CRUSHING

 Usually these are used for bigger/coarser sized particles. The process occurs through
tensile/compressive/shear stresses. This process is carried out in dry conditions.
 Most of the materials that we consider are crystalline in nature, so the bond strength
between two particles is a deciding criterion while crushing. The main purpose of
crushing is to break the bonds between the particles and reduce its size, by applying
load beyond the elastic limit (rupturing the bonds).
 Crushing is the first stage in the comminution process main aim is liberation of the
valuables minerals from gangue.
 Prior to primary crushing, the size of the ore from run of mines may be 1.5 m but by
crushing the size is reduced to 10-20 cm.
 Secondary crushing produce size of 0.5 to 2cm.
 In crushing a washing sage is included sticky ore containing clay which may lead to
chocking.
 Vibrating screens are of secondary crushing sometimes placed ahead of secondary
crusher to remove under size materials or scalp the feed and thereby increasing the
capacity of the secondary crushing unit.
 Crushing may be open or closed depending upon the product size. Slow speed M/C for
coarse reduction of large quantity of solid.
 Operates by compression and can break large lumps of very hard material.

The two types of crushers used in primary crushing are jaw crusher and Gyratory crusher

1. Jaw Crusher
 A jaw crusher is a compression type of crusher. Here the two jaws present are
fixed at an acute angle. One jaw is pivoted and is almost vertical named as (anvil
jaw) and the other is movable named as (swinging jaw), so as to allow variable
crushing operations. The swinging jaw is usually at an angle of 20⁰-30⁰. The
swinging jaw is drawn by an eccentric due to which it applies an compressive
force. The faces of the jaw are bulged or flat carrying grooves. When the
material is fed into the crusher into the jaws, it gets nipped and moves down the
line further for the crushing process. Large lumps get cut in the upper part of the
jaw and move to further to the narrow part of the jaw, which gets reduced next
time when the jaws are again closed. The pivot can be in different positions ,
based on this its classified as blake, dodge and universal jaw crushers. It can
crush 1000 tones/h and its speed lies between 100-350rev/min
 Blake Jaw crushers
 Here the jaw is pivoted at the top having a uniform feed area (receiving
area) and a variable discharge area. This process avoids choking due to
movement near the set, because here the problem of non-uniform feed
rate is avoided and breaks the particles easily. Only problem encountered
here is that it is not efficient for uniform sized particle output. Further it
can be classified as single toggle and double toggle crushers.

a) Single Toggle Jaw crushers

The swinging jaw is fixed on the eccentric shaft, which makes it a
lighter and more compactly designed crusher. The swinging jaw
moves towards the fixed jaw under the action of toggle and also
moves vertically as the eccentric plates. It has higher capacity
than the double toggle machine, but there is a high risk of
increase of wear on the jaw plates.
b) Double Toggle Jaw crushers
The oscillating movement of the swinging jaw is affected by the
vertical movement of the pitman. The eccentric is located behind
the swinging jaw. This crusher type is much larger and heavier
than that of single toggle jaw crusher, with a lower throughput as
compared to the later. However if we upgrade the bearings used
it can have similar throughputs as compared to the other variant.
 Dodge Jaw Crusher
Moving jaw is pivoted at the bottom. The minimum moment is thus at
the bottom and more uniform product is open. This is prone to choking
so this is rarely used crusher. The larger opening at the top enables it to
take Very large feed and to affect a large size to high fluctuating stress
that is produced in the member of the machine. This can be used for
applications requiring uniformly sized particles.
  Universal Jaw Crusher
Here the pivot is present in the intermediate position hence it has a
variable delivery and receiving area. This can be used in applications
which require properties adhering to both blake and Jaw crusher.

2. Gyratory Crusher
It has much larger capacity than that of the jaw crusher, but again it requires a lot of
investment.
Here the spindle is revolving around the axis of the frame generating a conical surface,
at the same time it rotates about own axis due to frictional drag. A liner made of Ni-hot
cast iron or Mn steels. The liner is generally used for avoid wear related problems. A
conical crushing head gyrates inside a funnel –shaped casing, open at the top of the
machine. Eccentric drives the bottom end of the shaft. At any point on the periphery of
the casing, therefore the bottom of the crushing head moved towards and then away
from the stationary wall. Side caught in the V shaped space between the head and the
casing is broken again and again until they pass out the bottom. The crushing head is
free to rotate on the shaft and turns slowly because of friction with the material being
crushed.
The different type of secondary crushers are:-

i. Cone Crusher
A cone crusher is a similar form of a gyratory crusher. The key difference lies in the fact
that in a cone crusher. Shorter spindle of a cone crusher is not suspended as in the
gyratory crusher, but is supported in a curved, universal bearing below the gyratory
head or cone. The head is protected by a mantle. A standard crusher is commonly used
for normal purposes, whereas a short-head crusher is used for tertiary duty cycles. A
standard crusher has short liners that allow coarser feed than the other one. The
product delivered has a size range between 0.5-6cms. A short head crusher has a
steeper angle, a narrow feed opening and a longer parallel section at the bottom. It
delivers a product in the sizing range of 0.3-2cms. Some advantages of using liners over
here are to improve wear life with alternative liner alloys and identifying high wear
areas.

ii. Roll Crusher

It consists of two rolls (horizontal cylinders which revolved toward each other. The set is
determined by shims which cause the spring loaded roll to be held back from the solidly
mounted roll. The crushing process in roll crusher is one of single pressure where as in
jaw and gyratory it is a repeated pressure. Some roll crushers are made up of one
rotating cylinder which revolved towards a fixed plate others use 3, 4, 6, cylinders
diameter and speed of the roll varies from crusher to crusher 6- the rolls may be gear
driven , but this limits the distance adjustment between the rolls , but whereas Modern
rolls are driven by v belt from separate motors Multi roll machine may use rolls in pair
or in set of three. When compared with gyratory crusher, this has a slight advantage
over the fact that there is no choking near the discharge end. The main drawback of this
process is that high capital costs are required in-order to get a reasonable reduction
ratio, owing to the fact that we require larger rolls. The force on a crushing particle can
be calculated as follows,
Radius of the particle= r
Radius of the rolls =R
Gap between the rolls= 2a
 Coefficient of friction between the particle and the roll = µ
Angels formed by the tangent to the roll surface at their point of contact with the
particle (angle of nip)= θ
Compressive force exhausted by the rolls acting from the roll centre through the particle
centre =c
Then the particle to be just gripped by the rolls Equating vertically c sin θ/2 = µ c cos
(θ/2 ) µ = tan θ/2
The value of the coefficient of friction between a particle and moving roll can be
calculated from the equation

iii. Impact Crusher

Here a direct impact is given to the mineral particles by hammers in the central shaft.
Some main advantages of this process are there are uniformly sized particles and there
are no residual stresses also. The particles can hit the breaker plates also and come out
through the perforated sheets. If the particles are still above the required size they can
again be passed in and undergo the size reduction process.