Ball Milling

Grinding Circuits:
Challenges for designers

• Design of reactor:
• Primary Task:
– Size the reactor
– Desired output rate
– Desired product quality
• Input process variable:
– Rate constants
– Mass balance
– Thermal balance
– Heat transfer coefficient etc….
• Allow for input & extraction of energy to (accomplish the desired reaction)
• To minimize undesired reactions
• The operating system must be stable and controllable
• To meet a range of product specification
• Minimum capital expenditure, energy cost, maintenace cost/labor cost
Similar consideration apply to mill design:
Coarse powder feeds to one end of the mill
Passes down the mill
Receives breakage action due to heavy tumbling balls
Leaves as product with finer size distribution
Energy input converted to mechanical breakage action
Reaction accomplished: Size reduction

So It can be considered as a continuous Reactor

A basic step in mill circuit design is to size a mill to produce a desired tonnage per hour of a
required product from a specified feed

The capital expenditure per unit of mill capacity has to be minimized

Correct choice of mill conditions(mill speed, ball load, ball sizes, pulp
density)
Specification of the power necessary to run the mill
Expected use of energy per ton of product

Condition for minimum energy are not necessarily those for maximum
capacity
Mill should be designed to operate to get high specific mill capacity and
low specific energy consumption
(Subjected to constrainst of wear, maintenance cost, product
contamination etc..)
Desirable to know how the circuit will react to changes in operating
condition, so that corrective action can be taken by the operators etc.
As in many reactor system:
• Use of several stages of grinding with recycle
• Use of a size classifier: splits the product into two streams(oversize,
undersize)Classification
• Coarse stream: recycled back to mill feed
• Continuous screens, spiral and rake classifiers, hydrocyclones, air separator
• The design must include a specification of the optimum amount of recycle
and how to obtain it

It is necessary to choose
between several alternative
milling circuit to obtain the
most efficient
System for a particular task
Factors influencing the grinding circuit
• It is not often possible to design the grinding
components without knowing the rest of the system
• A complete design involves the rest of milling and
treatment circuit.
The following factors must be considered
– Mill size
– Mill power, specific grinding energy
– Efficient grinding conditions
– Recycle, classification efficiency
– Mill circuit behavior (under varying circuit conditions)
– Mill selection
– Economic optimization
 Definition of terms and concepts
Reactor: reacting large particle to small
particles
Reactants: is the mill feed
Is complete distribuition of size So that
a set of reactants are considered
Can be represented by a continuous
curve
Product: size distribution of material
coming out of the mill
The desired product must be clearly
specified
Usually specified by a single point (80%
-by –weight passing 75 micron)
Two points: 50% less than 38 micron ,
no more than 5% greater than 208
micron
An equivalent specific surface area of
the distribution
 Liberation

• Liberation of valuable material from a mass of

rock
Analogous to a chemical reactor, knowledge of rates at which materials break
enables the prediction of how rapidly these particle sizes disappear from mill
contents

A reasonably detailed understanding of the mill must involve a knowledge of these primary
projeny fragment distribution or the primary breakage distribution function
Rate of breakage of size i= SiwiW
Si = specific rate of breakage(is the fractional
rate of breakage e.g. kg of size i broken per
unit time per kg of size i present (time-1 )
Considering a mill of volume V containing
mass of powder W
i= size interval
wi = fraction of W which is of size i
 Residence time (retention time)
Residence time distribution

 t   0, t  
 t   1, t  
 t  Is the cumulative fraction of
feed which has emerged
at time t after admission
Plug Flow here is defined as the sudden
emergence of all traced feed
after mean residence time 
And implies no forward or backward mixing as Residence time distribution
the material moves along the mill
A fully mixed system immidiately mixes the traced material into the bulk of the charge
 t   1  exp  t  
The mean residence time 
Is define by W/F, W being the mass of powder material in the mill anf F is the feed rate
Geometry of ball charge filling
 Fractional ball filling
Fractional ball filling, J, is conventionally expressed as the fraction of
the mill filled by the ball bed at rest

Using a formal bed porosity of 0.4

Mass of Balls/Ball density 1.0

J  
Mill Volume 0.6

Since a steel volume of 0.6 gives a steel-plus-porosity volume of 1.

For normal forged steel balls, a formal porosity of 0.4 gives a bed
bulk density of 4.7t/m3
 Fraction of mill volume filled by
powder bed, fc
Mill filling by powder is expressed as the fraction of mill volume filled by the powder bed

Using a formal bed porosity of 0.4

Mass of Powder/Powder density 1.0

f  
c Mill Volume 0.6
 ‘U’ is the fraction of the spaces
between the balls at rest which is filled
with powder(0.6-1.1)

Powder loading to the ball loading

fc
U
0.4 J
 Pulp density/Slurry density
• Is defined by the fraction by weight of solids in
the mixture
w  
C
w   1  w   
s s

s s s l

C= volume fraction of solid

Where ws is the weight fraction of solid

s  l Are the specific gravities or densities of the solid and the liquid
 Levels of Complexity: Different
approaches to Mill Sizing
• In describing even simple grinding system, there a
number of levels of complexities which can be
used:
• They can be categorised as follows, in increasing
order of complexity
• 1) Global rate-of-Production method
• Global specific energy method
• Global Bond/Charles method
• Size-mass balance method
 Global rate-of-Production method
• Determine experimentally the rate of production per unit volume(kg/m3) of a
desired product from a given feed in a laboratory or pilot-plant test mill (where the
condition in the test mill are chosen to be as close as possible to those in the
production mill)
• Grinding time is adjusted to produce the desired product size
• It is then assumed that the rate of production in the big mill is the test rate
multiplied by the volume of the production mill multiplied by a scale-up factor
based on experience
• This technique is widely used but
• It gives no information on the effect of recycling with classifiesrs of various
efficiencies, the effect of change in feed sizes or production specification etc
 Global specific energy method
• Involves a laboratory or pilot plant test procedure similar to that of method1 but with the
addition of the measurement of the power to the test mill
• The power is used to calculate the specific energy of grinding (kWh/t) to go from the given
feed to the desired product size.
• It is then assumed that the specific energy of grinding to go from the given feed to the
desired product is independent of the mill design or operation.
• Thus by measuring the power (mp1 ) into a laboratory and pilot-plant mill while it is
operating at a steady output rate Q1 of the desired product from given feed, the specific
energy is obtained from
specific energy E  m p1 Q 1

• Then if a production rate of Q2 is desired from any other mill, its power will be

m p2
 EQ 
2
Q 2
Q m
1 p1

If a constant specific energy is assumed

Since the power mp2 required required to drive a mill at a desired can be calculated from
empirical equations using mill size and ball loading, an appropriate mill size is selected to
give mp2
Limitations:
Its appliaction without prior experience is tentative and
No fundamental reason why the specific energy of grinding is constant
Does not address the problems of limited mass flow through the production mill,
the correct choice of circulation, optimum operating condition etc
 Global Bond/Charles Method
• It uses elements of methods1 and 2 plus
empirical realtion, such as Bonds Law(Bond,1960)
or Charles Law(charles,1957), which describes
how the rates of production or specific energy
vary with changes in the feed size or product size
• Scale-up factors are used
• It is necessary to perform a series of empirical
corrections based on prior experience in order to
get accurate results
• All the above methods are called global
methods because they are usually applied to
the feed entering acircuit and the product
leaving the circuit and not to the real feed
distribution and real product distribution of
the mill
 Size-mass balance method

• It is the highest level of complexity, is to perform a complete size-mass balance on

all sizes in the mill using the concepts of specific rates of breakage, residence time
distribution and mathematical description of classifier action
• The scale-up from the test results to production conditions or varying mill
conditions is accomplished via a set of relations which describe how each
component in the size-mass balance varies with the mill condtions and mill size
• It leads to a reasonably exact circuit simulations suitable for optimisations and
system analysis
• Its advantages of this technique is that alterative circuits can be compared on
paper before a final design is adopted
 Charge Volume
• Mill should not be overfilled or under filled with charge
• Overfilling: accumulates charge at toe: cushioning effect
• Underfilling: Excessive ball-bal contact: retard the breakage
• The percent of mill volume occupied by the charge material is a function of bulk
volume of rock and balls
• The percent of mill volume occupied by rock VR

The percent of mill volume occupied by grinding media (balls) VB

• If the porosity of bed containing crushed rock
and crushing medium (balls) is 

Where
JR= Fraction of mill volume occupied by bulk rock charge
JB= Fraction of mill volume occupied by bulk ball charge
• If the masses of rocks and balls are MR and MB
and VM is the internal mill volume

Maximum bed porosity: 40%( corresponding to density of steel balls of 4.65

Common: 30-40%
Closely packed equi-sized ball: 26%
In practice JR/JB = 0.4
Fraction of void space between the balls in the ball charge filled by the rock
0.6-1.1
 Ball Size
Initial ball size is related to max size of feed
(Coghill and De Vancey)

Hard ore: K=37.4

Soft ore: K=29.8

K : incorporates information reharding Feed (work index, large particle size

distributionSp. Gravity of solids and slury density
Mill (Mill diameter, speed of rotation)
 Ball Size
(Rowland and Kjos)

dB= ball dia(mm)

Wi= work index of material (kWh/t)
F80= Feed size (micron)

 c
Fraction of mill critical speed

Ball mill K factor

Ball size should vary as square root of particle
size to be broken
2-inch ball….suitable for 4 mm feed
3-inch balll------suitable for 9 mm particles
The commercial size nearest to the theoritically
calculated ball size should be selected
 Size distribution of grinding media
• It has been determined that a film of metal of unit thickness is worn from
any size ball in a mill in the same grinding time.
• If the weight loss is periodically replaced as make-up ball of size B, the ball
charge reaches an equilibrium size distribution which extends down to
almost the ball size discharged from the mill. The equilibrium size
distribution follows the equation

y x  B
3.8

y = percentage of the total equilibrium charge passing any size x
 Ball Bulk Density
Rose and Sullivan

Bulk density of balls

Cast iron and steel balls are normally used

 Ball size as replacement
• Wear on the balls is directly proportional to the surface area/unit mass and hence inversely
proportional to ball diameter.
• Wear of balls depend on
• Abrasive nature of rock
• Mutual attrition
• Speed of mill rotation
• Mill diameter
• Sp. Gravity of mineral
• Work Index of mineral
• According to Bond
Average mass losses for wet and dry mills
• To maintain the grind, worn balls have to be
replaced.
• Rule of Thumb
• Add the largest size of ball charged initially at
the commencement of operation
Mill rotation and critical speed
Friction between ball and liners does occur
Friction coefficient decreases with
•Smoothness of liner
•Finesse of media
•Pulp density
•Abrasiveness of material to be ground
•The coefficient of friction µ may be determine
by using the relation

Rotation of shell/Unit time 1


Critical Speed μ

μ vc v2

Rule of Thumb: For dry grinding multiply a factor 0.65

For wet grinding : 0.70
 Rotational speed of a particle at distance Rp from the
centre

(Napier-Munn)

log   0.4532 log 1  JB

 Relation between JB and 

As JB increases, the value of  tends to be negligible and ω

p

approaches rotational speed of the mill

 Mill Condition and initial ball charge
Effect of mill speed on grinding action
It is observed that position of charge in mill
depends on speed of rotation. Higher the
speed of rotation, relatively higher up the
mill wall will be the Top end(shoulder)and
bottom end (Toe) of the charge

Effect of ball charge on grinding

Relation of shoulder and toe position
with critical speed

Toe and Shoulder angle (in Radians) respectively with the horizontal
 Mill Capacity (Bond)
Capacity of mill depends on
– Mill dimension
– Type of mill
– Mill speed
– Mill loading
– Product size required
– Work Index
– Mill Shaft power
– SG of Rock

…(Bond)
 Mill Capacity (Austin)

Correction factor includes all correction

That are required for dtermination of Wi
Open & closed circuit grinding
Wet & Dry grinding
Over size feed and under size fine grinding

CF = 6.3 (Rowland and Kjos) for all mill

Mill Power draw(mechanical methods)
• Mill power is a function of mill capacity and mill dia

…Austin

L= Mill length
D= Mill dia K= Constant

Density of ball
Rose and Sullivan Method

Assuming that power draw is proprtionla to the fraction of critical speed

And rock particle travel in the same manner as the balls
It is valid when mill speed is less than 80% of critical speed
 Bond Method
• Power drawn by mill is
» Directly proportional to length of the mill
» Function of mill speed
» Function of total mass of grinding media and rock
» Function of feed characteristic
» Function of work index of material

Mill power varied linearly with Bond mill factor Fc which in turn
a function of critical speed
Power (Wet Ball Mills)

FB = ball size factor is added to the above equation

From Stone Age Space Age
Panda Oleosa
CHIMPANZEES AND NUT CRACKING
Chimpanzees in some regions of West Africa
have a culture of nut cracking that may extend
back 2.6 million years:
• In the Tai forest (Ivory Coast) mother chimpanzees teach their infants the
tasty art of nut cracking which takes about seven years to master
because About 1,000 kg of skillfully applied force are required to split the
nut without pulverizing it.

• The stone hammers—rocks—acquired by the chimps are carried to

specific nut-cracking sites where the chimps pound the golf-ball-size nuts
of the Panda oleosa tree to expose the three seeds within.

•Powerful hits are required to initially crack the thick outer shell of the Panda nut;

•Then a series of hits are precisely graded to crack the inner shells without
shattering the almonds.

•The nut must be repositioned at least three times during this process.
 HOMINIDS AND SIZE REDUCTION
• Size reduction—the oldest engineering process—
• Had its beginnings in prehistoric times, when early humans pounded grains and nuts with stones to
free the edible inner parts from the hard protective shells.
• The mortar and pestle, a combination of a bowl-shaped container (the mortar) and a rod with a
flat-surfaced hammer (the pestle), was the earliest tool used for this task, and, in principle, has
remained unchanged throughout the ages.
• It is still used today in chemical laboratories and pharmacies.

•The remains of seven types of 780,000-year-old nuts have been found at the
•Gesher Benot site in Israel’s Hula Valley.

•The nuts and the stone tools found with them are the first evidence that various
types of nuts formed a major part of man’s diet 780,000 years ago

•and that hominids had developed an assortment of tool to crack open nuts during
the Early-Middle Pleistocene Period.
The grinding stone that is the centerpiece of the
Women’s Memorial in Pretoria, South Africa
 Theoritical mill powder draw
• The theoretical approach to estimate the mill power draw is based on the concept that in
atumbling mill like the ball mill, repeated forces of impact, compression, abrasion and
attrition operate in a complex manner.
• Due to the application of these complex forces, energy transference take place resulting in
stress concentrations within particles.
• When the forces of stress are greater than the bonding energy the particles disintegrate into
two or more particles.
• Thus the rupture of particles in a tumbling mill is a complicated function of the transference
of energy from the grinding media and the mill to the ore particles.
• Both kinetic and potential energies are transferred to the charge by the rotation of the mill
and the felling of the balls (media) from a height.
• The result is the production of heat and sound energies and the rupture of bond energies
between particles
• Austin,Morrel and Napier –Munn assesd the
total energy transferred to the charge from
mill rotation and related it to the power
required to rotate the mill while empty and
when fully charged
 Assumptions (Morrell)
1. The power drawn was related to the transference of kinetic and potential energies
from the rotating mill to the grinding media and charge which was translated to kinetic
and potential energies of the charge as it moved within a rotating mill
2. The energy transferred was recovered by the mill. The heat and sound energy
produced was neglected
3. Power was equal to energy per unit time
4. During wet grinding in an overflow mill, the movement of the toe of the charge was
of importance
5. In wet grinding the slurry in the centre did not affect the torque of the mill shaft as
the load was distributed evenly around the centre
6. The mass of the slurry influenced the friction between the charge and the mill lining
and therefore affected the torque, but its magnitude was small and therefore neglected
in the derivation of the power equation.

The total power was considered as the sum of the power

required at the cylindrical section plus the power required
by the two conical end sections plus the power to rotate an
empty mill.
To rotate the mill with no load, D= Mill dia
 Consider an element of the mill of
length=L
Radial distance= Ri
Width=dR

The mass flow rate through the element QM

Where,
= Tangential velocity of a particle located at any distance R from the centre(m/s)

= density of the total charge, t/m3

 Potential Energy
• The rate of associated potential energy PE

Where, g= acceleration due to gravity

 Kinetic energy

The rate of imparting kinetic energy (KE) to the particles

 Total energy generated
• Hence the rate at which total energy ET is
generated will be the sum of potential and kinetic
energy
 = Rotational speed of the mill

R= mill radius
Rp = Radil position
= Theoritical radial position in the active charge where velocity Is zero
In the equation and integrating between the limits Ri and R gives the power PCYPL
for the cylindrical portion of the mill as

log   0.4532 log 1  JB

For overflow mill
 To evaluate the above The following
have to be determined

Ri is estimated by considering the active mass of the charge, the time taken for the
Charge to travel from the toe to shoulder position and the time taken for the charge to
travel from the Shoulder and fall to the toe The inner boundary of the active charge is Ri

Thus for a given mass of charge if the position of the toe and shoulder are known
through the angles

The volume fraction of the active part of the charge to the total charge
The mean time in above equation are related to the mean rotational speed
Density of the total Charge

Substituting the calculated value of Ri and

The power required by the cylindrical and cone portion is calculated.

The total power required by the mill is then

P= No load Power+Pcyl +Pcone

 Work index

• Work index is the comminution parameter which expresses the

resistance of the material to crushing and grinding.

• Numerically work index is the kWh per short ton required to reduce the
material from theoretically infinite feed size to 80 percent passing100
micron.Bond’s theory applies reasonably in the range of conventional rod mill

and ball mill grinding

 Ball mill grindability test
• The standard feed was prepared by passing all through 6 mesh sieve.
• It was screen analysed and packed by shaking in a 1000 cc graduated
cylinder,
• Weight of 700 cc was placed in the mill and ground dry at 250 percent
circulating load.
• The mill is 12” X 12” with rounded corners, and a smooth lining except for a
4” X 8” hand hole door for charging. It has a revolution counter and runs at
70 rpm.
• The grinding charge consists of 285 iron balls weighing 20.125 kg.
It consists of about
• 43 numbers of 1.45” balls, 67 numbers of 1.17” balls, 10 numbers of 1” balls,
71 numbers of 0.75” balls and 94 numbers 0.61” balls with a calculated
surface area of 842 sq inch.
 Ball mill grindability test

• After the first grinding period of 100 revolutions, the mill was dumped;

• The ball charge was screened out and 700 cc of material was screened on sieves of
the mesh size tested.
• The undersize was weighed and fresh unsegregated feed was added to oversize to
bring its weight back to that of original charge.
• Then it was returned on to the mill and ground for the number of revolutions
required, calculated to produce 250 percent circulating load,dumped and
rescreened.
• The number of revolution required is calculated from the results of previous
period to produce sieve undersize equal to 1/3.5 of the total charge in the mill.
 Ball mill grindability test

• The grinding period cycles were continued until the net grams of sieve undersize
produced per mill revolution reaches equilibrium and reverses its direction of increase
or decrease. Then the undersize product and circulating load were screen analyzed, and
the average of the last three net grams per revolution (GPR) was taken.

• When F is the size in microns which 80 per cent of the new ball mill feed passes, P is the
microns which 80 percent of the last cycle sieve undersize product passes, and P1 is the
opening in microns of sieve size tested , then the ball mill work index Wi is calculated
from the following equation.

Wi = 44.5 /{ ( P1)0.23 X ( GPR)0.82 X 10 (1 / √ P - 1/√F)}

• For dry grinding the work input should be multiplied by 1.3

Factors affecting work index
 Selection and Design of Mill Liners

Function
1. Protection of mill shell from the aggressive impacting and abrasive
environment (maintenance cost)
• Treated as a cost overhead and a cause of downtime
• Use of liner that last as-long-as possible and inexpensive
• Cost saving lead to development of profile liners
1. To transfer rotary motion of the mill to the grinding media and charge
1. Affects mill performance
So
Poor Liner design has detrimental effects on milling
performance and on liner life as follows
– Increased operational cost
– Loss of revenue
– Reduced milling efficiency
– Excessive power usage
– Decreased recovery of valuable minerals
– Exorbitant liner material cost
– Excessive down time
– Impacts plant throughput
 Types of Liners
Design and structure

• Design of liner is driven by the material of construction and the application and is
limited by casting, moulding and handling constraints
– Use of liner handling machine are in use now –a -days
– Led to use of large integral liner blocks (each weighing upto 1.5t)
– Leads to minimising relining time(due to fewer blocks to handle)

Solid steel liners with Integral Lifter bars (For large mills)
Removable Lifter Bars

For smaller mills

Handled and installed manually
 List of Primary Types Liners
(their application,advantages,disadvantages)

1. Solid liners:
These type of liners have an integral lifter and
liner
• Advantages
– Fewer pieces, easy to install
• Disadvantage:
High scrap weight (as the lifter section is worn down,liner
performance drops and necessitates change-out)
2. Removable Lifters
• In a liner with removable lifter, the lifter can
be changed rather than the complete Liner
• Advantages:
– Maximising liner life
– Assisting in manually relined mills
• Disadvantages
– More pieces to install
– Lifters can shift and work loose
3. Grid Liners
Grinding media packs in the grid structure and formsan integral part of
liner (unique to South Africa).
Flat profile
Suited to the high speeds(85-90%)
Advantages
Economically suitable for highly abrasive ore
Light weight
Make use of grinding media hardness to provide an effective wear
material
Disadvantages:
Safety (risk of ball dislodging when the mill is entered for inspection)
Uni-Directional Profiled Liners
The lifter has different leading and trailing profiles.
The profile can be better customised to suit mill speed and filling and therefore
optimise performance
It allows more material in the lifter for agiven base width
But mill must run only in one direction
High-low double –wave ball mill liner
These liners are a refinement of the wave liner
Provides a more consistent wear profile and wear rate
 Materials
• The selection of the construction material is a
function of the application,abrasivity of
ore,size of ball,corrosion environment,size of
balls, mill speed
• Liner design and material are integral and an
not be chosen out of context
• Austenitic anganese steel(AMS): Generally used
for grid liners
• In smaller units
• Advangaes: It hardens under stress, substrate
• Remains tough and can withand extreme
impacting without fracture
• Disadvantage: It spreads with ipact, so solid liners
begin to squeeze together and become extremely
difficult to remove and can damage a mill shell if
the stress is allowed to build to an extreme level
 Low-carbon chrome moly steel(300 to 370 BHN)

• It has excellent wear characteristics with

impact resistance
• Generally used for discharge grates where
slightly better impact resistance is required
 High Carbon chrome moly steel(325-380BHN

• This steel is now considered the main material

used for SAG mill liners.
• There are a number of variation with either
different carbon or chrome content which has
a bearing on the size of the liner and its
section thickness
 Nihard iron (550 BHN)
• It is highly abrasive-resistant wear material
• Used in rod and ball mills
 High Chrome irons(+600BHN)
chromuim iron
• Superior wear wear-abrasion characteristics
• Generally used in rod and ball mills
• More cost-competitive and more brittle
Chrome moly white irons(600-700BHN
• This cast material is considred to be the
ultimate
• For abrasion resistance in milling
• Comonly used in cement mills and in some
largest ball mills in the world
 Rubber Liners

The interplay of a material and its configuration are significant in rubber liners
used successfully in primary, secondary and regrinding milling application

In addition to their abrasaion resistance, they are also resistant to most chemicals.
The more technical term for rubber is elstomer.

A good elastomer for mill liner would have an elongation of 500-600%,

which means that it can be stretched five to six times its length without damaging it.

In addition, the tensile strength should be around 20.68 Mpa(3,000 psi).

The third important physical characteristics is harness (should be 55-70 durometer on the
A scale)
The material used for a rubber liner usually consists of a blend of natural and synthetic
rubber(The mixture of rubber, synthetic material plus various chemicals and filler
(Compound)
 Rubber and Steel Composite

The material used for metal cap is similar to that used for metal lining.

The joining of the metal and rubber has to be with a chemical bond plus a mechanical
Type of attachment to ensure positive fastening
Rubber is one-seventh the weight of metal and cost is less.So it is beneficial to utilise
Rubber wherever possible
By strategically placing the metal cap material with minimal amount of metal, best
economy can be obtained
Designing steel-capped liners for even
wear
 Magnetic Liners

The lining system in magnetic liners consists of permanent magnets embeded

Ina rubber moulding.
The powerful magnets keep the lining in place without liner bolts and ensure that
Lining attracts magnetically susceptible material available in mill.
This form a thin, continuous layer in a wave profile
Total thickness of magnetic ling is less than conventinal lining.The millwill thus have
Alarger effective diameter(
Ideal for fine grinding,lowering of media consumption (by atleast 10%)
Expensive(due to complicated manufacturing process).But can give years of
trouble free operation
Magnets are not resistant to impact because they are brittle
• They are suitable in mills of > 12ft dai using
maximum 1-inch balls
• And in mills < 12 ft dai using 1.5 inch balls.
• Also useds successfully in vertical stirred mills

• (ELKAB Kiruna Iron ore operation in Sweden)

 Symptomps of poor liner design
1. Noisy Mill
A distinctive rattling: Balls impacting directly on liner,
rather than on toe….
The consequence of balls impacting on liners are:
– Greatly accelerated liner wear
– Reduced milling efficiency
– Lower power draw
– Ball fracture
– Loosening of liner bolts

Mill listening Device(direct impact monitoring):

Decibel monitoring to full Fourier analysis of
frequency spectrum(IMMT, JKMRC)
2. Broken Liners:
Results from media impacting directly on the
liner (severe in large AG/SAG mill)
 3.Excessive Liner wear
If the liners have low or flat profile, this generally indicates
excessive slip of the grinding media on the liner

Consequence of excessive slip are as follows:

• Liner wear increases substantially and can show evidence of
circumferential grooving of the lining
• There is a substantial loss of energy transfer to the mill(10% loss of energy
due to slip)
• Reduced mill throughput results from reduced milling efficiency
 An incorrect mill product size can result from the
incorrect tumbling action…

• Primary mills require vigorous action with high-energy impacts to fracture

the ore. If the action is cascading, then a fine product and low throughput
would result.
• Regrind mills require a cascading action to maximise the frequency of
abrasion interaction. High-Energy impacting wastes energy, reduces the rate
of abrasion interaction,thus reducing the ability of the mill to produce
to produce fines. This results in a high recirculating load of the oversized
particles and a reduced mill throughput.
 Influence of Lifter Bar Height on Liner Profile

It is well known that the height of the lifter bar directly influences the life of the liner block.-The
higher the lifter bar, the lower the wear rate of the liner.
But the mill production drops as the lifter bar height is increased above an optimum height.
In assessing the wear of a liner, it is useful to monitor the wear of backing block relative to the
height the lifter bar.
In a test (Powel-1991) this provided a direct correlation between the lifter height and liner wear
The study showed a drop of >40% in liner wear rate when the lifter bars were renewed from
35 mm to 80 mm in height.
This showed that: Extending the life of lifter bars----penalty of accelerated wear of liner.
Different material respond differently.
The onset of accelerated liner wear also can be used to give a indication of when slip of charge
on the liner begins to occur.
This can give the ability to balance the life of the lifter bar with that of backing liner.
Monitoring the full profile of a liner as it wears is useful in providing the input for calculating the
Changing charge trajectories as the profile wears
 Optimising Liner Design
Tuning liners to an application (Benefits)
• AG/SAG maximises media drop height to maximise impact grinding
• Ensures a cascading action for regrind mills
• Avoids impact on the mill shell
• Maximise Liner life by providing sufficient protection with lifter bars
• Prevents ball breakage by avoiding impacts directly on to the shell
• Maximises mill throughput with correct spacing and and height of lifter bar-an
essential factor in liner design
Balances liner life and mill throughput with a protective profile of the lining while
retaining the correct charge motion of the grinding media
Utilising outer charge trajectories to
design liner profiles
MillTraj Software (developed
Liner Design service).
Predicts the trajectories of the
Outermost layer of the charge.
It predicts the likely position of the Toe.
(strongly depends upon mill filling)
So selection of a suitable liner design must
be according to operating filling rang

Another important desisn criterion for mill

Liner is the Spacing to Height (S/H) ratio of
the Lifter Bar.
Applicable to AG/SAG Mill
S/H is strongly depended on mill speed.
S/H varies varies as the liner wears.(Skega)
Should start with a low value and finish
with a high value when the liner is repaced
 Other factors
Utilising Charge trajectory positions
• Lifter bar face angle
• Lifter bar height
• Mill speed

Trajectory for different angled lifter bar

Influence of mill speed on ball
trajectory
 Summary of optimising Liner Design
Design guidelines

• Maximise media drop height to maximise impact grinding (for primary AG/SAG)
mills)
• Ensure a cascading action for regrind mill
• Avoid impact on mill shell by ensuring that balls and rocks land on the toe of the
grinding media
• Maximise liner life by providing sufficient protection with lifter bars or an integral
liner profile
• Prevent ball breakage by promoting the correct casacding action and avoiding
impacts directly on to the mill shell
• Maximise mill throughput with correct spacing and height of lifter bars-an
essential factor in liner design
• Balance liner life and mill throughput by maximising the protective profile of the
• Lining whie retaining correct charge motion of the grinding media
Changing profile of alifter bar in 24 ft
Dai SAG Mill
 Rod Mills

Rods: As grinding media

Used For: Primary grinding of rocks and minerals
Rods: placed parallel to the mill with length 150 mm shorter than inside length of mill
Breakage action: predominant by cascading action than by cataracting
Product size: much more uniform than ball mill but coarser
So Rod mill generally precedes a ball mill in a grinding circuit especially when fine size
Product is required
Type: Overflow Discharge (Most commonly used)
Centre peripheral discharge
End Peripheral Discharge
• Length to Diameter ratio of mills
(1.2-2.3)
Ratio of Rod Length: Mill dia(Should be greater
than 1.25 to avoid the risk of rod tangling)
Recommended ratio: 1.4-1.6
Cross Section of Rods: Circular(most
comon),Square and hexagonal
Liner wear in Rod mills are more sever than in
ball mill
Design of Rod Mill-Ball Mill Circuits

Rod Mill Open Circuit, Ball mill Closed Circuit

Rod Mill: operated in open circuit

Provide a uniform feed size to the ball mill
Rod Mill open circuit, Ball mill closed circuit with common discharge

Rod mill product is classified and then fed to ball mill

More uniform feed size to ball
Increases grinding efficiency of ball mill
Common Discharge point
Rod Mill open circuit, Ball mill closed circuit with double classification circuit

Both Rod Mill and Ball mill products are subject to classifier action
Result: To bring about a more controlled size of the final product
• In some cases Open circuit Single Stage Rod
mills are used especially when the product is
directly used for gravity concentration.
• Closed Circuit Rod Milling is uncomon but may
be used when a coarse grind and tight
tolerance is required on oversize particles in
product
• Rod Mill Charge:Usually occupies 45% of mill
internal volume.
• Operating Bed porosity: 40%(comon)
• Overcharging & Undercharging: leads to poor
grinding (abrasion of rods and liners)
• Feed Size: coarser than ball mill(6-25 mm)
• For efficient use of rod:They should operate
Parallel to the central axis and body of the mill
 Rod wear pattern

Pulp Density: 60-70% solid by mass

• Rod Length(recommended):
Ratio of Rod Length: mill diameter-1.4-1.6
Rod Dimension: Inverse function of speed
With higher speed of rotation, smaller rod of
large numbers may be equally effective as
smaller number of large number of rods
Rod should be 152 mm shorter than inside
length of mill
• Rod Diameter (Rowland and Kjos)
• Work index, feed size, density(ore characteristics)
 Reduction Ratio in Rod Mills
• Reduction Ratio ‘R’ varies between 2-20
depending on ore characteristics.
• Usual reduction ratio is around 8
• Reduction ratio is a function of length and
diameter of mill (Bond)
• The Optimum Reduction ratio RRO
• Reduction ratio is affected when the production rate is increased or
coarser product is required.
Inefficiency factor (FI ) is applied
The actual reduction ratio is related to optimum reduction ratio
 Rod Mill Capacity

Capacity is proportional to length and diameter of mill

Austin
Effect of mill diameter on mill capacity
(for two reduction ratio)
Effect of mill length on capacity of Rod
Mills(for different mill dia)
Effect of reduction ration on capacity
of rod mills (for different mill dimension)
 Limitations
• Capacity of rod mills are limited by practical
opertional problems
Power Draft(Rowland and Kjos)
Mill Speed
 Autogenous and Semi-Autogenous Mills

• Grinding mills in which comminution takes place without

grinding aids are known as Autogenous Grinding (AG) Mills or
Fully Autogenous Grinding Mills(FAG)
• These Mills use large lumps of rocks as grinding media
• Mills that use intermediate size of grinding rocks or pebbles
are also autogenous mills but are known as Pebble Mills
• Mills that grind hard ores with fracture characteristics that do
not let themselves to fully autogenous milling are charged
with small amount of steel balls to assist in the size
reduction(Semi-Autogenous Grinding Mills) SAG Mills
• Disintegration and size reduction of ore takes
place by a combination of impact, abrasion
and attrition during mill rotation
• At toe: receive maximum Impact force
• In the Body: partly slide from different height
and are subjected to attrition and abrasion
• So
• AG/SAG mills use cheaper grinding media in replacement of
expensive steel balls and rods which greatly affect the steel
liners and therefore less expensive to operate.
• It is necessary that the ore should provide sufficient amount
of lumps that would last for a reasonable time to act as
grinding media. Such ores have been described as Competent
Ores. Ore that break easily are referred to as incompetent ore
• They have successfully replaced the conventional Rod Mill-
Ball Mill configuration
• Recent Increase in use worldwide
• One of the main interest: Possibility of eliminating at least
one crushing stage from the conventional size reduction
process leading to saving in capital expenditure in plant
design.
• Used mostly for hard ores(hard gold and copper ores) with
BWI 12-14 kW/t
• Then extended to softer ores(bauxite,clayey hard-capped gold
ores etc)
 Design of AG/SAG Mills
• These mills have high diameter to Length (D/L) ratio
Three types of commercially made now-a- days.
 Some Facts
• Cadia Hill (Australia) Wet SAG Mill (12.2 m
diameter) with 20MW motor: largest diamter
mill in operation in world (2004)
 Design of AG/SAG Circuits
• Commonly used circuits for AG/SAG Mills
Open Circuit
Product Size: Coarse
Finer and more uniform Product
Closed Circuit grinding with grinding with classifiers
• The main problem is the in operation is the
tendency to build up the 25-50 mm fraction of
the charge which hampers the throughput.
This specific size fraction that buils up in the
mill is known as Critical Size.
• Therefore pretreatmet of feed should be such
that there preence is minimal
• SAG mills are helpful: When wide variation in
grindability of ore
 Operation of AG/SAG Mill
• Feed Size:
• Optimum Feed Size: 150-300 mm
 Mill Speed
• AG Mill (80-85% of Critical Speed)
• SAG Mills: 70-75% 0f critical Speed
Ball wear
AG/SAG Mill Power
(MacPhersan and Turner)