that the relative where q is the metal density; b is the abrasion angle. As illustrated
speed is near the mill speed. In order to test this assumption a in Fig. 1, F is the loading force; Hr is the metal hardness; l is the fric-
DEM simulation was conducted on a pilot scale ball mill to predict tion angle; and x_ is the sliding velocity.
the velocity field of ore in the mill. The coefficient of friction and abrasion angle are considered to
A non-linear model, combining Hertz’s theory in the normal be constant when the force and relative velocity are above the crit-
direction and the improvement to Mindlin’s no-slip model ical limit, as reported by Radziszewski et al. (2005). It is also as-
(Mindlin, 1949) in the tangential direction was employed (EDEM sumed that the variation of hardness of liners during the mill
2008) in modelling the contact between particles. Hertz’s theory
of elastic contacts provides compact relations for the normal direc-
Table 1
tion, deriving from integration of the normal pressure distribution Mill parameters for DEM model.
over the contact area (Di Maio and Di Renzo, 2005). In the tangen-
Mill diameter, mm 1000 Ball diameter, mm Number
tial direction Mindlin’s no-slip model is utilised and this provides
Mill length, mm 100 6 3000
the force-displacement configurations that are dependent on both Mill velocity, rad/s 3.3 (75% cv) 8 3900
normal and tangential loading history. The relative tangential Mill filling, % 26 10 4000
velocity from the relative tangential motions over the collision be- Height of liner, mm 14 15 1350
haves as an incremental spring that stores energy and represents Face angle, ° 14.5 25 900
Number of rows of lifters 60, 30, 15
the elastic tangential deformation of the contacting surfaces. The Density of media, kg/m3 7800
dashpot dissipates energy from the tangential motion and models Young’s modulus of balls, GPa 200
the tangential plastic deformation of the contact. The total tangen- Poisson’s ratio of balls 0.3
tial force is limited by the Coulomb’s law of friction (Cleary, 1998; Coefficient of restitution 0.5
Coefficient of static friction 0.5
Di Renzo and Di Maio, 2004, EDEM 2008). The contact model
Coefficient of rolling friction 0.01
provides the relative tangential velocity history between particles
1176 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181

Fig. 1. Abrasive grain model of abrasive wear.

operation is negligible. Thus it is necessary to derive the force and ri is the inner radius of load. According to Eq. (5) the force on the top
the relative velocity on the wearing surface in order to model the of lifter is derived by integration on the top of lifter from h1 to h2 in
wear. This will be the central focus of this paper. the toe region. In accordance with the stated hypothesis that the
A theoretical model is used in this work in order to analyze the maximum force–velocity combination is responsible for almost all
forces in the mill charge region. Fig. 2 shows the simplified sketch the wear, only the maximum condition is considered, and this is
of the charge region in a mill for analyzing the charge forces, after at the vertical position at the base of the mill.
Morrell (1996a,b). Where Nr is the rotational velocity of a particle at radial distance
Considering a small element of charge (Fig. 2), the forces near r from the centre of the mill (Morrell, 1992), as calculated from the
the toe region in the absence of impact forces depends only on following equation:
the centrifugal and gravity forces, as given by Eq. (2). This is a sim-
Nm r m ðr  r i Þ
plification of the dynamic charge condition that must also include Nr ¼ ð7Þ
rðr m  ri Þ
spikes of force from the descending media. However, this is diffi-
cult to account for, and is partially accommodated in a smoothed q and ri are derived from the following equations (Morrell, 1992):
out manner by the lumping of the charge into the thick annulus gi-
J tqs ð1  E þ EUSÞ þ J B ðqB  qs Þð1  EÞ þ J t EUð1  SÞ
ven by the simplified Morrell charge shape. q¼ U>1
J t ð1 þ EðU  1ÞÞ
df ¼ dfcg þ dfweight ð2Þ ð8Þ
where centrifugal force on the small element is given by the follow-
ing equation: J tqs ð1  E þ EUSÞ þ J B ðqB  qs Þð1  EÞ þ J t EUð1  SÞ
q¼ U61
2 Jt
dfcg ¼ rx  dm r ð3Þ
ð9Þ
and gravitational force is given by the following equation:
 0:5
dfweight ¼ gdm ð4Þ 2pJ t
ri ¼ rm 1  ð10Þ
2p þ hs  ht
dm ¼ qdV ¼ qlr  dr  dh ð5Þ Using Eqs. (2)–(10), the normal force on the liner is represented
dh is the subtended angle, dr is the radial width and l is the length of as following equation:
the element.
ð2pÞ2 qðNm Þ2 r2m ðr m  r i ÞlDh qgðr 2m  r 2i ÞlDh
When Eq. (2) is integrated across the width of the lifter the force F¼ þ ð11Þ
3 2
on the top of the lifter is obtained:
Z rm Z h2
where Dh is:
2 2
F¼ ðlqr ð2pNr Þ þ lqgrÞdr  dh ð6Þ Dh ¼ h2  h1 ð12Þ
ri h1

Fig. 2. Simplified shape of mill charge.

 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181 1177

The surface of the top of the liner can be defined by the follow- Fig. 5 shows the ball velocity for a mill with 30 and 15 lifters. These
ing equation: show similar velocity profiles as for the 60 rows of lifters. Fig. 6
shows the consistent repetition of the particle velocity over several
A ¼ lðr m  HÞDh ð13Þ revolutions.
The average pressure on the liners will be derived by dividing Only in the toe region does the ball velocity vary considerably
the normal force on the surface of top of liners: from the shell velocity. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
majority of wear occurs in the toe region. As the incoming velocity
ð2pÞ2 qðNm Þ2 r 2m ðr m  r i Þ qgðr 2m  r2i Þ of the particles is approximately perpendicular to the mill shell, the
P av e ¼ þ ð14Þ relative velocity in this region is approximated to be the mill shell
3ðr m  HÞ 2ðr m  HÞ
speed.
As shown in Eq. (14) the average pressure on the top of liner is a Based on this the relative velocities between the ore and the top
function of density, mill velocity, charge position and height of lin- of lifters is given by the tangential velocity of the lifter tip, as given
ers. The average pressure on the face of liner in the toe region will by Eq. (16):
vary based on the face angle that is given by:
V r ¼ ðr m  HÞx ð16Þ
"  #
ð2pÞ2 qðNm Þ2 r2m ðr m  r i Þ qg r 2m  r 2i The relative velocity on the face of the lifter is particularly dif-
P0av e ¼ þ sin u ð15Þ
2ðr m  H2 Þ 2ðr m  H2 Þ ficult to calculate theoretically. However, it should be approxi-
mately equal to that along the top of the lifters, as the outer
In this model the friction value is based on the mill speed and band of material moves over and across the lifters in a continuous
force on the liners (Radziszewski et al., 2005). stream. The DEM simulations support this, as shown in Fig. 7 by
The DEM model is used to predict the velocity profile of the the relative velocities on the top and the face of the lifter closely
balls in the mill. The magnitudes of these are shown in Fig. 3. In tracking each other as the lifter moves through the charge (h
the contact region between the mill shell and particles below the changing).
bulk of the charge and along the rising edge, the velocity of the par- So the same value, Vr is used for the velocity along the face of
ticles is near to the mill velocity of 1.65 ms1 and so the relative the lifter, Vs.
velocity is almost zero. Whereas the particle velocity in the toe
charge region is in the opposite direction to the liner motion or be- Vs ¼ Vr ð17Þ
low 0.05 ms1 and so the relative velocity between the ore and the The Radziszewski relationship of Eq. (1) is modified to accom-
shell will be near to the mill velocity. modate the format adopted in this work; the velocities given by
Fig. 4 shows the variation of ball velocity per a revolution. The Eqs. (16) and (17); and the pressure given by Eq. (15); to give
letters correspond to the locations illustrated in Fig. 3. the rate of wear on the top and the face of liner according to Eqs.
As shown in Fig. 4 when the ball is in full contact with the shell (18) and (19):
in the upward moving region, its velocity is close to the mill veloc- Vertical rate of wear of lifter:
ity and so the relative velocity vanishes (point A). As it reaches the
shoulder the velocity drops off then at point B the ball is projected DH P av e
¼K Vr ð18Þ
into flight or cascading. At point C the ball impacts at high speed in Dt HB
the toe region and its velocity rapidly approaches the mill velocity Rate of perpendicular thickness loss from lifter face:
as it is drawn once again into the locked-in region of the charge. In
regions B and D the ball velocity is lower than the mill velocity. In DH P0
¼ K av e V s ð19Þ
this case the mill charge is 26% and the number of lifters is 60. Dt HB

Fig. 3. Velocity magnitudes of particles in the mill as predicted by DEM simulations (shell velocity is 1.65 m s1).
1178 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181

B
C

A
E

Fig. 4. Variation of ball velocity on the mill shell (60 rows of lifters).

Fig. 5. Variation of ball velocity on the mill shell for 30 and 15 rows of lifters.

2.5

top of liner face of liner

2
Relative velocity, m/sec

1.5

0.5
Fig. 6. Variation of ball velocity on the mill shell (60 rows of lifters).

0
The density factor is removed to convert the relationship to vol- 0 10 20 30 40
ume loss. The Force given in the Radziszewski Equation is changed θ (degree)
to pressure, as this is the real driver of wear rate, with force being
relevant for a given contact surface area. This change also allows Fig. 7. Comparison of the relative velocity along the top and face of the lifter.

the wear to be expressed as height loss rather than volume loss.-

where k is:

tanðbÞl cient of friction and the abrasion angle are constant when the forces
K¼ ð20Þ on the surface are more than a critical value of around 300 N. In a
p
real mill the forces are usually more than 600 N, so this simplifica-
where b is the abrasion angle, Fig. 1, and HB is the Brinnel hardness. tion should be valid. For a given ore-metal combination K is approx-
Radziszewski et al. (2005) showed experimentally that the coeffi- imately a constant which is derived by experiment. For the present
 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181 1179

case it is considered that K = 1.5e5 (for b = 0.01, l = 0.27) as de- 4. Investigation of the model predictions of the influence of
rived by Radziszewski for a typical milling application. parameters on wear

The influence of mill load, mill speed, friction condition and

3. Validation of the model
material hardness on the wear process is illustrated by using the
new predictive model. Some parameters such as the mill load
The model has been validated against experimental results that
and speed vary widely with mill operating conditions, but the var-
were obtained from an industrial SAG mill. The SAG mill is lined in
iation of coefficient of friction and hardness is negligible. The liner
two rings each consisting of 60 rows of rail type liners. The liners
hardness is established at the time of manufacture. In order to con-
are cast chrome-molybdenum steel with an average Brinnell hard-
trol the wear, it is necessary to know how much each factor affects
ness of 350. The mill operating conditions and geometric specifica-
the wear process. Fig. 9 shows the effect of mill charge on the aver-
tions are given in Table 2.
age reduction of liner height (due to wear). The results compare
Banisi and Hadizadeh (2006) used a mechanical profile gauge
favourably with the experimental data from the Sarcheshmeh
for measuring the wear of the liners at six points along each liner
SAG mill obtained from data made available by their technical
block that was monitored. Based on the detailed data that was col-
department. The simulation indicates that an increase in the mill
lected, the authors proposed a relation for the rate of mass loss of
charge will increase the wear of liners.
the liners and showed that the wear along the mill length is non-
Fig. 10 shows the effect of the mill charge filling on the wear of
uniform. In this work the results from the theoretical model ap-
the face of the liner in the normal direction on the face of liners. As
plied to the mill operating in the same conditions is compared with
the mill filling increases the wear increases. The theoretical results
this excellent set of experimental results obtained from the Sar-
that are obtained from the model are in good agreement with the
cheshmeh SAG mill on the different sections along the liners. In
measured results. The predicted values have a 0.2 mm offset from
Fig. 8 the theoretical result is compared with the five sections
the experimental data when using the same model parameters as
and their overall average wear.
for the wear on the top of the lifter. This indicates that the form
Si shows the six different equally spaced sections of lifters along
of the model may require some fine tuning in the future.
the mill length. The results from the theoretical predictions are in
The wear of the liner profile is not uniform, because the average
good agreement with the average experimental data. The model
pressure on the surfaces of liners, relative velocity and friction con-
predicted the ongoing wear as the liners wore down, so is capable
dition will change based on the variation of the liner profile in the
of predicting the rate of wear of the liners over a wide range of lif-
course of operation. Fig. 11 shows the variation of average pressure
ter heights.
on the top and the face of liners with operation time.
Measuring the average pressure on the liner in the real mill is
difficult. Therefore in this work in order to validate the correlation,
Table 2
Characteristics of Sarcheshmeh SAG mill.

Speed, rpm 10.52

Critical speed, rpm 13.72
Speed, % of critical, V C 77%
Maximum charge filling, %total mill volume, Jt 30–35%
Ball filling, % total mill volume, JB 10–12.5%
Maximum ball diameter, mm 100
Mill length, m 4.878
Mill diameter, m 9.754
Aspect ratio 2
Number of shell liners 2  60
Liner material Cr–Mo steel
Liner height, H mm 146
Liner hardness Hb = 350
Specific gravity of ore, qs 2.8
Specific gravity of ball, qB 7.8
Fractional charge voidage, E 0.47 Fig. 9. Modelled and experimental reduction of liner height as a function of mill
Fractional of voids occupied by slurry, U 1.0 filling (%J) for the Sarcheshmeh SAG mill (x = 1.1rad/sec, Hb = 350, operating
Fractional solids content of mill discharge, S 0.4–0.6 time = 1000 h).

120

100

80 S1
ΔH (mm)

S2
60
S3
40 S4
S5
20 average
theoretical
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
t (hour)
Fig. 10. Modelled and experimental reduction of liner width as a function of mill
Fig. 8. Comparison of the model predictions with experimental data for the lifter filling (%J) for the Sarcheshmeh SAG mill (x = 1.1rad/sec, Hb = 350, operating
wear of the Sarcheshmeh SAG mill. time = 1000 h).
1180 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181
top
Fig. 11. Model and DEM predictions of the variation of average pressure on the liners versus operation time.
Fig. 12. Model and DEM predictions of the variation of average pressure as the height and face angle change with lifter wear.
a DEM simulation based on the same conditions is used. As shown
during the operation, the pressure on the liners will increase. This
can be attributed to the displacement of load position with the in-
ner radius decreasing and this leads to the gravitational loading
and centrifugal forces simultaneously increasing.
The pressure on the top of the lifter is higher than the face of
lifter, so the rate of wear on the face of liners is lower than the wear
on the top of liners during the course of operation. This can be as-
cribed to the relative velocity and displacement of load position
with respect to the liner surface. The average pressure on the face
increases far more than for the top of the lifter, by 40 as opposed to
20 kPa. This is a function of the combined change in face angle and
height resulting in a considerable increase in the direct pressure on
the face of the lifter.
Fig. 12 shows the effects of lifter face angle (measured from the
vertical) and lifter height on the average pressure. It can be seen
that the effect of lifter angle on the average pressure is more than
the liner height. Based on Eqs. (14) and (15) the pressure on the lin-
ers is a function of charge condition, liner profile, density and mill
characteristics, so the model is capable of showing the influence of
these factors. Also Eqs. (18)–(20), show that the wear is related to
the pressure, mill velocity, coefficient of friction and abrasion an-
gle. Therefore it is possible to investigate the effect of all the influ-
encing parameters on the lifter wear by using the new model.
5. Summary and conclusions
In this paper, a new predictive model for the wear of lifters in
mills has been proposed. This model is capable of showing the ef-
face
fect of influencing parameters on the wear during the mill opera-
tion. The new model can be used in a computer program to
rapidly predict the wear based on the mill operating conditions.
The conclusions can be summarized as follows:
 The model that has been proposed for the wear is in good agree-
ment with the industrial results for the Sarcheshmeh SAG mill
and it is proposed to test it on other accurately measured indus-
trial cases.
 The influences of the controlling parameters such mill charge
filling, height and face angle of lifters on the wear are investi-
gated and the results are in agreement with the industrial data.
 The results show that when the height of the liners decreases,
the pressure on the liners and wear rate increases.
 When the face angle increases, the pressure on the liners and
wear rate increases.
 All components of the wear model have been programmed in
Delphi and can be used to predict the wear on-line. The pro-
gram can also be used to indicate the wear life potential of dif-
ferent designs of lifters, for the same liner material and ore as
for the calibration base case.
 Currently the model has to be calibrated against production
data. The next step in development is to link it to a mechanistic
wear test, such as that of Radziszewski.
 The model has been developed for application to lifter bars with
simplified flat faces. Dividing the face up into smaller segments
allows the potential to model the rounding out of lifters with
wear.
 The next stage is to extend the DEM studies to calibrate the
model for the liner plates.
 M. Rezaeizadeh et al. / Minerals Engineering 23 (2010) 1174–1181
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank from the National Iranian Copper
Industries Company (N.I.C.Co.) for supporting this research. Special
appreciation is also extended to the maintenance, metallurgy and
R&D personnel for their continuous help. The help received from
H. Mahmoudabadi, S. Zaidabadi are gratefully acknowledged. The
academic version of the DEM solutions software, EDEM, was used
for the simulations. The authors are grateful to Julius Kruttschnitt
Mineral Research Centre for supporting this research.
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