EFFECT OF PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION ON GRINDING KINETICS IN DRY AND WET BALL MILLING OPERATIONS

Under the guidance of Prof. V.K. Gupta

Department of Fuel and Mineral Engineering Indian School of Mines Dhanbad, Jharkhand
Presented by: UTKARSH SANKRITYAYAN (2008JE0428)

INTRODUCTION
Breakage behaviourof particulate solids in ball mills is dependent on the mill charge, ball load, mill speed, pulp viscosity, and % solids in the pulp. In the context of the size discretized batch grinding kinetic model, grinding behaviour of particles is characterized by the breakage rate parameters, S, and breakage distribution parameters, B. Understanding the nature of variation of these two sets of parameters with various operating variables is important for simulation and control of operation of production mills.

INTRODUCTION
Recent studies have shown that the particle size distribution also has considerable influence on the grinding behavior of particles. This influence is more pronounced in case of wet grinding as compared to dry grinding. However, it is not known if only the breakage rate or the breakage distribution as well varies with the particle size distribution.

Frame Work for Analysis

The well known size-mass balance equation of the batch grinding equation i 1 dM i (t ) Si M i (t ) bi , j S j M j (t ) dt j 1 where, Mi(t) is mass fraction of the particulate solids in the sieve size interval i, Si is fractional rate of breakage for material in the size interval i, and bi,j is breakage distribution parameter which denotes the fraction of the material breaking out of size interval j that reports to size interval i.

Wet Grinding
In the case of wet grinding, it is well known that the grinding rate of coarse particles increases with grinding time. This is due to the fact that fine particles remain in suspension in the slurry, leading to an increase in the probability of coarser particles being ground in the toe region of the mill

Dry Grinding
Earlier, it was believed that the effect of particle size distribution on grinding kinetics in ball mills is not significant in the case of dry mode of grinding. Observed variations in the grinding rate of particles in the dry mode of operation were attributed to factors such as: (i) interplay of distributions of strength of particles and distribution of force (ii) cushioning effect of fine particles and variation in the shape of particles during breakage Later, Gupta showed that inter-size particle-particle interactions play an important role in determining the breakage kinetics even in the dry ball milling operation. It was demonstrated that: (i) breakage rate of particles increases as the particle size distribution environment becomes finer, and (ii) particles of next smaller size interval have maximum influence on the breakage rate of particles of a given size.

PAST RESEARCH WORK

Verma and Rajamani (1995) estimated breakage rates for particles of all size intervals using an indirect estimation method known as G-H method (Kapur and Agrawal, 1970; Kapur, 1982; Purker, Agrawal and Kapur, 1986). However, it was assumed, without any experimental evidence, that the breakage distribution function was independent of the particle size distribution environment. It was perhaps for this reason that in several cases acceleration in breakage rate followed by deceleration and acceleration was observed.

Scope of Work
In this project, an attempt has been made to track time variation of both the breakage rate and breakage distribution parameters using the functional form approach. Various constants appearing in the functional forms are assumed to vary linearly over short time intervals.

MODELLING APPROACH
Relevant data available in the literature was analysed using the well-known size discretized size-mass balance kinetic model
i 1 dM i (t ) Si M i (t ) bi , j S j M j (t ) dt j 1

It has been found by several researchers (Klimpel and Austin, 1977; Gupta et al, 1981; Gupta, Hodouin and Everell,1982; Gupta, Hodouin and Spring, 1983; Austin, Klimpel and Luckie, 1984) that the variation of Si and bi,j parameters with particle size can be adequately described by the following two functional forms S = Ax** Where x is particle size and A and are constants.
xi xi bi,j = ( ) + (1- )( ) xj xj

MODELLING APPROACH
In the current approach, it was thought that, as a first approximation, variation of S and b parameters with grinding time can be approximated by a piecewise linear function in time. For example , over a short time interval , variation of with grinding time t can be described by : =a+bt where, a and b are two constants. Thus, for estimation of the values of the parameters A, , , and , it required estimation of ten constants. Best estimates of these ten constants were obtained using the least squares fit criterion for Mi values. For this purpose, an error function Er was defined as m n 2 Er = [M (t ) - M (t )] i k k=1i=1 i k

MODELLING APPROACH
where n : total number of size intervals and m : number of combinations of feed and product size distributions. The error function was minimized using Rosenbrook non-linear optimization algorithm

RESULTS: Dry Ball Mill Grinding

Malghans Data Ball mill diameter : 20 inch Mill Speed : 60% Critical Speed Ball Load: 0.3 Particle Load: 1.0 (represented in terms of fractional filling of the mill volume, J, and void space of the static ball charge, U) Data was available for grinding of 8/10 mesh single size fraction for grinding time values 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 minutes. The fit to the experimental data was found to be quite good. The average error for Mi values, expressed in weight percent, varied between 0.3-0.6.

RESULTS: Dry Ball Mill Grinding

1 2 1 4 6

Breakage rate (1/min)

8 10 12 0.1

0.01
0 1 2 3 4 5

Time, min

Fig 1 Variation of breakage rate parameters with grinding time for dry grinding of limestone (Malghan, 1975).

RESULTS: Dry Ball Mill Grinding

1 1

Bi,1
0.1
t=0.75 t=1.5 t=2.5 t=3.5 t=5 0.01 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0.01

0.1

Size Class, i

Fig 2 Variation of breakage distribution parameters with grinding time for dry grinding of limestone (Malghan, 1975).

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

Kims (1974) Data Ball mill diameter : 25.4cm Two sets of data were analyzed. These are identified as Set 1 and Set 2. SET 1 Mill Speed : 60% Critical Speed Weight percent solid : 70% Ball Load: 0.5 Particle Load: 1.15 (represented in terms of fractional filling of the mill volume, J, and void space of the static ball charge, U) Data was available for grinding time values 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 12minutes. The fit to the experimental data was found to be quite good.

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

1 i=1

i=3
i=4

i=5
i=7

brekage rate, (1/min)

i=9
0.1 i=10

0.01 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Time, min

Fig 3 Variation of breakage rate parameters with grinding time for Set-1 data on wet grinding of limestone (Kim, 1974).

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

1 1

Bi,1

0.1

0.1

t=0.75 t=1.5 t=2.5 t=3.5,6,10 0.01 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0.01

Size class, i

Fig 4 Variation of breakage distribution parameters with grinding time for Set-1 data on wet grinding of limestone (Kim, 1974).

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

Kims Data (1974) Set 2: Mill Speed : 50% Critical Speed Weight percent solid : 60% Ball Load: 0.5 Particle Load: 1.0 (represented in terms of fractional filling of the mill volume, J, and void space of the static ball charge, U) Data was available for grinding time values 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 minutes. The fit to the experimental data was found to be quite good.

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

1 i=1 i=3 i=4

i=6

brekage rate, (1/min)

i=8 0.1 i=10

0.01

10

12

Time, min

Fig 5 Variation of breakage rate parameters with grinding time for Set-2 data on wet grinding of limestone (Kim, 1974).

RESULTS: Wet Ball Mill Grinding

1 1

t=0.25

Bi,1

0.1
t=1.5 t=3 t=5 t=7 t=10 0.01 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

0.1

0.01

Size class, i

Fig 6 Variation of breakage distribution parameters with grinding time for Set-2 data on wet grinding of limestone (Kim, 1974).

RESULTS: Dry Rod Mill Grinding

Grandys (1970 Data) Mill Charge: 5280 g of -7/8# Dolomite Data was available for grinding time values .5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 minutes. The fit to the experimental data was found to be quite good.

RESULTS: Dry Rod Mill Grinding

1

brekage rate, (1/min)

i=1 0.1 i=3 i=5 i=7 i=9 i=11

0.01

Time, min

Fig 7 Variation of breakage rate parameters with grinding time for Rod Mill data on dry grinding of dolomite (Grandy, 1970).

RESULTS: Dry Rod Mill Grinding

1 1

Bi,1

0.1 t=1.75 t=2.5 t=3.5 t=5 t=7 0.01 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

0.1

0.01

Size Class, i

Fig 4.12 Variation of breakage distribution parameters with grinding time for Rod Mill data on dry grinding of dolomite (Grandy, 1970).

Discussion and Conclusion

It is possible to track the variation of both the breakage rate and breakage distribution parameters with grinding time using the piece wise linearization approach At present it is not possible to fully explained the variation of S and B parameters with grinding time. It will require further thinking and carrying out specially designed experiments.

Discussion and Conclusion

When B function was made time invariant, as done by Rajamani et al., the overall fit to size distribution data deteriorated significantly. For example, the Err value for one set of wet grinding data increased from 7.24 to 13.59. This shows that the B parameters also varies with grinding time ( Size Distribution ).

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