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Optimization of Continuous Ball Mills
Optimization of Continuous Ball Mills
Optimization of Continuous Ball Mills
Abstract
During the last decade, semi-finish-grinding plants have been used more and more for the energy efficient grinding of highquality cement. In 1999, it was found that by decreasing the ball charge filling ratio it was possible to lower the specific energy
demand for grinding significantly.
It was obvious, too, that the L/D ratio influences the specific energy demand and the mill throughput as well. Therefore, a
huge test program was carried with a semi-industrial ball mill, which was operated in closed circuit. The mass-specific surface
area of the two feed materials (intermediate product) used were quite typical for industrial semi-finish grinding plants. The
values were 2200 and 3000 cm2/g according to Blaine. The product finenesses were 3000 and 3800 cm2/g, respectively. The L/
D ratio of the ball mill was varied in four steps of 1.75, 2.1, 2.79 and 3.49, and the ball charge filling ratio was varied in three
steps of 15%, 20% and 25%. The experiments clearly indicated that the optimal L/D ratio and the optimal ball charge filling
ratio are different for each feed fineness.
The influence of the ball charge grading on the specific energy demand, characterised by the average ball diameter, was
tested by means of a discontinuous laboratory ball mill. The results showed that by using a finer ball grading the specific energy
demand could be lowered considerably.
The obtained results can be explained well by theoretical considerations regarding the ruling stress intensity and the number
of stress events. The stress intensity expressed as the power input per ball is dependent on the ball diameter to the third power
and only slightly dependent on the inner diameter of the mill. The number of stresses can be characterised by the average
retention time of the ground material inside the mill if the ball charge grading remains unchanged. The optimal retention time
depends not only on the feed material and the desired comminution result but also on the ball charge filling ratio and particularly
on the L/D ratio. On the basis of the present results and considerations, a specific optimisation of ball mills in semi-finishgrinding plants can be done.
D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: ball mills; L/D ratio; finish-grinding
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1. Introduction
During the last decade, semi-finish-grinding plants
have been used more and more for the energy efficient
grinding of high-quality cement. Recent research
work has shown that the operational performance of
the ball mill, which is situated downstream of the
high-pressure grinding roll separator cycle can be
improved significantly. The results of extensive
investigations carried out on industrial semi-finishgrinding plants indicated that the specific power
consumption of the ball mill could be decreased by
about 20% when lowering the ball charge filling ratio
from about 30% to about 20%. However, the
throughput is decreased also by about 20% (Schnatz
and Knobloch, 2000).
Furthermore, it has shown that a L/D ratio of about
3.0, which is a quite common value for cement mills,
might be to high for a ball mill in a Combi-grinding
plant. This was proven by the fact that there was no
grinding progress observed in the last third of the total
grinding path length. This finding was not effected by
different ball charge filling ratios and different mill
throughput mass flows. Quite typical are the results
shown in Fig. 1 in which the mass-specific surface
area (Blaine) and the residues on the 32-, 63- and 90-
Fig. 1. Sieve residues on 32, 45 and 63 A and Blaine-specific surface area of meter samples as a function of the grinding path length.
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Fig. 4. Spec. power consumption and throughput in relation to the L/D ratio for the coarse feed material. Parameter: ball charge filling ratio.
4. Test results
The test results are plotted in Figs. 4 and 5. In both
figures, the specific power consumptionleft ordinate- and the throughput-right ordinateis plotted
Fig. 5. Spec. power consumption and throughput in relation to the L/D ratio for the fine feed material. Parameter: ball charge filling ratio.
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The parameters of the RRSB-function (Rosin Rammler Sperling and Bennet equation) were fitted to the
PSDs.
The RRSB-slope n of the bmeterQ samples is
plotted as a function of the grinding path length in
Fig. 6. Parameter is the ball charge filling ratio. The
slope n tends towards a constant value along the
grinding path length. The high values of n for low L/
D ratios decrease and the low values of n for high L/D
ratios increase along the grinding path. Furthermore,
there seems to be no influence of the ball charge
filling ratio on the RRSB slope n.
It can be summarised that for ball mills in Combigrinding plants the optimal L/D ratio is clearly below
3.0. For coarse feed material about 2.7 seems to be
appropriate and about 2.3 for finer feed. Recommendations made by Haubold (2001) who found L/D ratios
in the range of 4.05.0 to be optimal are useful only for
ball mills in semi-finish-grinding plants, which are
operated in open circuit. The importance of open
circuit ball mills is diminishing because most of the
cement customers no longer accept coarse particles of
about 500 Am in the finished product, which cannot be
completely avoided with this type of mill.
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The comminution progress or resultcharacterised, e.g., by the newly produced surface area
remains constant if the number of stress events (SN)
and the stress intensity (SI) are unchanged (Kwade
and Stender, 1998). Therefore, the mass-specific
power consumption W m for a defined comminution
result is proportional to the product of the number of
stresses and the stress intensity
Wm ~SId SN
P
P
m
t t
m
m
m
p
L
cu q 1 e D3;5
4 k k
D
D
d
3
L
u 1 e
D k
P
BI~
nk
p p 3
Dd cqk
6
p 3L
D
qu qe1 e
4
D k
nk
6 1 t
t
p e qd 3
m
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Fig. 7. Spec. power consumption of a laboratory ball mill as a function of the average diameter of the ball grading. Parameter: fineness of the
finished product.
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Fig. 8. Spec. power consumption for the coarse feed materials a function of the retention time of the feed inside the mill. Values of Fig. 4.
Fig. 9. Spec. power consumption for the fine feed materials a function of the retention time of the feed inside the mill. Values of Fig. 5.
References
Blanc, E.C., Eckhardt, H., 1928. Technologie der Brecher, Mqhlen
und Siebvorricht ungen. Springer Verlag, Berlin.
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