Insights into metal wear and particle breakage using Bond's abrasiveness test

Abstract

Nearly 80 years ago Fred Bond proposed his abrasiveness test, also known as Allis Chalmers abrasion test, together with empirical equations that have been used to predict the wear of mill and crusher liners, besides grinding media. Although those equations have been widely criticized over the years, in particular owing to the limited accuracy of the correlations originally proposed to predict wear, it remains the most widely used test to measure ore abrasiveness in the minerals industry. The work analyzes the test, through experiments conducted under conditions that differ from those originally proposed by Bond in order to gain insights on metal wear and particle breakage. The effects of particle size, ore competence, metal hardness and time of batch operation are analyzed. It is shown that initial particle size strongly affects the rate of wear, that the intensity of fragmentation varies with hardness of the paddle and that the size distribution from the ground material offers a valid proxy for ore competence that may be useful in geometallurgical studies.