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DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF MINI BALL MILL- METHODOLOGY

Technical Report · April 2016

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 Mechanical System Design, 25 Mar 2016
Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Pekan, Malaysia

DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF MINI BALL MILL.

Rutheravan Maria
1
Automotive Engineering Research Group (AERG), Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), 26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia,
2
Automotive Engineering Centre, Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP),
26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia, Phone: +6094246255; Fax: +6094246222
*
Email: muhamad@ump.edu.my

ABSTRACT

This project is to design and fabricate the mini ball mill that can grind the solid state of
various type of materials into nano-powder. The cylindrical jar is used as a mill that would
rotate the material that about to be ground, a motor is used to power the system so that
the jar can rotate in high speed and using the regulator controls the speed of the rotation
of the jar. The solid material will be put into the stainless steel jar with the metal balls.
Gearing system is used to transmit more torque from motor to generate higher rotating
speed. The speed of the rotation will be control by the regulator and the jar will keep
rotating until the material inside become a very fine powder. To ensure the stability of the
mini ball mill, a ball mill base is design and fabricate to withstand the weight of the
rotating jar, motor and gears. After a few hours, stop the mini ball mill and the powder
can be filtered out by the removing the metal balls. Observation will be taken if the
material can be crushed into nano-powder form and how long it takes.

Keywords: Mini ball mill, nano-powder, stainless steel jar, motor, gearing system, ball
mill base

INTRODUCTION

Ball mills are widely used in comminuting process in mineral industry. The comminuting
in the ball mill takes place by impact, friction, and abrasion between rocks and balls inside
the mill during rotation[1, 2].Steel balls are charged into a cylinder, along with the
material to be ground, and rotated, allowing the balls to crush material which travels
between them. Without the balls in the cylinder, or some other media to crush the material
we wish to grind, little grinding will take place.[3] To ensure the stability of the material
in the ball mill, many parameters of the equipment should be adjusted often , such as, the
speed of the scatter machine, the quantity of the feeding material, the speed of the dust
collecting machine, the speed of the powder selecting machine, etc .[4]There are balls of
different diameter in the mill cavity, which will mill different kinds of material. In mill
cavity, big balls will be drive to top of the cavity by centripetal force, then they will fall
to bottom of the ball mill cavity, and the balls will rap materials, as shown in Fig.3. Small
balls will grind material at the bottom of the cavity .[5, 6] Nearly all materials can be
processed, including metals , organics and pharmaceutical, as well as composites or low-
dimensional structures . Ceramic materials can be produced either indirectly or directly
via ball milling.[7, 8].Solid solution can also be considerably supersaturated compared to
the thermodynamic equilibrium.[9-11] The optimum ball size distribution is thus
determined by the amount and combination of grinding balls of different diameters in the
make-up charge.[12].There are three types of grinding media that are commonly used in
ball mills, steel and other metal balls, metal cylindrical bodies called cylpebs, ceramic
balls with regular or high density. Steel and other metal balls are the most frequently used
grinding media with sizes of the balls ranging from 10 to 150 mm in diameter. Cylpebs
are slightly tapered cylindrical grinding media with rounded edges and equal length and
diameter with sizes varying from 8×8 to 45×45 mm. Their shape is developed to
maximize the grinding efficiency due to their high density and specific surface area
Ceramic balls with regular density are usually porcelain balls and the high density balls
are made with a high alumina oxide content and they are more abrasion resistant. The
basic properties of the milling bodies are their mass and size, ware rate, influence on the
particle breakage rate and energy efficiency of the grinding process. [13, 14] The basic
condition, which must be met while grinding the material in a mill is that the ball, while
breaking the material grain, causes in it stress which is higher than the grain hardness .
Therefore, for the biggest grain size, it is necessary to have a definite number of the
biggest balls in the charge, and with the decreased grain size, the necessary ball size also
decreases (For each grain size there is an optimal ball size.[15, 16]. Particles migrate
slowly along the length of the mill while circulating rapidly in the plane orthogonal to the
mill axis. The radial and azimuthal particle motion is assisted by regularly lifter bars
attached to the mill shell. Replaceable liner plates are bolted to the shell between the
lifters to the reduce wear in this hostile environment. A typical 5 m diameter ball mill
consumes around 3 to 4 MW of power and has a very low energy efficiency. Significant
economic and environmental benefits can be obtained by improving the efficiency even
modestly.[17-19].Whenever two grinding balls collide, a small amount of powder is
trapped in between them. Typically, around 1000 particles with an aggregate weight of
about 0.2 mg are trapped during each collision .[20, 21].The product particle size and
circulating load are sensitive to various disturbances which can be divided into external
and internal ones. The external disturbances include the variations of ore hardness and
feed particle size, and so on, while the internal disturbances are generally caused by model
mismatches and coupling effects. Variations of the ore hardness and feed particle size
may cause continuous fluctuations of the product particle size. Model mismatches and
coupling effects may affect the dynamic features and even result in unstable control of
the grinding circuit.[22]. Mechanical alloying is a complex process and hence involves
optimization of a number of variables to achieve the desired product phase and/or
microstructure. Some of the important parameters that have an effect on the constitution
of the powder are, type of mill, milling container, milling speed, milling time, type, size,
and size distribution of the grinding medium, ball-to-powder weight ratio, extent of
milling the vial, milling atmosphere, process control agent, and temperature of milling.
All these process variables are not completely independent. For example, the optimum
milling time depends on the type of mill, size of the grinding medium, temperature of
milling, ball-to-powder ratio, etc.[23] [24] An increase in the number of balls had a
minimal impact on the milling energy during BPR increment for two reasons: First, the
weight loss of the ball led to a decrease in its kinetic energy and a consequent reduction
in milling efficiency. Second, the degree of filling of the mill was raised so the balls
mobility became more difficult and as a result the kinetic energy of the balls was
reduced.[25, 26] The ball mill with double inlets and outlets is a complicated object with
multi-variable coupling, nonlinear and time-delay, and the mathematical mode is difficult
to be set up due to its complicated dynamic characteristic, and no way can be found to
understand the dynamic characteristic of the ball mill through generally experiments.[27,

2
28]. The milling efficiency decreases with increased milling time as the particles become
smaller. It is assumed to subside completely when the grain size reaches a critical value.
This is a consequence of the force applied to the slurry as two milling balls approach one
another, causing a slurry flow away from the balls prior to collision. The smaller the
particle, the more likely it is to be caught in the slurry flow.[29, 30]. The change of
mechanical properties of the powder particles as they change their microstructure:
Questions that frequently will be asked is how do the mechanical properties change while
forming composites forming solid solutions, or forming new phases? The energy balance
of the mill: how much energy is consumed to achieve a particular particle microstructure?
Where does the energy go?. The energy determined is transferred from the milling balls
to the powder particles as many times as the balls hit the wall of the vial. The impact
frequency is the number of times the ball hits the vial in one second.[31].Corrosion may
also occur in ball milling due to high metal environment.[32]. Presumably, a ball mill
employs a comminution mechanism combining the compressional and torsional stresses,
which enables a product in the submicron size range to be produced. Many researchers
have attempted to describe the relationship between energy input and size reduction in
this process and find a theory that applies.[33-35]

METHODOLOGY

Typically, the mini ball milling device consists of a cylindrical vessel mounted on an
appropriate basis at both ends which allows rotation of the vessel around the center axis.
The mill is driven by long high density mild steel shaft and powered by an AC motor
mounted to the base of the ball mill. A gear pulley system is used in our model whereby
one is attached to the motor the main power supply and the other one is attached to the
shaft that is rotates the cylindrical vessel. Using the gear ratio, the reduction of the
velocity of the motor is take place because a desirable spend is needed to grind the mill.
After the mill is charged with the starting material (ore, rock, etc.) and the grinding media
(balls), the milling process takes place during rotation as a result of the transfer of kinetic
energy of the moving grinding media into the grinding product. The grinding media used
is with sizes of the balls ranging from 6 to 14 mm in diameter. As in the speed of rotation
of the mill, centrifugation characteristic which means very fast rotation is used to grind
micro metal powder into nano powders. Furthermore, the mass, volume, hardness, density
and size distribution of the material charged in the mill is considered alongside with the
mass, density, ball size distribution of the grinding media balls. The influence of grinding
conditions on the production of fine particles and the width of the particle size distribution
produced during ball mill grinding. As a result, measurement is taken to check whether
nano powder is produce or not.

3
Figure 1: The rough Solidworks design of the mini ball mill.

Figure 2: The dimension of the rough solidworks sketch.

4
FLOW CHART OF OVERALL PROGRESS

Selection of project title and

discussion with supervisor

Collections of journals and

resources regarding project title

Sketching the designs (3 types)

and selecting one of the design

Material purchasing

Fabricating the ball mill

Insert the grinding media and

materials

Run the ball mill

Measure the No Not in nanopowder

nanopowder particles

Yes

Measurements is in nanoparticles

5
 Documentation

End

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

In this experiment, several materials were purchased and several materials were
fabricated. All the materials were then assembled into one system. The base of the whole
system was design and fabricated. The motor, gear pulley system, stainless steel balls and
mill jar were purchased. The setup consisted of following apparatus and materials:

Table 1: List of apparatus and materials used to build mini ball mill.

Amount (units) Description

1 4 inches in diameter Stainless steel mill jar with lid.
4 17 mm inner diameter ball bearing.
2 135 mm and 50 mm outer diameter flat gears.
2 17 mm outer diameter mild steel shaft.
4 Mild steel 72mm × 72mm block.
1 1.15 kg of black gasket.
1 Set of 6mm, 10mm, and 14mm high density stainless steel
balls.
1 Type A gear belt.
2 2 meters of wooden board.
5 Packet of screws
1 135 watts of AC Motor(50hz)
1 Speed controller.

The present study aims to associate the time taken for the ball mill to grind the
materials into nanometer particles with the optimum speed of the ball mill jar. The main
control objectives are as follows. At the first place, it is necessary to maintain a stable
operation of the ball mill. The ball mill should operate at a constant and optimum speed
which is in the range of 300 rpm to 500 rpm. Within this objective, it is most important
to maintain a stable product size distribution measured as a percentage of the output
material with size of particles less than 1×10-3μm. Alternatively, the application of forces
on the particles in different size of grinding media balls causes the breakages of the
particles into nanoparticles.

6
 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, it was attempted to design and fabrication of mini ball mill. The mini ball
mill should able to grind the material to nano-powder with the optimum speed and
optimum amount of media ball. The rotation will be calculated to ensure a correct
comminution occur. The grinded material is remove and measure in nano-powder form.

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