3 RAW MILLING & BLENDING 3.1 Raw Milling More than 80% of new raw mills are vertical roller mills, though many ball mills are still in use. Roll presses are also used, particularly in upgrading existing ball mill circuits either to increase production or to reduce specific power consumption. The presses are employed as pregrinders with or without a disagglomerator to strip fines from the pressed cake before feeding to a ball mill. Roller mills can typically handle raw materials with an aggregate moisture of up to 20%. Ball mills, providing they are equipped with a drying compartment and are adequately air swept with hot gas (2.5-3.5M/'sec above the ball charge), can handle 8%. Centre discharge mills (Double Rotator) and fully air- swept mills (5-6M /sec) can dry to 12-14% moisture. Normally drying is effected by ducting part of the kiln exhaust gas through the mill with inlet temperatures of up to 300°C. Obviously a high drying requirement may be inconsistent with maximising the thermal efficiency of the kiln; generally five and six stage preheaters are only employed where subse- quent drying by the exhaust gas is minimal. Alternatively, but more expensively, dedicated hot gas generators can be used for drying in the raw mill. Drying is also aided by heat dissipation from mill drive power, which equates to approximately 1t moisture per 1000kWh. In the absence of preblend/storage of limestone and shale, or if the materials as fed to the raw mill are effectively dry, silos are appropriate for the feed materials. Where wet materials are fed for drying in the raw mill, silos are unnecessary. Ball mill operation is described in more detail under finish milling (Section 5.2). Roller mills have a lower specific power consumption than ball mills. Loesche mills (Figure 3.1) comprise 2-4 conical rollers which are hydraulically pressed onto a horizontal rotating grinding table. The roller axis is inclined at 15° to the table and, as axes of rollers and table do not intersect in the plane of the table, the relative motion involves both rolling and sliding which enhances comminution. Feed material is directed onto the centre of the table and is thrown outward by rotation under the rollers and into a rising air current at the periphery which is Cement Plant Operations Handbook ¢ 13 F) BS = = | As Pa G) @ wo re ul 4 \~)] = G)Figure 3.1: Roller Mill Product N _ \ | CLASSIFIER / \ LOESCHE ROLLER MILL ROLLER Louvre TABLE nett gas ox Preheater DRIVE REJECTS TRAP DUST GRCULATINS DUST COLLECTOR FAN COLLECTOR Syaust Lf eae evotone I} : — / EXHAUST Product cat ae > Food) preauet MLL << Hot geo, Wet ose ___lox Preneater ox Proheater SINGLE FAN CIRCUIT DOUBLE FAN CIRCUIT (RECIRCULATING) 14 © Cement Plant Operations Handbookdirected by means of a louvre ring. The air sweep passes through an integral rotary classifier; fines pass out with the air current while coarse material falls back onto the feed table. Material drying occurs in air suspension between table and classifier. Circulating load is typically 800%. Roller mills are prone to vibration due to an unstable grinding bed. A major cause of bed instability is fine, dry mill feed, which can usually be mitigated by spraying water direct- ly onto the bed. ‘A recent innovation, the LV high efficiency classifier (Nielsen & Tsuchiya; ZKG; 1/2001, pg 32), gives a higher velocity profile above the grinding table which effectively reduces the concentration of suspend- ed material and the pressure drop across the mill. Significantly coarser classifier rejects also result in a more stable grinding bed. Mill through- put increases of 12-30% and system power savings of 1.5-5kWh/t are claimed. The mill is started either with the rollers lifted away from the table, or with the hydro-pneumatic system at low pressure. In grinding mode, actual metal to metal contact should be prevented by limit switches or a mechanical stop and by consistent feed. Material which is not carried upwards by the air stream falls from the table to a rejects trap, but every effort should be made to exclude tramp metal which can damage the grinding surfaces. Some designs incorporate an external circulating sys- tem to elevate and return rejects to mill feed and these deliberately reduce the gas velocity through the peripheral inlet around the mill table from 80-85M/s to 45-60M/s. The benefit of this system is a reduced mill pressure drop. It is important that a roller mill be capable of drawing its designed power and this is controlled by adjustment of the roll pressure and of the height of the dam ring holding material on the table. Excessive rejects may be the result of too low a dam ring. The inherently high sta- tic pressure in the roller mill system requires tight control of air inlea age; no more than 10-15% inleakage between mill and dust collector should be permitted. Loesche mills are defined by grinding table diameter (4M) and number of grinding rollers; eg LM46.4 is 4.6M in diameter with 4 roller modules. Cement Plant Operations Handbook © 15 s = = re ae Pa G) @ wo rm ra P= 9 P< G)Primary roller mill controls are: @ mill drive power or mill differential pressure which control mill feed rate @ inlet gas temperature (up to 600°C) outlet gas temperature 1 outlet gas flow. It should be noted that the material cycle time of a roller mill is usual- ly less than a minute against several minutes for a ball mill. Thus, control response time should be appropriately faster. In addition, the roller mill feed system must be capable of responding to low material flow within no more than 45 seconds or excessive vibration will cause mill shut-down. Optimum fineness of kiln feed must be determined empirically and should be as coarse as the kiln will tolerate. Typically, raw meal should be ground to 15% +170# (884) and 1.5-2.5% +50# (300u). A narrow particle size distribution is optimal because fines tend to increase dust loss by entrainment in exhaust gas, while coarse particles are harder to react in the kiln and result in high free lime, and/or excessive fuel consumption. Specific power consumption depends upon material hardness and mill efficiency. For ball mills, the range is approximately 10kWh/t (mill drive only) for soft, chalky limestone to 25kWh/t for hard materials. For roller mills the range may be 4.5-8.5kWh/T and, although ID fan power is increased, system power is generally some 30% lower than for ball mills. Mill product is monitored either by continuous, on-line analysis or by laboratory analysis of hourly grab or composite samples. Computer programs are employed to effect feed corrections in order to maintain the desired optimum average composition. Raw material contamination may seriously compromise the control program. 16 © Cement Plant Operations HandbookRaw mills are monitored by: Production rate, tonnes/hour Operating hours Involuntary downtime hours kWh/tonne (mill motor) % of connected power (relative to mill motor rating) Product fineness, -170# & -50# Feed moisture, % Product moisture, % Limestone, kg/Eqt Clay /shale, kg/Eqt Additives, kg/Eqt. (Note: Equivalent tonnes (Eqt) are theoretical tonnes of cement pro- duced from given quantities of raw materials; see Plant Reporting, Section 12.1). Additional operating parameters required periodically include: Circulating load, % Ball usage, g/t (for ball mills) Chemical analysis of +170# fraction. The coarse (+170#) fraction may be lime-rich or, more likely, silica-rich relative to the total sample but should show constant bias. Coarse par- ticles should be limited to avoid burning problems: Silica >200p Not more than 0.5% of KF 90-200 Not more than 1.0% >45p Not more than 2.0% Calcite >125p Not more than 5.0% Separators are covered in detail under Cement Milling (Section 5.3). 3.2 Blending ‘There are various blending silo designs. The two major types involve turbulence (in which the material is tumbled about by the injection of high volume air through airpads on the silo floor) and controlled flow (where sequenced light aeration of segments of airpads causes layers of material in the silo to blend by differential rates of descent within the Cement Plant Operations Handbook © 17 3 — = | aa z a Ro sy] r mi 2 = z r=)silo). Controlled flow silos may have multiple discharge chutes, or an inverted cone over a centre discharge within which the meal is flu- idised. Compressor power consumption is approximately Turbulent mixing (airmerge) 1.5 - 2.5 kWhit Controlled flow, inverted cone 0.25 - 0.50 multi outlet 0.10 - 0.13 (Bartholomew; ICR; 9/1995, pg 66) Turbulent mixing can be operated batch-wise or continuously. The former involves either a filling cycle corrected progressively to average the target mix, or a sequence of filling, mixing, sampling and analysing, correcting, remixing, and then feeding to kiln. Continuous blending involves simultaneous feeding of the silo, overflow to a second silo and discharge to kiln feed. Modern blending silos are generally of continuous, controlled flow type with each silo having capacity of more than 24 hours kiln feed and yielding a blending ratio of 3-5; older silos are more like 2-3. Note that a given silo will show a lower blending efficiency if the feed is itself consistent. Apart from power savings, the effective capacity of a CE silo is some 20% greater due to the higher bulk density of meal which is not heavily aerated. Retrofit modifications are available for converting airmerge systems to controlled flow for approximately $0.5 million per silo. Blending silos should be monitored by: Blending ratio (5 feed /'S product) Compressor kWh/ tonne throughput. Blending silos are prone to internal build-up of dead material, particu- larly if feed material is wet or if aeration is defective, and periodic (1-2 years) internal inspections and maintenance are necessary. As raw meal is liable to solidify if left inactive (during a kiln shut-down for exam- ple), blending silos should be emptied or recirculated when not in use. With the availability of real-time on-line analysis of mill feed or prod- uct, it is possible to maintain chemistry within narrow limits and modern plant designs frequently dispense with kiln feed blending. 18 © Cement Plant Operations Handbook3.3 Kiln Feed Both the chemical composition and the rate of feed of raw meal to the kiln must be consistent to avoid kiln instability and to minimise fuel consumption. Short term feed fluctuation (eg hunting of feeder control) as well as average feed rate should be monitored. Air-suspension preheater kilns lose a fraction of kiln feed by entrain- ment in exhaust gas. As this fine fraction is usually of atypical compo- sition, kiln feed analysis must be biased to yield the desired clinker composition. The dust loss, some 6-12% of kiln feed, is not usually collected until after the exhaust gas passes through a raw mill or dryer, so that dust catch is not the same quantity or composition as preheater dust loss. Thus, even if the dust collector catch is returned directly to the kiln, it must still be compensated. Likewise, care must be exercised to minimise the chemical disturbance due to dust return. Depending upon quantity and chemical variation, one or more holding tanks may be desirable to collect different dusts and allow constant metered return either to blend silo or to kiln feed. Such dust can also occasionally be employed as a cement intergrind or disposed of for agricultural or sludge stabilisation purposes. If the kiln exhaust passes directly and continuously to dust collection, then the dust may be returned directly to the kiln with kiln feed or, sometimes, by insufflation at the hood or at the feed-end of the kiln which minimises re-entrainment of the fines. Kiln feed is monitored by: Chemical analysis on 4- or 8-hourly grab samples to determine statistical variation (see Section 6.5). Analysis is conventionally for major oxides with variation monitored statistically in terms of C3S or LSF. Kiln feed should typically have an estimated standard deviation for grab samples of less than 3% C;S. It should be born in mind that stan- dard deviation is not a perfect measure of variation as, simply applied, it does not distinguish between a steady trend and constant fluctuation. One might also beware of the dubious practice of eliminating extreme values from a set before calculating standard deviation. Cement Plant Operations Handbook * 19 3 = = é = = G) i) ss) fo ral = a P= G)Kiln feed is normally conveyed by bucket elevator to the top of the pre- heater to minimise power consumption. If this conveying is effected pneumatically, de-aeration is desirable before injection as the entraining air otherwise adds to the kiln ID fan load and may reduce kiln capacity. Kiln feed to clinker ratio is typically 1.65-1.75 and, after determination, should be periodically reconciled with clinker and cement inventories and with measured dust loss in the preheater exhaust. Kiln feed = Clinker + Lol + Bypass dust + Downcomer dust - Coal ash (where both bypass dust and downcomer dust are converted to ignited basis). 20 * Cement Plant Operations Handbook