Review on vertical roller mill in cement industry & its performance parameters

Abstract

India is the world's second largest producer of cement and produces more than 8 per cent of global capacity. Due to the rapidly growing demand in various sectors such as defense, housing, commercial and industrial construction, government initiative such as smart cities & PMAY, cement production in India is expected to touch 550–600 million tones per annum (MTPA) by the end of year 2025. With recent growth and success journey there is also a threat approaching to cement industry that its input cost is increasing. Power cost, fuel cost, raw material cost have doubled up in recent years whereas cement price has not hiked in that fashion. Also 40% of the cement production costs are energy costs out of which more than 60% of the total electricity is used in grinding circuits. In order to survive and sustain in the market they need to increase their profitability which can only be achieved by increasing productivity and reducing power consumption. High productivity and low power costs can be achieved by increasing output, lowering breakdowns and optimizing the energy consuming grinding process. The objective of the study, is to draw attention to the need of Cement grinding process optimization to minimize power consumption and achieve higher productivity. In the study the advantages of vertical roller mill are discussed over ball mills. VRM construction, its process and parameters which affects the performance and productivity of vertical roller mill are discussed. Also the consequences of variations in parameter explained. With proper optimization of these parameters, the productivity of vertical roller mill can be improved and performance stability can be achieved by addressing root causes.. This study can benefit the organizations using VRM and are not able to utilize its full productivity due to some bottlenecks or constraints.