®

Xlift
Innovative Shell Lining

for Tube Mill

Page 1
XLIFT® INNOVATIVE SHELL LINING FOR TUBE MILL

Xlift®, innovative lining concept for ball mills, is the answer of Magotteaux R&D to the new
requirements of the cement industry.

A. DESCRIPTION
Xlift® is a modular system consisting of 3
standard plates that can be installed according to
various arrangements on the mill shell.
The versatile combination of the 3 plates allows
various lifting patterns; from the most
aggressive to the smoothest lift.
Xlift® is now available for all first chambers and
for the first rows of monochamber DIN drilled mills, and other similar mills, with shell diameter
between 3.0m and 5.4m.
An equivalent solution, for the second chambers and for the last rows of monochamber mills, is
now developed, the Xclass®.

Compared with conventional liners, Xlift® plates are smaller, -actually half the size-, and lighter.
The 3 standard plates weight respectively 17kg, 21 kg and 25kg.

A B C
Xlift® liners, cast on a single new production line located in Belgium, come with the highest
precision, with a perfect and clean aspect.

The new high-chrome alloy with enhanced characteristics, combined with the more compact
geometry of the Xlift® liners, ensures a better wear resistance and the total safety against
breakage.

Page 2
Installation of Xlift® liners is different from
conventional liners.
The system of wedges and high quality
accessories together with tight tolerances on the
plates allow a faster installation and reduce the
necessary labour.

B. RELATED BENEFITS

The specific features of Xlift® generate various advantages compared to conventional liners.
These advantages turn into savings and benefits for the customers and the end users.

1. REDUCTION OF MAINTENANCE COSTS

At installation, Xlift® permits already a substantial time and

labour saving.
The modularity of the liners, their precision and their reduced
weight, the new assembly system and the high quality of the
accessories, allow a reduction of about 30 percent on the time of
installation.
This advantage is particularly appreciated when the mill
downtime is a concern and when there is need to resume
production at the earliest.
On the other hand, the related installation costs, either
subcontracted or at the charge of the plant maintenance, are
reduced in the same proportions.

Xlift®, light (max. 24Kg) and being clean of rough surface and
oil, can be handled easily with a maximal security.
These features are welcome by the maintenance staffs and their
subcontractors, and definitively in line with the concerns of the
modern standards for security.

Page 3
In operation, Xlift® does not need specific maintenance attention and no replacement work of
individual plate since the liners are fitted on the shell through a semi-vault effect, similar to the
one of the bricks in a kiln.

In answer to preventive maintenance requirements, Xlift® is designed to be replaced per

complete chamber or possibly per portion of complete chamber.

2. EASIER LOGISTIC AND DELIVERY

The Xlift® liners being standard, their production is made easier and better controlled.
Magotteaux prepares a substantial stock of plates, always available to answer the urgent needs of
the customers. Other special plates such as liners for the manhole or liners adjacent to the
diaphragm are cast from existing patterns or with our DMM, direct moulding machine, that
allows a direct casting without pattern.
In this way, more than 85% of the liners are delivered within 2 weeks; the balance is available in
a lead-time of 2 months from order.
Furthermore Xlift® liners come in a new ”no nail” package, easier to be handled and opened, and
identified for its content with electronic markings. Thus, facilitating the stock management, at
producer’s end, as well as at customer’s end.

3. INCREASING GRINDING PERFORMANCE

The modularity of Xlift® is dual; modularity on the

circumference, where liners with different lifts can be
combined, and modularity on the mill axis, where the whole
lifting pattern can change.

It is, for example, possible to reline the first meters of a mill

chamber according to a relatively aggressive lifting pattern
and to reline the last meter with a smoother one.
Thanks to the dual modularity, one can choose the best
combination based on the product to be ground, and so create a tailor made solution.
Xlift® has been well designed to maintain a more constant profile along its working life.

Taking advantage of these two characteristics, one can choose the perfect design for the chamber
lining and optimise its grinding performances.

Page 4
4. SIMPLIFYING THE LINER MANAGEMENT

Xlift® plates being standard, the very same liners can be used in several mills, within a same
plant or a same group.
A same stock can be available for several users.

Grinding and wear performances can easily be identified and monitored for specific
combinations of Xlift® liners. Extrapolations can be carried on for other mills and other grinding
conditions.
The grinding costs related to the mill liners can be figured out, and the effect of the change of
design on these costs, calculated.

At group level, liners may be purchased together for several mills and several plants. The
delivery schedules are not anymore urgent concerns, and the stock replenishments become non-
critical regular procedure.

C. THE TESTS PHASES

In the following paragraphs we present the different test phases from the tests in laboratories to
the industrial processes.

1. TEST IN LABORATORIES

Before launching the industrial tests a long series of experiences were held at Slegten, our R&D
department for grinding process.

Context and goal of the tests conducted at the Slegten laboratory.

When designing a new lining, some parameters must to be taken into consideration:

- The expected lifetime of the plates

- The way they will be manufactured
- How easy they could be installed
- How efficient they are, as grinding elements.

The first 3 points were discussed earlier and only the liner efficiency will be explained in this
chapter.

Page 5
More particularly, when liners for the first chamber are involved, the crushing capability is the
most important characteristic. However, any unusual behaviour detrimental to the comminuting
process should also be observed and taken into account.
The way the material does move forward within the grinding bodies is one of the most important
mater. If the material does not proceed properly, it accumulates between the balls in such a way
that these grinding media move apart from each other, the consequence of this being a drop in
the crushing performances.
“Fluidisation” of the material is necessary and must occur. Thus, it has to be made sure that
enough fine particles are generated.

On the other hand, if the speed of penetration of the material inside the balls does exceed its
evacuation, accumulation will occur together with a loss of efficiency.

Some circumstantial parameters like the moisture of the fed material, a coarse particle size
distribution, or the particular hardness of a component could generate such undesirable
behaviours when the shell liner shape is not well adapted.

Compact balls charges are favourable to the production of fine particles, while “open and
expanded” ball charges are not; they are however, to some extend, better-adapted to break the
coarse and/or hard pieces of material feed.
The material enters slowly into compact charges, and, in some extent, moves forward above the
charges; at the contrary, the material rushes too quickly into ball charges that are too expanded,
which could annihilate the desired crushing process.

Methodological base.

By now, at Magotteaux, a large range of existing lining shapes is available for the first
compartment (Smooth Step, Corrugated Step, Duolift, Duostep …).
Regarding the process, their industrial behaviours and application fields are well known.

The comparison between the trajectories generated by an unknown lining profile and the
corresponding trajectories with well known shapes allow to understand the process behaviour of
the new lining and to classify it within the range.

Page 6
Hardware

The tests are performed in a mill 800 x 400 mm. The revolution speed as well as the applied
torque is carefully measured.
A glazed bottom allows the ball charge to be filmed while moving. After digitalisation of the
pictures, the typical parameters of the moving ball charge can be measured

For our tests, the conventional liners profiles, as well as the Xlift® profiles, have been strictly
scaled down, being similar to industrial plate in mills of 4.0m and 5.6 m diameter.

Balls of 15 and 12 mm have been used at different filling grades (5 fillings) and at 4 different
speeds. To compare accurately the several shapes of liners, the trials have been performed
without material. Indeed, with coarse material at the inlet of a first chamber, some effect occurs,
that increases the lifting, which is not desirable for our tests.

Distinctive parameters of the ball charges in motion.

Our tests have been conducted with several ball filling degrees and several rotation speeds, and
this, for the mill equipped with various types of liners, including the Xlift® profiles.
For each test, several parameters have been measured and reported, including the lift angle and
the ball charge expansion.

Page 7
 Low lift liner, low rotation speed High lift liner, high rotation speed
Snapshot at long exposition time Snapshot at long exposition time

Same as above Same as above

Snapshot at short exposition time Snapshot at short exposition time

The pictures above show the ball charge patterns in 2 different situations, rather opposite.
The 2 photos on the left show the ball charge in the mill operating with a smooth liner at relatively
low speed of rotation.
The 2 photos on the right show the same ball charge in the mill operating with an aggressive lifting
liner at relatively high speed of rotation.
The photos at the top have been taken with a longer exposition time to show better the trajectories
of the balls.
The photos at the bottom have been taken with a shorter exposition time to show better the actual
position of the balls and the compactness of the charge.
One can see that with the low lift liners, the charge is more compact and the balls are rolling on
each other (Cascading trajectory) and with the high lift liners, the charge is expanded and part of
the balls are projected and do not have contact between each other (Cataracting trajectory).

Page 8
It is compulsory to understand well the effect of the liner shape on the ball trajectory when
designing the liners for one mill chamber.

A few results

Many similar tests as above have been conducted in our laboratory to compare existing profiles
to the new Xlift® profiles.
All these tests have been done, at scale, with different liners running at different speed of
rotation and with different ball charge level
On the diagram below, we can see the changes on the lifting angle for different types of lifting
liners and this at various filling degrees.

RELEVAGE - REMPLISSAGE 75 % VC
DIAMETRE 4 M
35.0
REMPLISSAGE %

30.0
AAAA
ACAC
STEP OND
25.0

20.0
125 130 135 140 145 150 155
RELEVAGE ρ (°)

Page 9
 Mill 4.0m diameter, 30% filling degree, Mill 5.6m diameter, 30% filling degree,
75% CS, Profile Xlift® ABAB 80% CS, Profile Xlift® ABAB

The 2 photos above show a similar ball charge pattern for 2 different mills scaled in proportion.
For our tests we have taken different sizes of small balls to represent and visualize the layers of
balls as in real mills.
In actual, balls of same diameters are used independently of the size of the mill. As a
consequence, the number of ball layers increased with the size of the mill. And due to the sliding
effect between layers of balls, the movement of the balls inside the charge would be slower for
big mills than for small mills.
However, big mills are designed with a speed of rotation closer to the critical speed than small
mills. For this reason, the trajectories remain similar independently of the diameter of the mill.

Conclusions of the laboratory tests

The several Xlift® profiles AAAA, ABAB, ABAC, ACAC generate trajectories with
characteristics similar to the ones of existing lifting linings.
The tests extensively conducted in our laboratory have precisely described the behaviour of the
ball charges in different operating conditions and with all kinds of liners.
It may be noted that, with regard to the trajectories, some combinations of liners, ball charges
and speeds of rotation, must be avoided; these trajectories implying loss of energy and such
levels of impact that they may be dangerous for the mill internals.

Page 10
Our tests have been completed with the measurement of the power absorbed by the mill for
various lifting angles and various levels of ball charge expansion.
With all this amount of information, Slegten, our Process Department, has drawn tables of Xlift®
combinations best adapted to the mill operating parameters.

D. THE ACTUAL CASES

From the 1st industrial application where these new liners were installed, several other Xlift®
have been observed to come to the final version.
The first Xlift® were installed in mills, grinding cement and raw material, in Belgium, in
Germany and in France.
Our first customers, who adapted the concept, were Dyckerhoff, Heidelberg, Holcim, Italcementi
and Lafarge.
They allowed us to install our new liners in their mills, -some in very severe operating
conditions-, and to monitor their performances.
This collaboration was very precious and gave us the chance to fine tune up our product and to
come with the final version that has been installed for the first time in a 4.0m diameter Cement
Mill at Ciment d’Origny of the Holcim Group, early 2002.

At Ciment d’Origny, Xlift® was placed in less than 3 days.

The new liners were monitored and were confirmed perfect in operation; no breakage and no
wear after several months.

E. CONCLUSIONS

More than 100 Xlift® lining systems have been installed in mills and have proven to meet the
new requirements of the industry.
The innovative features of Xlift® have been welcome by the customers and the end users.
Magotteaux is now ready to supply and install Xlift® in mills between 3.0 and 5.4m diameters.

Page 11