Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly Vol. 38, No.2, pp.

133-140, 1999
© 1999 Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0008-4433/99 $19.00+0.00
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PERGAMON

ANALYSIS OF POWER DRAW IN BALL MILLS BY THE

DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD

AMLAN DATTA* B. K. MISHRA1t and R. K. RAJAMANI

Comminution Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA

(Received 28 October 1997; received in revised form 1 December 1998; accepted 1 December 1998)

Abstract-Ball mills, like other comminution devices, consume large amounts of energy. Mill operators
often have to assess the power draft of mills for an entirely different set of operating conditions or for
a reconfigured circuit. It is shown that the power draft can be accurately predicted from analysis of the
motion of the charge. The motion of the charge is rigorously simulated with a numerical technique
known as Discrete Element Method (DEM). In this technique, the coordinates and velocities of each in-
dividual ball are computed from a knowledge of forces arising when balls collide with each other and
with mill shell and lifter walls. First, simulation results on a wide range of ball mills are compared with
available experimental data. Then the power draft predictions as a function of a few operating variables
are shown. The unique feature of this method is that the mill power can be predicted for a mixture of
ball sizes, different lifter geometry and lifter spacing, which is absent in other methods proposed in the
literature. © 1999 Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved

Resume-Les broyeurs a billes, comme d'autres appareils de comminution, consommenme grande quan-
tite d'energie. Les operateurs de broyeurs ont souvent a eva1ueda demande de courant de broyeurs ayant
un ensemble completement different de conditions d'operations ou d'un circuit reconfigure. On montre
qu'a partir de l'analyse du mouvement de lacharge, l'on peut predire precisement la demande de courant.
Le mouvement de la charge est simule rigoureusement par un technique numerique connue sous Ie nom de
methode des eU~ments finis (MEF). Par cette techniquen calcule les coordonnees et la veIocite de chaque
bille individuelle, a partir de donnaissance des forces qui se produisent lorsque les billes entrent on col-
lision loanes avec les autres et avec Ie revetement du broyeur et les parois deeames. En premier lieu, les
resultats de la simulation d'un grand nombre de broyeursa billes sont compares avec les donnees experi-
mentales disponibles. Ensuite, on montre les predictions de demande de courant en fonction de quelques
variables d'operation. La caracteristique unique de cette methode est que l'on peut predire Ie courant
broyeur pour un melange de taille de billes et pour differentes geometries des carnes differents espace-
ments, ce qui manque chez d'autres methodes proposees dans la litterature. © 1999 Canadian Institute of
Mining and Metallurgy. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

NOMENCLATURE rro mill radius (m)

Vn normal velocity (m/sec)
C damping coefficient L1 t time step (sec)
D diameter of ball mill (m) Xi linear displacement of disc (m)
E energy loss in mill (joules)
F, Fn, Fs force (Newton) Greek letters
I moment of inertia of a disc (kg . m2) (J. angle of repose of charge
J fractional mill filling f3 model parameter
K stiffness coefficient ¢ fraction of critical mill speed
L length of ball mill (m) 8 angle describing the mill filling
M moment of a ball about its centroid 8s shoulder angle of charge
Mb mass of mill charge (kg) 8T toe angle of charge
N mill speed (rpm) 8 angular acceleration of ball
Nr mill speed as a function of radius (rpm) p bulk density of ball charge (dimension depends upon the model)
p mill power draft (watt)
T torque needed to rotate the mill (N.m)
m mass of a ball
inner radius of charge (m)
distance between mill center and center of gravity of
charge (m) INTRODUCTION

Comminution equipment consumes a large amount of

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: + 1- electrical energy in a mineral processing plant and the ball
801-581-6386; fax: + 1-801-581-4937. E-mail: adatta@mines.uta-
h.edu.
mill is no exception. Since the net energy supplied to the mill
lCurrently at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India. is responsible for tumbling the mill charge, fundamental
133
134 A. DATTA et at. : ANALYSIS OF PO\VER DRA\V IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELE~1ENT ~1ETHOD

understanding of the mechanics of charge motion inside the cascading charge which results in the torque being a complex
mill is of great importance. This knowledge would eventually function of all the operating variables. not as simple as
lead to the correct prediction of power and consequently implied in luany of the empirical formulae [7]. These
optimization of the process. Therefore, accurate prediction of empirical models lack detailed information about
power has received considerable attention in the past few interactions among the entities of the mill charge and also.
decades. The first systematic formulation of power draft by most of them contain several unknown paranleters. Due to
analyzing ball trajectories goes back to 1919 [1] and since all of these shortconlings. these formulae find very restricted
then a considerable amount of effort has been put to practical application.
correlate power draft and operating and design parameters Powel and Nurick [8] extended the same idea one step
of the ball mill. However, most of the theoretical formulae ahead and appropriately identified the importance of
available to quantify power draft until now, do not take into including the balls in free flight in the model. In this context.
account the underlying mechanics of the motion of the ball a term called Center Of I\1ass (COllI) has been defined. It
charge. Besides, it is easy to calculate the trajectory of a denotes the points in the mill where if all the mass is
single ball, but the complexity arises when the sanle condensed would exert an equivalent torque-arm fronl the
calculation is done for thousands of balls simultaneously. center of mill. A linear relationship of nlill speed and
With modern day computers and suitable numerical angular location of COll! was established fronl experimental
techniques it is possible to compute the trajectory of each data. The correlation certainly needs to be verified for large
ball in the charge, while they interact with one another. nlills, because the mechanics of charge nl0tion would be
In the earlier work, researchers took a continuum different for a laboratory nlill and an industrial nlill.
approach, where the whole mill charge is considered as a Moreover, the methodology for determining the location of
single body and modeled power draft from the torque-arm balls, which is needed to calculate CO A!. is too simplistic to
principle. The torque necessary to maintain the offset in the depict a real situation.
center of gravity of the cascading charge from the rest Recently, I\10rrell [9] developed a model based on the
position is given by: motion of charge. although presuming the motion to be
confined between a fixed shoulder and toe angular positions.
(1) It is assumed that the active zone of charge occupies the
place between an inner radius (ri) and the mill radius (I'm)
where, T is the torque, Mb is the mass of the balls, rg is the and the extent of this zone is limited by toe (aT) and
distance from the mill center to the center of gravity of the shoulder (Os). If the angular speed (velocities of upward and
load, and CI. is the angle of repose of the ball charge. For a downward moving balls) of the balls is lVr,. the power draft
mill running at a speed of N revolutions per minute, the of a mill of length L and bulk density of charge p. is given
power draft is given by: by:

P = 2rrTN (2)
r P.: JOs
P = 2rrg Lp
J
lVrr2 cos a dO dr (3)
A number of researchers [2-6] have derived empirical models ri Or
as shown in Table 1, using this concept. Here, mill power is
correlated with mill diameter (D), mill length (L), charge Later on, all the variables, for exanlple. rio I'm. aT and as are
angle of repose (CI.), mill filling (1), mill speed (¢ or JV), bulk calculated from operating conditions using a few empirical
density of charge (p), acceleration due to gravity (g) and correlations. I\10rrell carefully included slippage between
angle related to mill filling (0). layers of balls by expressing lVr as a function of radial
The charge inside the mill expands and contracts as the position. The nl0del can also take care of charge constituted
mill revolves. Hence, the center of gravity also keeps by nlaterials of different densities. as is the case in semi-
changing position. Moreover, the angular speed of the nlill autogeneous mill. All these advanced features nlade the
and mass of balls within the mill influence the profile of the model quite comprehensive. However. the toe and shoulder
positions of industrial mill are calculated fronl the sanle
correlation obtained from a laboratory nlill and that is not
quite acceptable. The reason is that the intensity of force at
Table 1.. Power draw formulae
the ball-ball and ball-wall interface will not be same for t\\'O
Bond [2] different mills. Nevertheless. despite its simplified approach
P = 12.26pLD2.3J(l - 0.937J)(1 - 0.1/29-109) the nl0del claims a greater degree of accuracy than the
Hogg and Fuerstenau [3] previous empirical models.
P = 3.627 p¢LD2.5 sin3@ sin 'Y. In this study. a new nlethod of estimating power draw is
Guerrero and Arbiter [4]
shown. The mill is simulated with a computer code.
P = 3.627 p¢LD2.5jeJ)
Harris et at. [5] developed on the basis of discrete element method (DEI\1).
P = 9.69p¢LD2.5 J(l - J) The strength of this method is its fundamental approach.
Harris et at. [5] robustness and lack of any enlpiricisnl. The verification of
P = 1.88mg¢Do.5(l - J) sin 'Y.
this technique, followed by a sumnHuy of results showing the
Moys [6]
P = KD2.3 sin 'Y.pLJ(1 - {3J)N effects of various design and operating conditions on mill
power. is presented here.
 A. DATTA et al. : ANALYSIS OF POWER DRAW IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD
THE NUMERICAL METHOD
The numerical method that has been adopted here is called
Discrete Element Method (DEM). The original technique
was pioneered by Cundall and Strack in 1979 [10] for
simulating discrete, but interacting bodies. Therefore, the
discrete element method is a suitable choice for modeling the
internal dynamics of ball mill, where balls and the mill shell
are treated as geometrically inviolate elements [11].
The discrete element analysis starts with a mathematical
representation of the entities. Ideally the system should be
simulated in three dimensions. But, in the case of ball mill
one can assume that the axial motion in either direction is
minimal so it can be simulated in two dimensions, where the
mill is considered to be made up of several circular
compartments containing one layer of balls-and one of
these compartments is the system of our interest. In that
way, the computational complexity is reduced to a great
extent. In two dimensions, a ball is visualized as a circle or
disc that has the mass of a sphere of same diameter, whereas
the mill wall is represented by straight lines. Each of these
discs and lines are treated as separate elements. Another
important aspect of DEM simulation is the modeling of the
contact points between two elements. Here, the contacts are
modeled with two imaginary pairs of spring and dashpot,
one each in the normal and shear directions. The internal
restoring force is simulated by the spring, while the dashpot
models the damped fraction of the force. Coefficient of
friction plays a role at the contact where the absolute
value of the force in the shear direction is never allowed
to increase beyond a limiting value given by the product
of normal force and coefficient of friction. The dynamic
force balance for each ball can be written in the general
form as:
(4)
2
jiJ + 'L/Kx; + Cx;)Li = M, i = 1,2 (5)
;=1
where In, I, C, and K are the mass, moment of inertia,
damping, and stiffness matrix respectively; F is the applied
force vector; M is the moment about the centroid of disc; L;
is the perpendicular distance from the line of action of force
to the centroid of the ball and Xi is the position vector. The
major computational tasks of DEM in each time step are as
follows: (a) detection of contacts between an element and its
neighbors; (b) computation of contact forces from relative
displacement between elements employing the contact
deformation equation (Eq. 4) and contact properties; (c)
summation of contact forces to determine total unbalanced
force; (d) computation of acceleration from force, followed
by velocity and displacement by integrating acceleration; (e)
updating the position of wall and ball elements. The angular
displacement of the disc is also calculated after obtaining the
moment about its center from Eq. 5. Contact detection takes
the bulk of the computational time. For this reason, the
motion of the balls is monitored within a sub region of the
system and summed over all the sub regions. Repetition of
135
the same scheme for all the elements gives the ball charge
motion in one-time steps. The integration of acceleration is
carried out by finite difference approximation. Therefore, in
order to maintain computational stability, a very small
time step, generally in the order of 10-5 s, is used. The
simplicity of the method is quite tangible. DEM applies
Newton's second law of motion to compute the acceleration
of a moving body from the net force applied on it and the
force is calculated from the physical properties of the
material.
A computation of the mill power draft can be easily
obtained from the simulation of ball charge motion. The
power supplied to the mill is expended to keep the ball
charge in motion. While doing this work, energy is also
expended in friction and collisions. At each collision, a part
of the total energy is lost, which is mimicked by the dashpot.
Thus, the product of normal and shear force on the dashpot
and respective displacement give the energy lost at that
contact. The energy lost in two-dimensional calculation is
expressed in the following way:
E = L L [(Fn . vn~t) + (Fs . vs~t)] (6)
t k
Here, F is the dissipative force and v is the velocity of the
element. The subscripts nand s denote normal and shear
direction at the contact point. As shown in the expression,
the energy loss term is summed up over all the collisions (k)
for all the time steps (t).
As mentioned earlier, the mill is a combination of several
axially symmetric compartments. The above expression gives
the energy lost in one such compartment of the mill which
needs to be multiplied by number of compartments to
calculate the energy supplied to the mill. Since the same mill
filling and ball size distribution are used to generate the discs
in two dimensional simulation, the ratio of total mass of ball
in the actual mill and the mass of ball in one compartment
provides the total number of compartments. Thus, the net
mill power draft is computed from the DEM simulation of a
single compartment.
There are four important contact parameters that should
be specified to simulate a mill. They are normal and shear
stiffness, coefficient of restitution and coefficient of friction.
Generally, these parameters are determined experimentally
for different materials, for example, steel-steel contact or
steel-rubber contact. However, coefficient of restitution
and friction depends upon the environment inside the mill.
Therefore, they need to be fine-tuned using experimental
mill power data. Afterwards, the same set of parameters
can be used for simulation of the same mill for wide
range of operating conditions. A standard set of
parameters used for simulation of 0.762-m diameter by
0.457-m length mill in this study is presented in Table 2.
A typical snapshot of the charge motion in this mill
is shown in Fig. 1. In small pilot mills of this type
both cascading and cataracting motions are seen even at
low mill speed. It is this unique feature of visualizing
charge motion that makes DEM an attractive modeling
tool.
 136 A. DATTA et al. : ANALYSIS OF POWER DRA \V IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELEi\1ENT i\'IETHOD

Table 2. Simulation parameters for 0.762-m diameter x 0.457 m

length mill

Normal stiffness 400,000 N/m

Shear stiffness 300,000 N/m
Coefficient of friction 0.6
Coefficient of restitution 0.5
Time step 1 x 10-5
Number of lifters 8
Lifter dimension (rectangular) 0.635 x 10.2 cm
Ball filling 35%
Ball size distribution 3.8 cm (53%), 2.5 cm (30%),
1.9 cm (12%) 1.3 cm (5%)
60% critical speed 29 rpm

POWER DRAW ANALYSIS

A substantial fraction of the energy lost in the collisions is

responsible for breakage of are in a ball mill and the rest of
it causes the wear of grinding media and the mill wall. Thus,
prior information regarding the power draw is quite
important from the operational standpoint so that maximum
throughput can be achieved with minimum loss of material
Fig. 1. Simulatcd charge motion of 0.762-m mill.
from balls and mill shell. In subsequent sections, the
prediction of power draw from DEM simulation is compared
a slope of 2.5 for the laboratory mill. which is in good
with the practical data and, along with that, the influence of
agreement with the original correlation. But. for industrial
various design and operating parameters on mill power is
mills the power draft appears to be proportional to D"2·24. In
studied with simulation results.
this c·Jntext, it should be mentioned that Bond also observed
a similar correlation experimentally and used the tern1 '"D"2·3.
Effect of mill diameter in his formula (Table 1). In a nutshell. it is shown that DEi\1
is able to account for this subtle aspect of ball motion in
A genuine difficulty with modeling of mill power is the
mills of widely varying diameter.
fact that the internal dynamics differs significantly between a
small and large mill, even if identical operating conditions Effect of mill filling
are maintained. That is why the earlier research work failed
to develop a model that works for all mill sizes. In this Bond's power draw equation (Table 1) suggests that
study, mills ranging in size from 0.254-m diameter laboratory
mill to 4.11-m diameter industrial mill were simulated by PocJ(l - 0.937J) (9)
DEM. The results (Table 3) clearly show the accuracy of
power draft predictions. The robustness of the method is where, J is ball load. The ball load. at which the ll1ill draws
attributed to its fundamental approach. maximum power, is about 53%. The simulation results of
In a simplistic way, it can be assumed that the number of 0.762-m mill running at 60% critical speed are plotted in
collisions is proportional to the number of balls multiplied Fig. 4. The relevant operating and simulation parameters are
by frequency of collisions. The number of balls is listed in Table 3. The calculated power draft is maximum at
proportional to D2 L, mill rotation is proportional to 1/ DO.5 about 50% ball load. According to Eq. 1. ll1ill power is a
and the height up to which balls are raised is a fraction of D, function of ball mass (AI b) and the distance between mill
hence mill power draft is proportional to D2.5• Mill power center and the center of gravity of ball mass (rg). So. as the
draft was predicted for different diameter laboratory mills mill filling increases Aib goes up. but rg decreases. Therefore.
(Fig. 2) and industrial mills (Fig. 3), operating under the power draft passes through a maximum. However. the
identical conditions. The best-fit straight line in log scale has value of this critical mill filling is also influenced by other

Table 3.. Comparison of predicted and measured mill power

Mill diameter (m) x length (m) Mill filling (%) Mill speed (% critical) Measured power (k\V) Predicted powcr (k\V) Referencc

0.254 x 0.292 50 60 0.082 0.071 12

0.381 x 0.292 50 60 0.209 0.207 12
0.550 x 0.304 38 87 0.495 0.521 7
0.762 x 0.457 50 60 1.215 1.306 12
1.80 x 0.448 43 91 6.24 6.09 13
2.04 x 2.72 37 74 105 114 14
4.11 x 5.49 34 77 1324 1318 14
 A. DATTA et ai. : ANALYSIS OF POWER DRAW IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD 137

4 4
10 10
Ball Load = 35% =
Ball Load 35%
Mill Speed = 60% Critical =
Mill Speed 70% Critical

i
--l
3
10
~
~
~
0 ~
~ ~ 10
3
S
~ ~
10
2 Slope =2.53 • Slope = 2.24
•

101 102
0.1 10
Mill Diameter (m) Mill Diameter (m)

Fig. 2. Variation of mill power with diameter (laboratory scale mill) Fig. 3. Variation of mill power with diameter (industrial mill) and
and slope of best-fit straight line in log-scale. slope of best-fit straight line in log-scale.

operating factors. DEM numerical calculation takes into
consideration the exact shape of internal geometry as well as
the size distribution of balls and mill speed. The mill power
draft is calculated from the numerous collisions that take
place as a result of mill rotation. In Fig. 4 DEM was used to
analyze the effect of ball load on mill power draft. Likewise,
DEM could be used to examine the effect of size distribution
of the ball charge on mill power draft. The internal dynamics
of the balls are dependent on the ball size and the lifter
geometry given a particular mill speed and mill filling. When
the charge comprised small balls the lifters can enhance the
cataracting action, but the energy involved in the impacts
would be low due to the small mass of the balls. On the
other hand, if the balls are much larger in size compared to
the height of the lifters then they just roll over the lifters
the same 0.762-m (30 in) mill with 35% ball load shows that
this maximum point is about 85-90% critical speed (Fig. 6).
The motion of the ball charge becomes more cataracting as
the mill speed increases and so the mill draws more power.
But as the mill speed approaches the critical value more
number of balls start to stick on the mill shell, the effective
ball mass reduces and thus, the mill tends to draw less
power. In this context, one should realize that the peak of
the curve would depend upon friction between mill shell and
grinding media. For instance, slight variation in the percent
solids of the slurry in the mill changes the frictional
characteristics of the ball mass. Figure 6 shows the decrease
1350

restricting the degree of cataracting action and thus the mill Diameter = 0.762 cm
draws less power. Therefore for a particular mill speed, ball 1300 Speed = 60% Critical
•
load and lifter geometry, there is an optimum size of ball •
charge which draws the maximum power. The same
1250
•
phenomenon is depicted in Fig. 5. In this case the 0.762-m •
diameter mill is simulated with equilibrium ball charge
•
~
distribution with three different top sizes of ball. The lifters ~ 1200
~
are of rectangular shape with a height of 6.35 mm and width ~
of 101.6 mm. For the top size of 5.1 cm, the mill draws ~0

1150
maximum power as compared to the other two sizes (3.8 cm ~
•
and 6.4 cm). The inherent nature of the DEM numerical
technique allows us to analyze the influence of any operating
1100 •
condition on mill power draft from the resulting impacts
caused by them. The other mill operating conditions namely 1050

mill speed and lifter configuration are also analyzed in the

same manner and described in this manuscript. 1000
30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Effect of mill speed
Ball Load (%)
According to published literature [15], power draft reaches
a maximum at about 850/0 critical speed. The simulation of Fig. 4. Variation of mill power with ball load.
138 A. DATTA et al. : ANALYSIS OF PO\VER DRAW IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELE~vlENT l'vlETHOD

2000 1800
-+- friction coeff = 0.6
-0-- friction coeff = 0.2

1600

'i?
(';j

1500
~
'-<
Q)

~0
p.,.
= ~
~ 1200
1000

Mill Diameter = 0.762 m

Mill Speed = 60% Critical 1000 Mill Diameter = 0.762 m
Ball Load = 35% Ball load = 35%

500 800
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

Top Ball Size (em) Mill Speed (% Critical)

Fig. 6. Variation of mill power with mill speed and coefficient of fric-
Fig. 5. Variation of mill power with ball charge distribution.
tion.

in the mill power draft as the friction coefficient decreases.

vigorous as the lifter height increases. But after a certain
This decrease in friction reflects either a dilute slurry or a
limit, the effective volume of mill reduces which restricts the
slurry that flows easily as finer particles accumulate. Also~
motion of media and the mill power reduces. For the san1e
the rubber lifter would exhibit a higher frictional effect than
reason~ lifting action and mill-power significantly also
steel liners. Once again the power of DEM is demonstrated
depend upon the number of lifters. \Vhen the lifters are
in its ability to incorporate such details. However, some
closely spaced, as is the case when the nUI11ber of lifters is
other experimental work is necessary to quantify the friction
increased~ balls will be carried to a greater height if the ball
coefficient of a ball charge in a specific slurry.
size remains unchanged. In other words. the extent of
Effect of lifter-bar cataracting motion will be enhanced with the increase in
lifter number. But at the same point. the intervening gap
Discrete element method (DEM) computes the mill power between two lifters reduces so I11uch that the lifters just lock
from very fundamental modeling principles of colliding
bodies. Thus, power draft predicted by DEM takes into
account the changes in lifter design in terms of material
properties, geometry and arrangement. This is a unique 1600
feature of this numerical technique, because none of the
existing models for power draw is capable of accounting for
the lifter dimensions or the number of lifters or even the ball 1500

size distribution. The design of lifter-bars should be such

that the mill is able to draw adequate power to achieve
1400 A
maximum throughput and at the same time, minimize liner S- A

damage. All the simulations related to the study of effect of ~

~~ A

lifter-bars, were conducted for a 0.762-m diameter mill ~~ 1300

a
operating at 35% ball load and 60% critical speed. p..

Two successive lifters lock-up the ball mass and raise them ~
to a height thus working against gravity. The presence of 1200 A

lifters restricts the slippage of charge and enhances the

tumbling action of the grinding media. The power needed to Mill Diameter =
0.762 m
1100 Mill Speed = 60% Critical
accomplish this is proportional to the height of lift and Ball-load = 35%
consequent cataracting and cascading of charge. Even the
frictional force existing between balls and between ball mass
1000
and mill shell influences the height of lift. Thus, there is a
o 2 4 5 6 7
difference in lifting action when the size and mass of the ball
charge are varied. lifter Height (cm)
The variation of power with respect to the lifter height is
shown in Fig. 7. The motion of the ball mass becomes n10re Fig. 7. Variation of mill power with lifter height.
 A. DATTA et al. : ANALYSIS OF POWER DRAW IN BALL MILLS BY THE DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD 139

1100 r----------------------, 1500 .---------------------,

1400 II

1050 1300

1200 II
...o
~ 1000
~ 1100
Mill Diameter = 0.762 cm I
Mill Dia. = 76.2 cm 1000 Mill Speed =
60% Critical

950 Ball Load = 35% I Ball-load = 35%

Mill Speed = 60% Critical

900 L- ----I. ---l. --.L. ---'
Rectangular Lifter
Semi-circular Triangular Trapezoidal Rectangular

900 L---L.--I.._l..-.--..l----l..._l..----I.--J.._.l.---'-----'-_L..----'----'

o 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Number of Lifters
Fig. 9. Variation of mill power with shape of lifter.
Fig. 8. Variation of mill power with number of lifters.

CONCLUSION

The net power drawn by the mill is an indication of its

the ball trapped between them. The lifters used in these
operational capacity. Ideally the mill should operate at
simulations are of rectangular shape with 2.5-cm height and
maximum power, while causing minimum damage to the
5.1-cm width and the top-ball size of the charge is 3.8 cm. liner wall. In this study, the mill power has been predicted
Therefore, beyond a certain number of lifters, depending by a numerical technique called the discrete element method
upon the other parameters, the mill starts behaving like one (DEM). The method has been validated by comparing the
with smooth liner and less volume. Thus power draft results with the measured value of mill power for laboratory
decreases. This idea has been corroborated in Fig. 8, where scale as well as industrial scale mills. In all the cases,
the DEM power draw calculation is shown as a function of predictions were very close to measured data. The variation
number of lifters. of mill power with respect to mill diameter, mill load and
The shape of the lifter is also a crucial factor for mill speed was studied by DEM. Interestingly, all the results
optimizing mill operation. It is shown in Fig. 9 that for closely followed the trends given in the literature.
same lifter height, base-width and number, the mill with One unique feature of this method is its ability to consider
rectangular lifters draws maximum power. The mill power lifter characteristics in predicting the mill power. The
with trapezoidal lifters is marginally less. Trapezoidal lifters relationships between power draft and lifter height, number
have a higher face angle. So, the extent of cataracting is of lifters and lifter geometry have been presented here.
less than that with rectangular lifters due to early release of All this information is very promising for carrying out
locked-up charge. With triangular lifters, the ball charge further research in the line of mill design. The power draft is
has even a lower shoulder angle. The leading face of the computed from the energy expended in the mill, which is
triangular lifter is slanted. In other words, the face makes nothing but the summation of all the collision energies.
an angle of 14° with the horizontal as the lifter travels Hence, the numerical simulation also gives us a complete
upward. Hence, the ball charge easily flows away from the account of those collisions. With this information about the
face of the lifter, giving rise to a cascading ball charge. The collisions occurring in the mill, a methodology can be
angle is calculated from the height and the base-width, developed to estimate the product size distribution as well as
which as mentioned before, are maintained at fixed values the liner life [16] of the mill and correlate them with the mill
for a common ground of comparison. For the same mill power draft.
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