MSE-3209

Extractive Metallurgy
By

Azmery Akter
Lecturer
Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology
Khulna-9203
So, where do we get metals from?
And how do we get pure metals?
 Extractive Metallurgy

• It is the branch of metallurgy,

deals with liberation of the
metals from their respective
ores by various physical and
chemical processes.
• Extractive metallurgy is the
practice of removing valuable
metals from an ore and
refining the extracted raw
metals into a purer form.
 Reactivity Series of Metals

K
Na
Ca Compound form
Mg
Al
Reactivity decreases Zn
Fe
Pb
[H]
Cu
Hg
Ag Native form
Au
 Minerals

Minerals are naturally occurring compounds of metals which are

associated with certain amounts of substances like sands, soil etc.
Minerals by definition are natural inorganic substances
possessing definite chemical compositions and atomic structures.
So minerals are naturally occurring form of metals in the
form of compounds. Metals exit in the form of mineral.
 Ores

Particular minerals from which we can

extract metals at minimum cost,
commercially & at less effort are called
ores.
By definition, ore is a natural occurrence
of rock or sediment that contains
sufficient minerals with economically
important elements, typically metals, that
can be economically extracted from the Bauxite ore for Al metal

deposit.

So all ores are mineral but all minerals are not ore.
 Gangue

Gangue is the left commercially

worthless material that surrounds, or is
closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in
an ore deposit.
Example: silica(SiO2), soil, various iron
compounds etc.
 Abundance of Metals

Abundance of metals of the earth’s crust

 Abundance of Metals

Abundance of metals in the ocean

Extraction of Metals
 Ore Dressing

Ore Dressing: In the field of extractive metallurgy ore

dressing is the process of separating commercially valuable
metals from their ores.
Ore dressing follows mining and prepares the ore for
extraction.

Purpose of ore dressing:

1. Release, or liberation, of the valuable minerals
from their waste gangue minerals.
2. Separation of these values from the gangue, this
latter process being known as concentration.
 Unit Operation

Ore processing can involve four general

types of unit operations:

1.Comminution- particle size reduction;

2.Sizing- separation of particle sizes by
screening or classification;
3.Concentration- separation of valuable
minerals from the gangue
4.Dewatering-solid/liquid separation.
 Ore Handling

It covers the processes of transportation,

storage, feeding, and washing of the ore en
route to, or during, its various stages of
treatment in the mill.

Removal of harmful materials:

1. Hand sorting from conveyor belts
2. By powerful electromagnet
3. Washing
 Ore Transportation

• Ore that has been well broken can be

transported by trucks, belts, or even by
sluicing.
 Types of Conveyor Belts

Gravity bucket Centrifugal pump

conveyor
 Types of Conveyor Belts

Screw conveyor

Sandwich conveyor
 Ore Storage

• The necessity for storage arises from the fact that different
parts of the operation of mining and milling are performed at
different rates.
• Some continuous, Some intermittent/batch, Some need repair.

Ore storage bin Stockpile

 Ore Sampling

• There are other important operations in a modern

mineral processing plant, including sampling and
analysis.
• Sampling is the most important procedure in arriving at
the value of the ore.
• The process in which a portion (sample of ore) is
selected in such a way, that its composition will
represent the average composition of the entire bulk of
the ore. Such a selected portion is a sample and the art
of properly selecting such a sample is called sampling.
• Sampling should be carried out before the material is
subjected to losses in the mill.
 Sampling System

Most automatic samplers operate by

moving a collecting device through the
material as it falls from a conveyor or a
pipe. It is important that:
1.The face of the collecting device or
cutter is presented at right angles to the
stream.
2.The cutter covers the whole stream.
3.The cutter moves at constant speed.
4.The cutter is large enough to pass the
sample.
Condition for width of the cutter
 Sample Analysis

• After one or more samples are taken from an amount

of ore passing through a material stream such as a
conveyor belt, the samples are reduced to quantities
suitable for further analysis. Analytical methods
include chemical, mineralogical, and particle size.

• Chemical analysis are used today to detect and

estimate quantities of elements in ores and minerals.
• Grab sampling (For moisture determination)
 Particle Size Analysis

• Size analysis of the various products of a concentrator

constitutes a fundamental part of laboratory testing
procedure.

Importance of particle size analysis

• To determine the optimum size of the feed to the
process for maximum efficiency.
• To determine the size range at which any losses are
occurring in the plant, so that they may be reduced.
 Particle Shape

Acicular - needle-shaped
Angular - sharp-edged or having roughly polyhedral shape
Crystalline - freely developed in a fluid medium of geometric
shape
Dendritic - having a branched
Crystalline - shape regular or irregularly thread-like
Fibrous Flaky Granular - plate-like
Irregular - having approximately an equidimensional irregular
shape
Modular - lacking any symmetry having rounded, irregular shape
Spherical -global shape
 Sieve Analysis

• Sieve analysis is one of the oldest

methods of size analysis.
• A sieve analysis is a practice or
procedure used to assess the particle
size distribution of a granular
material by allowing the material to
pass through a series of sieves of
progressively smaller mesh size and
weighing the amount of material
that is stopped by each sieve as a
fraction of the whole mass.
Mesh Number: It indicates the number of openings per linear
inch. The smaller the mesh number, the larger particles can pass
through the mesh.
Methods of Particle Size Analysis

• Sedimentation method
• Elutriation technique
• Microscopic sizing
• Laser diffraction method
 Sedimentation Method

• Sedimentation methods are based on the measurement of

the rate of settling of the powder particles uniformly
dispersed in a fluid and the principle is well illustrated by
the common laboratory method of "beaker decantation".
 Sedimentation Method

Advantages

• Simple and chip

• Produce true a fractional size analysis

Disadvantages
• Extremely tedious
• Long settling times are required for very
fine particles
 Elutriation technique

• Elutriation is a process of sizing particles by means of an

upward current of fluid, usually water or air. The process is
the reverse of gravity sedimentation.

• Those particles having a terminal

velocity less than that of the
velocity of the fluid will report to
the overflow, while those particles
having a greater terminal velocity
than the fluid velocity will sink to
the underflow.
Warman Cyclosizer

5 cyclones
 Microscopic Sizing

• Microscopy can be used as an absolute

method of particle size analysis since it is
the only method in which individual
mineral particles are observed and
measured.
• The optical microscope method is
applicable to particles in the size range 0.8-
150µm, and down to 0.001µm using
electron microscopy (SEM, TEM)
 Laser diffraction Method

In recent years, several instruments based on the

diffraction of laser light by fine particles have become
available. Laser light is passed through a dilute suspension
of the particles which circulate through an optical cell.
The light is scattered by the particles, and is detected by
a solid state detector which measures light intensity over
a range of angles. A theory of light scattering is used to
calculate the particle size distribution from the light
distribution pattern, finer particles inducing more scatter
than coarse.
Laser diffraction instrument
 Comminution

• Comminution, is the process

whereby the particle size of the
ore is progressively reduced
until the clean particles of the
mineral of interest is
“Liberated” from the matrix of
gangue within the rock and can
be separated through physical
or other means.

Size Reduction
 Principles of Comminution

• In the mining processes, blasting is the first stage of

comminution. Comminution in the mineral processing plant takes
place in a sequence of crushing and grinding (and/or milling).
Crushing reduces particle size of run-of-mine ore to such a level
that grinding mill can further grind it until the mineral and gangue
is substantially produced as separate particles.
• Crushing is accomplished by compression of the ore against
rigid surfaces, or by impact against surfaces in a constrained
motion path.
• Grinding (and/or milling, which is a form of grinding) is
accomplished by abrasion and impact of the ore by the free
motion of unconnected media such as rods, balls, or pebbles.
 Fracture of Materials

The commercial size reduction

processes use the
following techniques of
stress application:
 Slow compression
 Fast compression or
impact and
 Abrasion
 Grindability

• Ore grindability refers to the ease

with which materials can be
comminuted, and data from
grindability tests are used to evaluate
crushing and grinding efficiency.
• Probably the most widely used
parameter to measure ore grindability
is the Bond work index W.
• Values of operating work indices, W obtained from specific
units can be used to assess the effect of operating variables,
such as mill speeds, size of grinding media, type of liner,
etc. The higher the value of W the lower is the grinding
efficiency.
 Crushing

• Crushing is accomplished by
compression of the ore against
rigid surfaces, or by impact
against surfaces in a
constrained motion path.
• Crushing is usually a dry
process, and is performed in
several stages. Crushers such
as; jaw, gyratory, cone, high
pressure roll and impact
crushers are available.
 Classification of Crusher

 Coarse or primary crushing

(Jaw and Gyratory crushers)

 Intermediate or secondary crushing

(Cone crushers, Rhodax crusher and Impact crusher)

 Fine crushing
(Revolving Mills)

Coarse and intermediate crushing is done on dry

materials while fine crushing is usually performed on
wet materials.
 Primary Crusher

• Primary crushers are heavy-duty machines, used to reduce

the run-of-mine ore down to a size suitable for transport
and for feeding the secondary crushers.
• They are always operated in open circuit, with or without
heavy-duty scalping screens (grizzlies). There are two main
types of primary crusher
• jaw and
• gyratory crushers
 Jaw Crusher
Jaw crusher is a type of crusher which produces coarse particle.
Feed size of the jaw crusher is 1.5m and the product size is from
5cm - 0.5cm.
The distinctive feature of this class of crusher is the two plates
which open and shut like animal jaws. The jaws are set at an acute
angle to each other, and one jaw is pivoted so that it swings relative
to the other fixed jaw.
Types of Jaw Crusher

1. Blake crusher
2. Dodge crusher
3. Universal crusher
 Blake Crusher

1. Double toggle Blake crusher

2. Single toggle Blake crusher

Double toggle Blake crusher Single toggle Blake crusher

 Double Toggle Blake Crusher

1. Since the jaw is pivoted from above, it moves a minimum

distance at the entry point and a maximum distance at the
delivery. This maximum distance is called the throw of the
crusher.
2. The horizontal displacement of the swing jaw is greatest at
the bottom of the pitman cycle and diminishes steadily through
the rising half of the cycle as the angle between the pitman and
the back toggle plate becomes less acute.
3. The crushing force is least at the start of the cycle, when the
angle between the toggles is most acute, and is strongest at the
top, when full power is delivered over a reduced travel of the
jaw.
 Single Toggle Blake Crusher

• In this type of crusher the swing jaw is

suspended on the eccentric shaft, which
allows a lighter, more compact design
than with the double-toggle machine.
• The single-toggle machine therefore
has a somewhat higher capacity than
the double-toggle machine of the
same gape. The eccentric movement,
however, increases the rate of wear on
the jaw plates. Direct attachment of
the swing jaw to the eccentric
imposes a high degree of strain on
the drive shaft.
• Difference between Double toggle Blake crusher
& Single toggle Blake crusher.
This size machine will handle ore with a maximum size of 1.22 m
at a crushing rate of approximately 725t/h with a 203mm set.
However, at crushing rates above 545t/h the economic advantage
of the jaw crusher over the gyratory diminishes; and above 725t/h
jaw crushers cannot compete with gyratory crushers.

All jaw crushers are rated according to their receiving areas,

i.e. the width of the plates and the gape, which is the
 Some Definitions

 Mouth:
The point at which rock enters the crusher.
 Size of a Crusher:

All crushers are rated according to their receiving areas,

i.e. the width of the plates and the gape.
Gape: opening of the mouth
Distance between the jaws at the feed opening. For
example, an 1830 × 1220mm crusher has a width of
1830 mm and a gape of 1220 mm.
 Some Definitions

Reduction Ratio:
The ratio of the maximum size of particles in the feed and in the
product, which is very convenient for comparing the performance of
different crushing machines.
Throat:
The throat of a crusher is the point at which the rock is discharged.
Throat is known as the stroke or throw of the crusher.
 Gyratory Crusher

• Similar to jaw crushers, the

mechanism of size reduction in
gyratory crushers is primarily by
the compressive action of two
pieces of steel against the rock.
• Crushers range in size up to gapes
of 1830 mm and can crush ores
with top size of 1370 mm at a rate
of up to 5000t/ h with a 200 mm
set. In mines with crushing rates
above 900t/h, gyratory crushers
are always selected.
 Gyratory Crusher

The gyratory crusher consists essentially of a

long spindle, carrying a hard steel conical
grinding element, the head, seated in an
eccentric sleeve. The spindle is suspended
from a "spider" and, as it rotates, normally
between 85 and 150rev/ min , it sweeps out a
conical path within the fixed crushing
chamber, or shell, due to the gyratory action
of the eccentric.
Jaw & Gyratory Crusher
 Secondary Crusher

• Secondary crushers also operate with dry feeds, and their

purpose is to reduce the ore to a size suitable for grinding.
Since they take the primary crushed ore as feed, the
maximum feed size will normally be less than 15 cm in
diameter and, because most of the harmful constituents in the
ore, such as tramp metal, wood, clays, and slimes have
already been removed, it is much easier to handle.

1. Cone crusher
2. Rhodax crusher
3. Impact crusher
 Cone Crusher

The cone crusher is a modified gyratory crusher. The essential

difference is that the shorter spindle crushers is not suspended, as
in the gyratory, but is supported in a curved.
It is a close relative of the gyratory crusher, even though the speed
of the cone crusher is faster and it is designed to handle smaller
pieces of rock.
Rhodax Crusher
 Rhodax Crusher

A Rhodax Crusher is a specialised form of a cone crusher, referred

to as an inertial cone crusher. Developed by the FCB Research
Centre in France, the Rhodax crusher is claimed to offer process
advantages over conventional cone crushers and is based on inter-
particle compression crushing.
The Rhodax is an inertial cone grinder which means that the
grinding parts are moved by rotating unbalanced masses, and not
due to an eccentric mass as is the case for a conventional cone
crusher. A horizontal circular oscillation movement, is caused by the
rotation of two sets of unbalanced masses. These two sets of masses
are synchronized with each other and subject the ring to a known and
controlled mechanical force. This force creates a fragmentation force.
 Impact Crusher

• In this class of crusher, comminution is by impact rather than

compression, by sharp blows applied at high speed to free-
falling rock.
• There is an important difference between the states of materials
crushed by pressure and by impact. There are internal
stresses in material broken by pressure which can later cause
cracking. Impact causes immediate fracture with no residual
stresses. This stress-free condition is particularly valuable in
stone used for brick-making, building, and road making, in
which binding agents, such as bitumen, are subsequently added
to the surface. Impact crushers, therefore, have a wider use in
the quarrying industry than in the metal-mining industry.
 High pressure roll mill
Hammer mill
 Grinding

• Grinding is the last stage in the process of comminution; in

this stage the particles are reduced in size by a combination
of impact and abrasion, either dry or in suspension in water.
• Grinding (and/or milling, which is a form of grinding) is
accomplished by abrasion and impact of the ore by the free
motion of unconnected media such as rods, balls, or
pebbles.
 Grinding Mechanism

Grinding can be done by several mechanisms, including impact or

compression, due to forces applied almost normally to the particle
surface; chipping due to oblique forces; and abrasion due to forces
acting parallel to the surfaces. These mechanisms distort the particles
and change their shape beyond certain limits deter- mined by their
degree of elasticity, which causes them to break.
and

Impact, Chipping and Abrasion

 Purpose of Grinding

• The correct degree of liberation is the principal

purpose of grinding in mineral processing, this
treatment is sometimes used to increase the surface
area of the valuable minerals even though they may
already be essentially liberated from the gangue.
 Grinding Mills

According to the ways by which motion is imparted to the

charge, grinding mills are generally classified into two types:

1. Tumbling mills and

2. Stirred mills.
 Tumbling Mill

Tumbling mills
In tumbling mills the mill shell is rotated and motion is imparted to
the charge via the mill shell. The grinding medium may be steel
rods, balls, or rock itself. Tumbling mills are typically employed in
the mineral industry for coarse-grinding processes, in which
particles between 5 and 250 mm are reduced in size to between 40
and 300 𝜇m.
 Stirred Mill

In stirred mills the mill shell with either a horizontal or a vertical

orientation is stationary and motion is imparted to the charge by the
movement of an internal stirrer. Fine grinding media inside the mill
are agitated or rotated by a stirrer, which typically comprises a central
shaft to which are attached pins or discs of various designs. Stirred
mills find application in fine (15-40𝜇m) and ultra-fine (<15 𝜇m)
grinding.
 The motion of Charge in Tumbling Mill

The distinctive feature of tumbling mills is

the use of loose crushing bodies, which are
large, hard, and heavy in relation to the ore
particles, but small in relation to the
volume of the mill, and which occupy
slightly less than half the volume of the
mill.
Due to the rotation and friction of the mill
shell, the grinding medium is lifted along
the rising side of the mill until a position of Motion of charge in a
dynamic equilibrium is reached, when the
bodies cascade and cataract down the free
tumbling mill
surface of the other bodies, about a dead
zone where little movement occurs, down
to the toe of the mill charge
The motion of Charge in Tumbling Mill

• At relatively low speeds, or with smooth liners, the medium

tends to roll down to the toe of the mill and essentially abrasive
comminution occurs. This cascading leads to finer grinding,
with increased slimes production and increased liner wear.
• At higher speeds the medium is projected clear of the charge to
describe a series of parabolas before landing on the toe of the
charge. This cataracting leads to comminution by impact and a
coarser end product with reduced liner wear.
The motion of Charge in Tumbling Mill

In travelling around inside the mill the medium (and the large
lumps of ore) follows a path which has two parts.
The lifting section near to the shell liners is circular while the
drop back to the toe of the mill charge is parabolic.
Consider a ball, or rod, which is lifted up the shell of a mill of
radius R meters, revolving at N rev min -1. The rod abandons its
circular path for a parabolic path at point P, when the weight of
the rod is just balanced by the centrifugal force, i.e. when

where m is the mass of the rod or ball (kg), V is the linear

velocity of the rod (ms-l), and g is the acceleration due to gravity
(m s-2).
The motion of Charge in Tumbling Mill
Construction of Mills

• Shell Mill Shells

• Mill ends
• Trunnions and bearing
• Liners
• Mill feeders
 Liners

The internal working faces of mills consist of renewable

liners, which must withstand impact, be wear-resistant,
and promote the most favourable motion of the charge.
• Rod mill ends have plain flat liners, slightly coned to
encourage the self- centring and straight-line action of
rods. They are made usually from manganese or chrome-
molybdenum steels, having high impact strength.
• Ball-mill ends usually have ribs to lift the charge with the
mill rotation. These prevent excessive slip- ping and
increase liner life. They can be made from white cast
iron, alloyed with nickel (Ni-hard), other wear-resistant
materials, and rubber (Durman, 1988).
Types of Liners

• Rubber liners
• Magnetic metal liners
 Mill Feeders

Three types of feeder are in use in wet-grinding mills.

1. Spout feeder
2. Drum feeder
3. Drum scoop feeder

Drum feeder Drum scoop feeder

Types of Tumbling Mill

1. Rod mills
2. Ball mills
 Rod Mill

Rod mills These may be considered as either fine crushers or coarse

grinding machines. They are capable of taking feed as large as 50mm
and making a product as fine as 300𝜇m, reduction ratios normally being
in the range 15-20:1. They are often preferred to fine crushing machines
when the ore is "clayey" or damp, thus tending to choke crushers. The
distinctive feature of a rod mill is that the length of the cylindrical shell
is between 1.5 and 2.5 times its diameter.
 Rod Mill

Rod mills are classed according to the nature of the discharge.

1. Centre peripheral discharge mills are fed at both ends through
the trunnions and discharge the ground product through
circumfer-ential ports at the centre of the shell.
2. End peripheral discharge mills are fed at one end through the
trunnion, discharging the ground product from the other end of
the mill by means of several peripheral apertures into a close-
fitting circumferential chute.
3. Trunnion overflow, in which the feed is introduced through one
trunnion and discharges through the other. This type of mill is
used only for wet grinding.
 Rod Mill

Centre peripheral discharge mills End peripheral discharge mills

Trunnion overflow mills

 Ball Mill

The final stages of comminution are performed in tumbling

mills using steel balls as the grinding medium and so designated
"ball mills." Since balls have a greater surface area per unit
weight than rods, they are better suited for fine finishing. The
term ball mill is restricted to those having a length to diameter
ratio of 1.5 to 1 and less.
 Autogenous Mill

One of the major developments in the mining industry during recent

years is the use of autogenous grinding (AG) and semi-autogenous
grinding (SAG) mills. An AG mill is a tumbling mill that utilises the
ore itself as grinding media. The ore must contain sufficient competent
pieces to act as grinding media.
 Autogenous Mill

Vibratory mills Vibratory mills are

designed for continuous, or batch, grinding
to give a very fine end product from a wide
variety of materials, the operation being
performed either wet or dry. Two tubes
functioning as vibrating grinding cylinders
are located one above the other in a plane
inclined at 30 ~ to the perpendicular (Figure
7.28). Between them lies an eccentrically
supported weight connected by a flexible
universal joint to a 1000-1500rev/ min
motor. Rotation of the eccentric vibrates the
tubes to produce an oscillation circle of a
few millimetres.
Ultra-fine Mill

Tower mill
 Industrial Screening

Screening is the process by which granulated ore material

gets separated into different grades of particle size. It’s a
mechanical process that stratifies particles according to
required size.
A “Screen” can be simply defined as a machine with
surfaces that are used to classify materials by size.
 Purpose of Screening

• Sizing or Classifying, to separate particles by size,

• Scalping, to remove the coarsest size fractions in the feed material,
• Grading, to prepare a number of products within specified size
ranges,
• Media recovery, for washing magnetic media from ore in dense
medium circuits;
• Dewatering, to drain free moisture from a wet sand slurry;
• Desliming or de-dusting, to remove fine material, generally below
0.5 mm from a wet or dry feed; and
• Trash removal, usually to remove wood fibres from a fine slurry
stream.
Factors Affecting Screen Performance

• Feed rate, The principle of sieve sizing analysis is to use a

low feed rate and a very long screening time to effect an
almost complete separation.
• Screen angle, The slope of the screening surface affects the
angle at which particles are presented to the screen apertures.
The screen angle also affects the speed at which particles are
conveyed along the screen.
• Particle shape, Most granular materials processed on screens
are non-spherical. While spherical particles pass with equal
probability in any orientation, irregular-shaped near-mesh
particles must orient themselves. The extreme particle shapes
therefore have a low screening efficiency.
Stratification of particles on a screen
 Factors Affecting Screen Performance

• Open area, The chance of passing through the aperture is

proportional to the percentage of open area in the screen material,
which is defined as the ratio of the net area of the apertures to the
whole area of the screening surface.
• Vibration, Screens are vibrated in order to throw particles off the
screening surface so that they can again be presented to the screen,
and to convey the particles along the screen. The vibration must be
sufficient to prevent pegging and blinding. However, excessive
vibration intensity will cause particles to bounce from the screen
deck.
• Moisture, The amount of surface moisture present in the feed has a
marked effect on screening efficiency. Damp feeds screen very
poorly as they tend to agglomerate and "blind" the screen apertures.
Types of Screening
 Types of Screening

Vibrating Inclined screen: It’s a single

or multi deck screen which is put on an
inclined frame and uses gravity to help
move material downwards and a circular
stroke helps to classify the material for
further sizing. The frame is mounted on
springs. The vibrations are generated
from an unbalanced flywheel. Inclined
screens are commonly used for crushing
rocks, sand , and gravel; recycling; ore
processing; wet screening and for the
chemical industry.
 Types of Screening

Grizzly screens Very coarse material is

usually screened on an inclined screen
called a grizzly screen. Grizzlies are
characterised by parallel steel bars or rails
set at a fixed distance apart and installed
in line with the flow of ore. The gap
between grizzly bars is usually greater
than 50 mm and can be as large as 300
ram, with feed top size as large as 1 m.
Vibrating grizzlies are usually inclined at
an angle of around 20°. The most common
use of grizzlies in mineral processing is
for sizing the feed to primary and
secondary crushers.
 Types of Screening

Mogensen sizers The Mogensen Sizer is a

vibrating screen that uses the principle that
particles smaller than the aperture
statistically require a certain number of
presentations to the screen in order to pass.
The Mogensen Sizer consists of a system of
oscillating and sloping screens of decreasing
aperture size, the smallest of which has a
mesh size up to twice the size of the desired
separation size (Hansen, 2000). This
arrangement allows particles very much finer
than the screens to pass through quickly, but
causing larger particles to be rejected by one
of the screen surfaces
 Types of Screening

Trommel Screen One of the oldest screening devices is the trommel

or revolving screen, which is a cylindrical screen typically rotating at
between 35 and 45% critical speed.
Trommels can handle material from 55 mm down to 6 mm, and even
smaller sizes can be handled under wet screening conditions. Although
trommels are cheaper, vibration- free, and mechanically robust; they
typically have lower capacities than vibrating screens since only part
of the screen surface is in use at any one time, and they can be more
prone to blinding.
 Types of Screening

Dewatering screens are a type of vibrating

screen that are fed a thick slurry and
produce a drained sand product.
Dewatering screens are often installed with
a slight up-hill incline to ensure that water
does not flow over with the product. A
thick bed of particles forms, trapping
particles finer than the screen aperture.
Gyratory, or Tumbler screens impart a
combined gyratory and vertical motion.
They are widely used for fine- screening
applications, wet or dry, down to 40 𝜇m.
 Screening Surface

There are many types of screening surface available

for industrial vibrating screens.
 Screening Surface

Bolt-in screening surfaces, Screening

surfaces for screening duties with
particles larger than around 50 mm
frequently consist of large sheets of
punched, laser-cut, or plasma-cut steel
plate, often sandwiched with a
polyurethane or rubber wear surface to
maximise wear life. These sheets are
rigid and are bolted to the screen
(Figure 8.19). Curved sections of
screens of this type are also commonly
used on trommels
 Screening Surface

Modular screening surfaces, The most popular screening surfaces in harsh

screening duties are polyurethane and rubber screen decks usually assembled in
modules or panels that are fixed onto a sub-frame. Both materials offer exceptional
resistance to abrasion. Rubber also has excellent impact resistance; therefore rubber
is often used in applications where top size can be greater than around 2" (50 mm).
Polyurethane is generally preferred in wet screening applications.

Tensioned screening surfaces Modular screening surfaces