Scale up of lifters in ball mills

Abstract

Liner design and lifter geometry in tumbling mills are very important in comminution kinetics and energy consumption. In terms of the parameters of the batch grinding model, the breakage rate function decreases as lifter size increases while the breakage distribution function is independent of the lifter size. However, the specific energy consumption is not a function of lifter size. Reducing the lifter height from 2.54 cm to 0.32 cm increases the production from this mill by 37%. When the mill is operated without any lifters, the charge apparently slips inside the shell resulting in lower breakage kinetics and higher energy consumption.