MP 121 INTRODUCTION TO MINERAL PROCESSING (10

CREDITS)

Lecture 6
Screening
Instructor: Mr. Sospeter Maganga
(engsocy@gmail.com)
College of Earth Sciences, UDOM
July, 2020
Topics covered
 Meaning and objectives of screening.
 Mass balance on the screen and screen performance
 Factors affecting screen performance
 Applications of different types of screens
Meaning of screen
The screen is a surface having many apertures, or holes, usually with
uniform dimensions. Particles presented to that surface will either
pass through or be retained, according to whether the particles are
smaller or larger than the governing dimensions of the aperture.
 Screening is the process of separating material into two size
fractions. Undersize and oversize fractions.
Industrial Screening
 Industrial sizing is extensively used for size separations from 300 mm
down to around 40 microns, although the efficiency decreases rapidly
with fineness.
 Dry screening is generally limited to material above about 5 mm in
size, while wet screening down to around 250 microns is common.
Screening Objectives
Sizing or Classifying, to separate particles by size, usually to provide a
downstream unit process with the particle size range suited to that unit
operation;
Scalping, to remove the coarsest size fractions in the feed material,
usually so that they can be crushed or removed from the process;
 Grading, to prepare a number of products within specified size ranges.
This is important in quarrying and iron ore, where the final product size
is an important part of the specification;
Media recovery, for washing magnetic media from ore in dense
medium circuits; Dewatering, to drain free moisture from a wet sand
slurry;
Screening Objectives Cont…
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.
Screen Performance

f: fraction of oversize material (above cut size) in the feed

c: fraction of oversize material in the overflow
u:fraction of oversize material in the underflow
Screen Performance Cont….
• These two relationships (8.1)
and (8.2), measure the
effectiveness of the screen in
separating the coarse material
from the underflow and the fine
material from the overflow.
Other form of Efficiency of the screen

Separation size =

Propable error of separation, =

Imperfection, I = =
Example 1
Example 1 Cont…
Example 2
Example 2 Cont…
Example 2 Cont…
Example 2 Cont…
Partition Curve of the Screen
An efficiency or partition curve
for a screen is drawn by plotting
the partition coefficient, defined
as the percentage of the feed
reporting to the oversize
product, against the geometric
mean size on a logarithmic scale.
(For particles in the range, say,
8.0 + 6.3 mm, the geometric
mean size is = 7.1 mm.
Probability of particle to pass through screen
In its simplest form, the
probability of passage for a
single spherical particle size ‘’d’’
passing a square aperture with a
size ‘’x’’ bordered by a wire
diameter ‘’w’’ in a single event is
given by the Gaudin (1939)
equation:
Factors affecting screen performance
Types of Industrial Screens
Vibrating screens
 Stationary screens
Grizzle 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 mm, with feed topsize as large as
1 m.
Vibrating grizzlies are usually inclined t
an angle of around 20 degree
 The most common use of grizzlies in
mineral processing is for sizing the feed
to primary and secondary crushers.
Horizontal Vibrating Screen
They have a horizontal or near-horizontal
screening surface, and therefore need
less headroom than inclined screens.
 The accuracy of particle sizing on
horizontal screens is superior to that on
inclined screens; however because
gravity does not assist the transport of
material along the screen they have
lower capacity than inclined screens
(Krause, 2005).
Horizontal screens are used in sizing
applications where screening efficiency
is critical.
Dewatering screens
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.
Banana screens
Banana screens or Multi-slope screens
have become widely used in high-
tonnage sizing applications where both
efficiency and capacity are important.
The steep sections of the screen cause
the feed material to flow rapidly at the
feed end of the screen.
The resulting thin bed of particles
stratifies more quickly and therefore
has a faster screening rate for the very
fine material than would be possible
on a slower moving thick bed.
Trommel Screen/Revolving screen
Trommels is one of oldest screening  Although trommels are cheaper, vibration free, and
devices, which is a cylindrical screen mechanically robust; they typically have lower
typically rotating at between 35 and 45% capacities than vibrating screens since only part of
critical speed. the screen surface is in use at any one time, and
they can be more prone to blinding.
Trommels can be made to deliver several
sized products by using trommel screens
in series from finest to coarsest.
Trommels can handle material from 55
mm down to 6 mm, and even smaller
sizes can be handled under wet
screening conditions.
Hence readily applicable on AG, SAG and
ball mill discharge.
Sieve bend Screen
Sieve bend screen has a curved screen
composed of horizontal wedge bars,
whereas flat screens are installed on a
slope of between 45 and 60 degree .
Feed slurry enters the upper surface of
the screen tangentially and flows down
the surface in a direction perpendicular
to the openings between the wedge
bars.
As the stream of slurry passes each
opening a thin layer is peeled off and
directed to the underside of the
screen.