The effect of ball and mill diameters on grinding rate parameters in dry grinding operation

Abstract

For dry ball mill grinding operation, the effect of ball and mill diameters on grinding rate parameters of the size-discretized population balance model has been investigated for quartz, limestone, a soft cement clinker and a hard cement clinker. Experiments were performed in three mills of 29.2, 40.6 and 61.0 cm diameter. The diameter of the balls used ranged from 1.27 to 3.81 cm. The particle size range covered was 8 10 to 100 150 mesh. The rate parameter values were determined very accurately using a special technique. It has been shown that the particle size exponent α in equation S i = Ax i α is independent of ball and mill diameters. Based on this fact, a new correlation has been developed to describe the effect of ball and mill diameters on the rate parameters. The various constants in this correlation are strongly material dependent.