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CHMT 5000A:
Unit Processes - Milling
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Unit Processes-
Milling
Lecture Content:
• Learning Outcomes
• Comminution
• Size reduction principles
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Learning Outcomes
By the end of the lecture you should:
• Understand basic principles of milling.
• Have knowledge of various unit processes.
• Have knowledge on application.
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Size Reduction
• Size reduction: is the stage where mined rocks are
successfully reduced into the required size until
most of the gangue and mineral occur as separate
particles. This is achieved through milling.
• Key points
– Mill Equipment and Behaviour
– Ore Characterisation
– Mill Sizing
– Process Modelling
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Comminution
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Size Reduction
Objective
Prepare a finished
product of required
size or prepare a feed
size for the next
processing stage e.g.
road pebbles, flotation
feed, power boiler
feed.
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Mills
A mill is a device that breaks solid materials into smaller
pieces by grinding, crushing, or cutting.
Steel: Rods
Balls
Cyl Pebs
Cones
Rock: Run-of-mine: < 1m (surface mining)
< 0.3m (underground)
Autogenous– 0.3m after primary crushing
Pebble (selected from feed: eg. 100 < ℓ < 150mm)
Semi – Autogenous:
Steel balls, cylpebs added to autogenous or
ROM media
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Types of Mills
• Ball Mills
• Rod mills
• Autogenous mills
• Sag
• Pebble
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Ball
Mills
• Ball mills are used to process materials such as ores, ceramic raw
material ect. The rotate around a horizontal axis (partially filled with
material and grinding medium
• Grind randomly.
Disadvantages:
• Balls wear away. Cost for ball
consumption is significant.
• Balls (and rods) have limited ability to
break particles larger than about 20
mm.
• Liner wear becomes excessive if mills
run faster than about 75% critical.
This constitutes a power limitations.
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Rod Mills
• Rod mills have similar mechanics to ball mills, except that they use
rods instead of balls. The rods grinds material through tumbling it
within the mill.
• Used for primary milling (grind large particles).
Disadvantages:
• Rods wear away and are expensive
• Rod mills can only operating in
cascading mode
• Danger of ‘rod-tangles’
• No good for fine grinding
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Autogenous Mills
Autogenous involves the self-grinding of the ore: a rotating drum throws
larger rocks of ore in a cascading motion which causes impact breakage
of larger rocks and compressive grinding of finer particles
Advantages:
• No cost for consumption of media
• Media wear constitutes desirable ore breakage.
• Only a primary crushing circuit needed
Disadvantages:
• SG of Media ~ 2.7 compared to ~ 7.5 for balls/rods
• Variability of the media presents control problemsDanger of ‘rod-
tangles’
• Accumulation of ‘critical size’ particles 12
Grinding Rotation
Cascading Action Cataracting Action
- at lower rotational - at faster rotational
speeds speeds
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Critical Speed of a Mill,
Ncrit
This is the speed of the mill which is just sufficient to
centrifuge a non-slipping ball
42,3
N crit , rpm
Dd 14
Power of Mill
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Mill Power
as a function of ore density
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Energy Laws
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Bond Work Index
The Bond Work Index is determined in the following manner:
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Bond Work Index
Calculations
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