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Modelling and simulation of particle

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Article in International Journal of Mineral Processing · December 2004

DOI: 10.1016/j.minpro.2004.07.031

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 Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219 – S225
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijminpro

Modelling and simulation of particle breakage in impact crushers

S. Nikolov*
Centre Terre et Pierre, 55 Chée d’Antoing, Tournai, Belgium

Abstract

In this paper, we present a phenomenological model that predicts the size distribution of the product issued from impact
crushing in function of the rotor strike radius and velocity, the material properties and size distribution of the feed as well as the
feed rate. The model is based on the standard matrix representation including classification and breakage matrices. It can be
applied to both horizontal- and vertical-shaft impact crushers by means of the corresponding estimations for the average impact
energy per unit mass presented here.
We propose a new classification function for impact crushers in the form of a Weibull cumulative distribution. The minimum
size of the particles that undergo breakage is assumed to be a function of the impact energy and the feed rate.
The model predictions are compared with experimental data obtained for limestone treated in a pilot-plant hammer crusher.
The dependence of the product size distribution on the rotor velocity is investigated. The influence of the feed rate on the
product size is also simulated.
D 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: impact crushing; standard matrix representation; Weibull cumulative distribution

1. Introduction Despite their importance, however, impact crushers

During the past few decades, impact crushers have
become widely used machines for comminution
operations because of their high size-reduction ratio,
easy modification of the product size distribution and
a good dcubicT shape of the product. On the other
hand, computer simulations are increasingly used in
the modern design of ore processing plants containing
crushers as a reliable, time- and cost-saving approach.
* Tel.: +32 69 88 42 66; fax: +32 69 88 42 59.
E-mail address: ctp@honet.be.
0301-7516/$ - see front matter D 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.
doi:10.1016/j.minpro.2004.07.031
received little attention in what concerns the model-
ling and simulation of their comminution behaviour.
For this reason, the commercial codes for ore
processing simulations still lack specific models for
this type of crushers. There have been some recent
attempts to develop phenomenological models for
impact crushers (e.g., by Czoke and Racz, 1998;
Attou, 1999), but nevertheless, significant amount of
work has yet to be done in this field.
Here we take the standard size distribution model
for cone and jaw crushers developed by Whiten and
White (1979) as a starting point. Because of the
specificity of the breakage process in impact crushers,
S220 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225
this model cannot be used for these machines in its
original form. Impact breakage takes place at a much
shorter time scale compared to the fragmentation
process used in cone or jaw crushers. Hence, the
nature and magnitude of forces as well as the energy
transfer and dissipation related to impact breakage are
very different from the relatively slow breakage by
compression and shear used in other types of crushers.
In order to solve this problem, we replace the
classification breakage function used for cone and jaw
crushers with a new one based on a Weibull
probability distribution. Thus, important parameters
such as the rotor radius and velocity as well as the
feed rate are naturally incorporated in our model. We
also propose estimations for the average impact
energy per unit mass for both horizontal- and
vertical-shaft impact crushers.
The model structure is presented in Section 2,
results are shown and commented in Section 3.
Throughout the text, vectors ( f ) and matrices (C )
are denoted by underlined symbols.
P
2. Size distribution model
2.1. Mass balance
Recall the size distribution model for crushers
developed by Whiten (1972) and shown in Fig. 1. The
particles are characterized by their size distribution
that is represented in a discrete form by the vectors f
(feed) and p_ (product), respectively. Each component
of f and p_ represents the mass fraction of the
corresponding size class in the feed and the product,
respectively.
The probability of particles’ breakage is described
by the diagonal matrix C P
and is a function of the
particles’ size. The lower-triangular breakage matrix
Fig. 1. Scheme of the breakage model for cone and jaw crushers
(after Karra, 1982).
B
P
represents the redistribution of the broken particles
among the predefined size classes.
According to Fig. 1, the particles entering the
crusher are selected for breakage through the classi-
fication operator C P
. Those that do not break pass
unchanged in the product. The broken ones are
redistributed by means of B and eventually subjected
P
to further fragmentation together with the new feed
material. In a matrix form, the product size distribu-
tion p_ resulting from this process can be expressed as
follows:


1
p ¼ P I C P
I
P
 B
PP
C f ð1Þ
P P P P PP P
where PI denotes the identity matrix and (!)1 denotes
the inverse of a square matrix.
In the model for impact crushers developed by
Czoke and Racz (1998), it is assumed that the
particles entering the crusher are subjected to a
single-breakage process that results in the following
mass balance equation:


p ¼B PP
C f þ P
I  C
P
f ð2Þ
P P PP P P P
The above equation corresponds to a scheme where
the classification and breakage matrices are connected
in series without feedback.
This approach has been later extended by Attou
(1999) who modelled the particle breakage in hammer
crushers as a sequence of two breakage processes,
namely breakage at the hammer bars of the rotor,
followed by fragmentation of the nonbroken particles
at the walls. It can be shown that Eq. (2) is not
compatible with the definition of breakage and
classification matrices. Actually, they predict that
even when the probability of breakage of particles
with a given size is 100%, their mass fraction in the
product is not equal to zero, which is physically
impossible.
In our model, we use the standard mass balance
law (1), which implies that the particles undergo a
number of consecutive fragmentation processes. In
addition, the larger the parent particle, the larger the
number of breakage processes of the debris resulting
from its fragmentation.
We believe that these assumptions are applicable
to impact crushing with the argument that most of
the particles are subjected to more than one
 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225
fragmentation due to the particle–wall and particle–
particle collisions.
In fact, the mass balance law (1) can be viewed as
an extension of Eq. (2) for an infinite number of
breakage subprocesses, and it appears that the error
introduced by the balance law (2) compromises its use
for modelling the breakage process in crushers.
2.2. Model parameters
2.2.1. Classification function
Recall that the nonzero components of the classi-
fication matrix PC used for cone and jaw crushers are
defined as (Whiten and White, 1979):
 
di  k 2 m
Ci ðdi Þ ¼ 1  ð3Þ
k1  k2
where C i is the probability for breakage of a particle
of size d i [mm], k 1 [mm] is the minimum size of the
grains that undergo breakage and k 2 [mm] is an upper
limit value beyond which all particles with size d i Nk 2
are broken.
In this formulation, both k 1 and k 2 depend on
the crusher setting, which is a dstaticT design
variable. In impact crushers, the breakage proba-
bility depends mainly on the grain size and the
kinetic impact energy (King and Bourgeois, 1993),
which is clearly a dynamic variable. Therefore, we
have to define another, more suitable classification
function that reflects the dynamic character of
impact breakage.
Several authors (King and Bourgeois, 1993; Kapur
and Fuerstenau, 1995) have shown experimentally
that the probability of impact breakage of single
particles is well described by the Weibull distribution
first proposed by Weichert (1988). Attou (1999)
adapted this distribution as a classification function
for impact crushers in the following form:
 
a k n
Ci ðdi Þ ¼ 1  exp  s di E ð4Þ
Q design and the granulate properties, n is a material
where E [J/kg] is the average impact energy per unit
mass; Q [t/h] represents the flow rate; a and s are
scaling coefficients depending on the specific design
of the crusher and the amount of particle–particle
interactions, respectively; k and n are coefficients
depending on the material granulate properties.
S221
In Eq. (4), the breakage probability for very small
particles (on the order of several dozens of microns)
is not exactly zero at given nonzero feed rate and
rotor velocity, which is in contradiction with the
experimental evidence. To deal with this problem,
we propose a new classification function in the
form:
"   #
d1  dmin k
Ci ðdi Þ ¼ 1  exp  ð5Þ
dmin
where d min [mm] is the minimum size of particles
that are broken at the given operating conditions
and k is a shape parameter. It is noted that for
particles smaller than d min the probability of break-
age is C i (d i )=0 by definition.
The minimum breakable size d min itself should be a
function of the impact energy and the feed rate. The
greater the feed rate, the larger the number of the
particle-particle collisions. Given that each collision
dissipates energy, more frequent collisions would
decrease more rapidly the particles’ kinetic energy
and that would result in a coarser product and a
greater value for d min.
As for the dependence of d min on the impact
energy, it is well known that during impact crushing
a greater impact energy results in a finer product
and therefore d min should decrease with increasing
of E.
Taking into account the above considerations, we
can express the minimum breakable size as a function
of the impact energy and the feed rate as follows:
 s  n
Q E0
dmin ¼ b ð6Þ
Q0 E
where Q [t/h] and E [J/kg] are the feed rate and the
average impact energy per unit mass respectively; Q 0
[t/h] and E 0 [J/kg] are reference feed rate and impact
energy per unit mass respectively; b [mm] represents
a specific particle size depending on both the crusher
parameter and s accounts for the intensity of the
particle–particle interactions.
2.2.2. Breakage function
The size distribution of the debris issued from
breakage of identical particles is given with the so-
called breakage function. Here we use the breakage
S222 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225
distribution function for crushers proposed by Whiten
and White (1979):
 m  l
di di
bij ðdi ;dj Þ ¼ / þ ð1  /Þ ð7Þ
dj dj
where / denotes the mass fraction of fine particles, m
and l are material coefficients. Recall that the break-
age function b ij calculates the mass fraction of debris
(obtained from breakage of parent particles of size d j )
that passes through a screen mesh of size d i .
Next, let the size distribution of the granulate
material is obtained with a series of N screens with
mesh size D i (i=1, N1) and let D N =0. Then, d i is the
representative size of particles with dimensions
D i Nd i ND i+1. Consequently, the nonzero components
of the breakage matrix B P
can be written with the help
of Eq. (7) as follows (see, e.g., King, 2000):
   
Bij ¼ bði1Þj Di1 ; dj  bij Di dj
 
Bjj ¼ 1  bjj Dj ; dj
2.3. Estimation of the impact energy for hammer and
vertical shaft crushers
In order to complete the model given by Eqs. ), (1),
(5) (6) (7) (8), we need to estimate the average impact
energy per unit mass E in Eq. (6). The corresponding
schemes used for derivation of the expressions for the
impact energy in horizontal- and vertical-shaft
crushers are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Left: A single particle just after impact with the rotor bar of a hammer crusher. Right: A single particle leaving the rotor of a vertical shaft
crusher; m p denotes the particle velocity.
2.3.1. Hammer crushers
We can estimate the average impact energy for
horizontal shaft crushers from the kinetic energy of
the rotor. Given that the rotor mass is much greater
than the mass of a single particle and that, before
impact, the velocity of the crushing bars is much more
important than the particles’ velocity, the kinetic
energy associated to a single particle should be much
smaller than that of the rotor.
In a first approximation, we can find the impact
energy per unit mass considering the conservation of
linear momentum before and after (Fig. 2, left) the
impact of the system particle—rotor bar. This gives
(Attou, 1999):
E ¼ 0:5ðR þ 0:5Hb Þ2 x2 ð9Þ
Where R [m] is the rotor radius; H b [m] denotes the
height of the impact area of the crushing bars and x
[s1] is the rotor angular velocity. It is assumed that
most of the particles enter into collision with the rotor
ð8Þ bars in the median region of their impact area.
It is noted that the particle–particle and particle–
wall collisions are accounted for through the param-
eters s and b in Eq. (6).
2.3.2. Vertical shaft crushers
In vertical shaft crushers, the particles are projected
towards the crusher walls by the centrifugal forces
from a rotor in the form of a turning table with radially
oriented guides (Fig. 2, right). Unlike the horizontal
shaft crushers, here the fragmentation takes place
 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225
mostly at the internal walls of the crusher rather than
at the rotor’s periphery.
Let us write the kinetic energy of a particle at the
time of leaving the rotor with radius R m (Fig. 2, right).
With the assumption that the particle flies from the
rotor to the crushing wall without collisions with other
particles, its kinetic energy at the time of reaching the
wall will be almost unchanged with respect to the
energy at the time of leaving the rotor periphery.
Next, the centrifugal force acting on the particles is
much greater than the gravity so that the latter can be
neglected. Hence, the particle’s kinetic energy in
cylindrical coordinates (per unit mass) can be written
as:
 
EV ¼ 0:5 ṙr 2 þ r2 x2 ð10Þ
where r is the distance between the particle and the
centre of the rotor and x denotes the rotor angular
velocity. Because of the guides, it is assumed that the
particles are forced to have the same angular velocity
as the rotor.
In order to find the particle’s radial velocity ṙ at the
time of leaving the rotor, we have to solve the
following equation of motion (see, e.g., Huang, 1967):
 
m r¨  rx2 ¼ 0; ð11Þ
which implies that there are no forces acting on the
particle during its free fly (recall that gravity is
neglected). It is easy to see that the solution of Eq.
(11) is in the form r=r 0 exp(xt) and therefore ṙ=rx.
Replacing this value in Eq. (10) and taking into
account the above considerations, we can estimate the
impact energy for vertical shaft crushers as follows:
E ¼ R2m x2 ð12Þ
where R m [m] and x [s1] are the rotor radius and
angular velocity, respectively.
As in the case of horizontal shaft crushers,
particle–particle and particle–wall collisions are
accounted for through the parameters s and b in Eq.
(6).
It is interesting to note that for the same rotor
radius, the impact energy per unit mass for horizontal
shaft crushers (9) is lower than that for vertical shaft
crushers (12). Of course, we derived Eqs. (9) and (12)
with rather crude assumptions but nevertheless, we
believe that this analysis is qualitatively correct and
S223
could explain some experimentally observed differ-
ences in the performance of different designs of
impact crushers. For example, vertical shaft crushers
are performing better when finer granulate must be
reduced in size and this is most probably due to the
fact that the average impact energy (12) obtained with
these machines is higher with respect to that obtained
with hammer crushers.
3. Results and discussion
The model developed in Section 2 has been
implemented in an in-house FORTRAN code. It has
been validated with pilot-plant experiments performed
on a horizontal-shaft impact crusher with rotor
diameter and width of 0.65 and 0.45 m, respectively.
The rotor radius is R=0.325 m; the height of the rotor
impact bars is H b=0.1 m.
The granulate material used is limestone from the
region of Tournai, Belgium. The feed size has been
calibrated by screening and ranges from 14 to 20 mm.
The parameters for the breakage function (Eq. (7)) are
taken as follows: fines fraction /=0.35; m=0.5 and
l=2.5.
Recall that the values for /, m and l for short head
cone crushers (Eqs. ), (7), (8) are most often fixed to
be 0.2, 0.5 and 2.5, respectively. A higher value for
the fines fraction / in our case reflects the well-
known fact that impact crushers produce more fines
than cone or jaw crushers.
The specific size b for the classification function
(Eqs. (5) and (6)) is identified as b=10 mm. The
reference feed rate and impact energy per unit mass
are taken to be Q 0=1 t/h and E 0=1 J/kg, respectively.
The other material parameters in (5) and (6) are
identified as follows: k=0.95, s=0.2 and n=0.73.
It is noted that all the simulations are performed
with the same set of model parameters and we did not
try to fit the experimental size distributions by
changing the parameters for each simulation run.
The model parameters have been calibrated via a trial-
and-error approach.
We have performed simulations for two sets of
experimental data taken at different feed rates: Q=2 t/
h and Q=7 t/h. For each feed rate, the products
obtained at three different rotor velocities (x=540,
720, 900 rpm) have been analysed.
S224 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225

Fig. 3. Experimental and simulated product size distributions at different rotor velocities for feed rate Q=2 t/h.

The experimentally obtained and simulated size
distributions of the product after impact crushing at
different rotor velocities for feed rate of 2 t/h are shown
in Fig. 3. The corresponding size distributions for feed
rate of 7 t/h are depicted in Fig. 4. The influence of the
different feed rates on the product size distribution at
rotor velocity x=720 rpm is shown in Fig. 5.
From Figs. 3–5, it is seen that the model is able to
capture the experimentally observed changes in the
product size distribution resulting from important
variations in the rotor velocity and the feed rate. The
model predicts that at fixed feed rate, a finer product
is obtained with higher rotor velocities. On the other
hand, higher feed rates (at fixed rotor velocity) result
in a coarser product size. The form of the obtained
size distributions is also correctly simulated, espe-
cially the fact that for impact crushers, the size
distribution of the product is broader and contains
more fines than that obtained with cone crushers.
The simulation results suggest that the assumption
of a constant fine product fraction / in Eq. (7) may be
too restrictive to correctly describe the changes in the
product size distribution at different operation con-
ditions. In addition, the shape parameter k in Eq. (5)
seems to be not a constant but to depend on the rotor
velocity (and therefore, on the impact energy).
In a recent work (Nikolov, 2002), we propose a
better version of the model that yields better results
than the reported in this paper. The improvements
consist in the introduction of a breakage function as
the sum of two Broadbent–Calcott distributions, a fine
fraction / depending on the impact energy and the

Fig. 4. Experimental and simulated product size distributions at different rotor velocities for feed rate Q=7 t/h.
 S. Nikolov / Int. J. Miner. Process. 74S (2004) S219–S225
Fig. 5. Simulated and measured influence of the feed rate on the product size distribution for rotor velocity x=720 rpm.
feed rate, a shape parameter depending on the impact
energy as well as an exponential law for the minimum
breakable size d min instead of Eq. (6) used here.
4. Conclusions
In conclusion, we have developed a phenomeno-
logical model for impact crushers that is able to
predict the crusher’s performance at steady state and
contains a reasonable number of parameters. The
specific behaviour of the impact crushers is accounted
for through the incorporation of a new classification
function that explicitly depends on the average impact
energy per unit mass, the rotor velocity and the feed
rate.
As a result of particle dynamics analysis, it has
been shown that the impact energy per unit mass in
vertical shaft impact crushers is greater than that in
horizontal shaft crushers.
The obtained results show that the model predic-
tions are in qualitative agreement with the experiment.
However, some model parameters that we assumed to
be constant seem to be functions of the impact energy
and the feed rate. With the introduction of appropriate
expressions for these parameters (see Nikolov, 2002),
better results can be obtained.
The model can be easily implemented in commer-
cial codes for mineral processing simulations at steady
state such as USIM-PAC or MODSIM and used for
prediction of the performance of both horizontal and
vertical shaft impact crushers.
View publication stats
S225
Acknowledgements
This research has been funded by the Belgian
Walloon Region government and the European
Community as an bObjective 1Q project. The author
thanks Dr. A. Attou for his work at the early stage of
the project, which helped him with the theoretical
developments, as well as Mr. R. Lemaire for provid-
ing the experimental results.
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