Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165 174

www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec

Open and closed circuit dry grinding of cement mill rejects in a pilot scale
vertical stirred mill
C.C. Pilevneli *, S. Kzgut, I. Toroglu, D. Cuhadaroglu, E. Yigit
Mining Engineering Department, Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Maden Muhendisligi Bolumu, 67100 Zonguldak, Turkey
Received 20 July 2003; received in revised form 15 November 2003; accepted 1 December 2003

Abstract
In this study, separator rejects of a closed circuit cement tube milling were dry ground in a 10-l pilot scale vertical stirred mill. Tests were
done as open and closed circuit. The results were evaluated by size distributions, Blaine surface area of the products and the specific energy
consumed during the tests. Mill capacity and the stirring speeds were the investigated parameters for the open circuit tests, whereas closed
circuit tests were carried out at a constant stirring speed but variable discharge rate. Five speed levels used in the open circuit grinding tests
are 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 rpm. The capacities were determined to obtain product Blaine surface areas in the limits between 2000 and
5000 cm2/g. Closed circuit tests have resulted in 87%, 182% and 452% circulating loads.
D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cement; Clinker; Dry grinding; Open circuit; Closed circuit; Vertical stirred mill

1. Introduction
The increase of the worlds population day by day and the
development of the human relations in many aspects following the globalisation of the earth has led to the increase in
motion which in turn has expanded the worlds energy
consumption. This increase in energy consumption of the
consumed energy has caused the investigation of new energy
sources and the invention of novel less power-consuming
technologies.
The building sector is an indicator of the civilisation
level. This also shows the importance of cement to the
civilisation progress. Growing population and development
both increase the need for cement production. Half of the
energy used in cement production is consumed in clinker
grinding. Thus new technologies and researchers tend to
focus on this huge energy necessity to diminish it.
Stirred milling is becoming popular in fine and super fine
grinding. Today, many industries including ceramics, mineral, coal, metallurgy, electronics, chemical, food, agricul-

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-533-7457170; fax: +90-3722574023.

E-mail address: ccpilevneli@mynet.com (C.C. Pilevneli).
0032-5910/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2003.12.002

ture, medicine, photography, energy, etc., extensively uses

stirred milling technology in their production [1 4].
The main reason for using stirred mills is their energetic
efficiency in the production of submicron particles compared to other conventional grinding systems such as ball
milling. So nowadays regrinding circuits tend to shift to the
stirred milling system.
The coarse size of the clinker is a disadvantage to stirred
mills since their applicability is valid for a maximum feed size
of a couple of millimetres. However, stirred mills can be
applied to cement grinding if the feed size is made suitable.
For example, instead of regrinding the separator reject in the
tube mill, it can be directed to a stirred mill. Thus a possible
energy saving can be obtained compared to ball mill grinding.
Because, stirred mills are reported to supply energy savings
below 100 Am product sizes [5] such as for finish cement
( 30 Am). So, this paper was aimed to clarify this reasoning.

2. Stirred mills
Fig. 1 shows the schematic representation of a horizontal
stirred mill. The mill body is a cylindrical tube with a stirring
mechanism situated at the centre of the longitudinal axis.
Mainly a rotor activates the stirring parts such as the pins or
discs mounted on it. The remaining empty volume is filled by

166

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Fig. 1. A horizontal stirred mill with pin stirrers.

the beads up to 90% to comminute the material which it

surrounds. The media can be made up of different materials
such as steel, glass, zirconium, ceramics, alumina, etc.
Among different media sizes from a couple of millimetres
to hundreds of micrometers, an appropriate size is selected
according to the feed size of the material.
The application sizes of stirred mills range from a few
millimetres down to 1 Am. The product size is in the sub
micrometer range. Stirred mills are very effective in the
production of micronised material due to their easy processing, simple construction, high size reduction ratio, low
energy consumption and less wear contamination. Therefore it has been started extensively to be used in the recent
decade in many industries especially such as mineral, coal,
ceramic, metallurgy, electronics, paint, chemical, food,
animal nourishment, biotechnology, rubber, agriculture,
medicine, photography and energy [1 4,6].
The forces utilised in stirred mills are different from the
rod and ball mills. Stirred mills utilise mostly abrasive and
shear forces, whereas tumbling mills predominantly comminute by impact and compression [6]. The stirrers of the
stirred mills transfer their very high kinetic energy to the
surrounding beads in the radial direction, where their
consolidated structure enhances abrasive and shear forces
rather than impact and compression. High speed of the
stirrers increases both the number or frequency and the
intensity of the comminuting events. Shear and abrasive
forces are the main reasons for grinding in the sub
micrometer range [7].

Industrial applications of the stirred mills were recorded

up to 20 t/h capacity with 6 Am median product size with
60% less energy consumption [1]. Recently, the installation
of the biggest stirred mill has been achieved in Australia
under the Mount Isa Mines and Netzsch-Feinmahltechnik
partnership. This stirred mill constitutes 3000 l net volume
and 240 l/min capacity at 50% solids rate [8,9]. This largecapacity installation encourages the mining industry to
replace the regrinding ball mill circuits with stirred mills
technology in the future. Increase in the stirring disk
number and mill volume results in inputted power increase
and reduction in wear loss over the beads [8] and thus
enhances the savings in energy.

3. Materials and method

The separator reject sample from a nearby cement
factory (Oyak Bolu Cement Industry) was collected for
the experimental part of this study. The sampling point for
the clinker grinding circuit was depicted in Fig. 2. The
capacity of the cement mill during the sampling time was
130 t/h and the specific energy consumption was 32 kW
h/t. The amount of separator reject circulated back to the
mill was 480 t/h with a circulating load of 370%.
The size analysis results were carried out with a
Malvern Mastersizer-S Laser Analyser. The size distribution of the feed material is given in Fig. 3. As can be seen
from Fig. 3, the size distribution of the separator reject is

Fig. 2. The sampling point of the cement milling circuit.

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

167

Fig. 3. Size analysis results of the separator reject samples used in the experiments.

below 600 Am with a median and 80% passing sizes of 75

and 150 Am, respectively. This size is more convenient to
stirred mill grinding rather than ball mill grinding [5].
The separator reject sample was brought to the Yakup
KESKIN Mineral Processing Laboratories of the ZEDEM
Industrial Support Centre of the Mining Engineering Department of the Zonguldak Karaelmas University. Then the
milling studies were carried out with a pilot scale stirred
mill. The grinding tests were carried out both as open and
closed circuit basis. The study was financed by the
University Research Fund and the experimental set was
designed and prepared at local sites. The product fineness
was assessed by Blaine surface area manometer. The

description of the method for surface area measurement

with a Blaine manometer is detailed in Turkish Standards
No. 24 [10]. Besides size measurements, energy measurements were also taken by a kW h meter.
The experimental setup is constituted by a magnetic
resonance feeder, a stirred mill, a helical transporter, a
mechanical classifier, a vacuum fan, a dust collecting
filtering mechanism and the necessary drivers for adjusting
the revolutions of the motors attached to the system units.
Fig. 4 sketches the experimental setup.
The magnetic feeder was produced by Eriez Magnetics
and has an hopper with a 100 kg of separator reject
capacity. The hopper has a magnetically vibrating chute.

Fig. 4. Experimental setup of the pilot scale stirred mill.

168

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Fig. 5. The relationship between the flowrate and the Blaine surface area at
the open circuit experiments.

The hopper discharge can be adjusted by a sliding door;

thus, a maximum capacity can be arranged in the desired
way. The magnetic displacement intensity knob controls the
capacity from zero to the maximum setting. The vibrating
chute feeds the separator reject directly to the mill inlet
hopper.
The stirred mill is directly activated by a 7.5-kW motor.
The mill motor is attached to a frequency inverter (Siemens
MD1500) and controlled via a PC over a RS 232 485
converter. The PC-motor combination enables the control of
the rotors revolution infinitely up to 1500 rpm and helps the
currency and torque data to be gathered continuously during
the experiment.

Low carbon content steel beads were used for grinding

purposes. The media has a 2.5 mm diameter and 7 g/cm3
density. The mill body was filled up by 25 kg of media.
The pore volume between the media was used as a
measure of the amount of material (separator reject) to
be put at the beginning of the experiments. This was held
constant for both open and closed circuit grinding experiments at 3 kg.
The mill body is enclosed inside a secondary chamber
and cooling water goes through the zone in between. The
heat radiated out of the main mill body is driven off by this
water thus preventing excess heat, damaging the system and
the material inside the mill. The mill used has 10 l net
volume and eight cylindrical pins for mixing purposes. The
pins are 20 and 170 mm in diameter and length, respectively. The pins were coupled on a vertically rotating rotor
simultaneously at right angles. The mill rotor is open at the
bottom end where on which an attached raising plate
continuously stirs the media over a screen plate. Screen
plate covers the bottom end of the mill and holds the weight
of the mill charge. The material fed moves downward by
gravity and stirring action. The residence time is controlled
by the transporting velocity of the helical transporter
mounted beneath the mill bottom. Speed of the transportation was controlled by a Telemechanic brand inverter.
The transported mill discharge through the helical
carrier can either be directed to the cyclone classifier or
directly taken as an open circuit product. Cyclone classifier
operates under vacuum conditions. Suction is maintained
by means of a fan with 1800 m3/h air blowing capacity.
The dumped carrier discharge is sucked into the cyclone
body where necessary air inlets form a vortex to separate

Fig. 6. The effect of stirring speed to the flowrate increase for a 1000 unit change in Blaine.

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Table 1
Linear relationship parameters m and c between flowrate ( q) and Blaine
surface area (S) to best fit the equation S = mq + c
Stirring speed, rpm
200
400
600
800
1000

c
3.2266
2.9746
2.2252
1.2188
0.6233

4565
5465
6023
6185
5707

the coarse particles from the fines. The fines are sucked
and taken into the filtering mechanism where fine product
(cement) is collected continuously. The coarse particles are
ejected under the apex and recirculated to the stirred mill
feeder chute. The amounts of the fine and coarse products
were weighed at regular intervals to determine the mass
flowrates.

4. Open circuit grinding tests

Open circuit experiments were carried out at different
flowrates. As mentioned above, the flowrate is adjusted by
the revolution change of the helical carrier via a frequency
inverter. The flowrates were determined and selected to let
the Blaine surface area measurements of the products lie
within 2500 5000 cm2/g limits. The stirring speeds used
are 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 rpm. The analysis
samples were collected after 9 kg of ground material
was discharged from the stirred mill. This constitutes more
than threefold the hold up inside the mill during the
experiments, i.e. more than three times the nominal residence time for a single particle. Capacity measurements
were continuously carried out until the test was completed.
The relationship between the capacity and Blaine surface
area measurements were evaluated and the findings are
sketched in Fig. 5.
As can be deduced from the reasoning, the Blaine surface
area increases following a reduction in the flowrate or, in
other words, an increase in the residence time of the

Fig. 7. Change of slope of the flowrate vs. Blaine lines by the stirring speed.

169

separator reject in the mill. The relationship follows a linear

pattern with reverse proportionality. As the stirring speed
increases, the slope of the relationship decreases, showing a
less dependence on the effect of the flowrate change
compared to the slower speeds. For example, the reduction
required to obtain the same amount of surface area increment, let us say from 3000 up to 4000 cm2/g, flowrate at
200 rpm should drop from 500 to 200 g/min. However, this
300 g/min decrement expands as it moves to the higher
speed lines and reaches 1700 g/min for the top-notch speed
1000 rpm. At this speed the flowrate bounces from 4300
g/min down to 2700 g/min as Blaine surface area changes
from 3000 to 4000 cm2/g. As seen from Fig. 5, the capacity
enormously amplifies at the higher speeds at the same
Blaine fineness. This is undoubtedly because of the intensified energy transferred to the charge inside the mill.
The incremental change of the flowrates for different
speeds at each 1000 unit Blaine change was depicted in
Fig. 6. The abovementioned expansion in the flowrate
increments by the stirring speed effect can easily be seen.
If the change in capacity at 200 rpm corresponding to
1000 cm2/g change in the Blaine surface area is taken as
one unit; 400, 600, 800 and 1000 rpm stirring speeds lead
the capacities to change by a factor 1.2, 1.5, 2.6 and 5.3,
respectively.
The linear relationship parameters were drawn from the
linear least squares approximation over the flowrate vs.
Blaine surface area values. The best fitting parameters
found are listed in Table 1. The slope of the linear lines
is denoted by m and its negative sign shows an inverse
proportionality. The constant c is the y axis intercept of the
equations which is the maximum Blaine surface area
values achievable at the theoretically maximised residence
time inside the mill. This means that the product cannot
have surface area increment beyond this Blaine value at
the specified stirring speed. The c values are as low as
4500 cm2/g for 200 rpm, but rises to as much as 6200
cm2/g for the 800 rpm and then seems to decrease. The

Fig. 8. Change of flowrate by stirring speed to keep up certain Blaine

values.

170

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Fig. 9. The specific energy consumption against capacity for different stirring speeds.

last decrement at 1000 rpm is illusive due to scattered

points, especially at low Blaine values. If the uppermost
points were assumed in curve fitting, the c constant would
be the same for the 1000 rpm stirring speed, too. It can be
concluded from these results that the maximum attainable
Blaine surface area is 6200 cm2/g for the experimental set
of stirred mill used in our experiments at the open circuit
tests at high speeds. This limit is lowered for the slower
speeds down to 4500 cm2/g. This may be caused due to
inefficient transfer of the energy to effectively break down
the increased consolidation of the powder-bead matrix at
continued grinding times.
If the change of slopes of the linear fitting equations by
stirring speed is examined, Fig. 7 delineates the type of the
relationship. This figure is similar to Fig. 6 because the y
axis is reciprocated. The slope of the flowrate Blaine line
shows the same trend by following a linear path at the
speed range between 400 and 800 rpm, whereas it switches
from the linearity for the speeds of 200 and 1000 rpm. The
solid and dashed lines are the respective change of the
slope for the 1000 rpm due to the points regarded for
fitting a linear line as mentioned above. The dashed line is
the possible slope after discarding the points with low
Blaine values at 1000 rpm. This case better emphasises the
deviation from the linearity for the uppermost speed as
was noticed for the lowest speed, i.e. 200 rpm.
The meaning of the linear trend between the speed vs.
slope relationship for the speed range 400 800 rpm is that
the Blaine fineness change with capacity is directly proportional to the change in stirring speed. The increase of
speed proportionally reflects itself to the rate of change of
Blaine with capacity. However, deflection from this linearity occurs at 200 and 1000 rpm. The deflection at 200
rpm shows an increase in capacity since a less steep

flowrate vs. Blaine line was achieved, which means that

required Blaine fineness is obtained at a higher flowrate
than the expected. However, the condition is reversed at
1000 rpm leading to a decrease in slope increase rate. This
may happen due to ineffective mixing conditions caused
by fluidised beads to fly around the empty places of the
upper portion of the mill body. This condition was also
proved by eye inspection through an opening on the top of
the mill. Thus the bead-material impacts cannot reach the
correct number due to loosened matrix, which in turn led
to an increase in the residence time or decrease in capacity
than expected.
In the cement industry, the product is almost at certain
Blaine surface area levels such as 3000, 3500 or 4000 cm2/g.
So, it is worth mentioning in our experiments to demonstrate
how the flowrate changes with stirring speed for certain

Fig. 10. Change of the parameter as value with stirring speed.

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Table 2
Specific energies required at certain Blaine levels

Table 3
Average flowrates around the separator and circulating loads

Stirring speed, rpm Specific energy, kW h/t

2

Experiment no.

3000 cm /g 3500 cm /g 4000 cm /g 4500 cm /g

200
400
600
800
1000

26.9
35.3
40.5
35.2
30.8

38.0
46.5
47.5
43.7
42.4

61.6
67.1
58.8
52.2
56.9

171

370.9
101.7
79.2
68.1
71.9

Blaine fineness. Fig. 8 sketches the effect of stirring speed

over the flowrate to obtain 3000 4500 cm2/g Blaine range
at 500 cm2/g increments. The shape of the Blaine lines can
be approximated by a polynomial line. The flowrates would
be overestimated if the 1000 rpm polynomials were used.
This was previously noticed as higher slope in the stirring
speed slope relationship (see Fig. 7) for the 1000 rpm. The
four curves were dispersed apart at regular intervals for the
range 200 600 rpm, beyond which their scattering increasingly expands. For example, 200 g/min flowrate change is
required to obtain a 500 cm2/g change in the 200 600 rpm
range. But, it develops up to 400 500 g/min at 800 rpm
and 500 1200 g/min for 1000 rpm (lower flowrate for 4500
cm2/g and higher flowrate for 3000 cm2/g). If the change in
amounts of the flowrates by the stirring speeds at limiting
Blaine values (i.e. 3000 and 4500 cm2/g) were assessed:
The capacities change from the 500 to 4500 g/min and 32 to
1930 g/min for the 3000 and 4500 cm2/g Blaine lines,
respectively.
4.1. Specific energy consumption at open circuit grinding
experiments
The open circuit experiments were energetically assessed
by the electricity input divided by the tonnage for 1 h. The
electricity consumption was measured via a kW h-meter.
Different speeds gave different power input; so, the capacity-specific energy relationship plotted on a log log axis
has separate lines for each speed shifting along the capacity
(x) axis as shown in Fig. 9. In this figure, the relationship
lines show that the specific energy is inversely proportional

Fig. 11. Specific energy vs. stirring speed for certain Blaine levels.

1
2
3

Flowrates, g/min

Circulating load, %

Feed

Coarse

Fine

842
1688
2761

387
1080
2198

455
608
563

87
182
452

(having a slope 1) to the capacity, because the tonnage is

divided to the kW h consumed at the same duration. The
inverse proportionated linear lines (m = 1) on a log log
scale can be fitted to a power relation of type y = ax 1
where a is the shifting constant along the x axis. The a
parameters are given in Fig. 9, too. The change of the
parameter a with the stirring speed is shown in Fig. 10. As
written within the figure, change of the parameter a can be
represented by a second order polynomial.
In order to obtain certain Blaine values, the required
specific energy values are given in Table 2 and plotted in
Fig. 11 below. This table shows that certain Blaine values
such as 3000, 3500, 4000 and 4500 cm2/g can be obtained at
30, 40, 55 and 70 kW h/t specific energy levels, respectively. 600 rpm gives comparatively higher specific energies to
reach the Blaine values of 3000 and 3500 cm2/g. At low
stirring speeds specific energies excessively gets higher to
achieve Blaine levels above 4500 cm2/g. This shows that,
speeds greater than 600 rpm are required to obtain further
grinding above Blaine values of 4500 cm2/g.

5. Closed circuit grinding tests

Closed circuit experiments were carried out at a constant
mill stirring speed of 600 rpm. The product from the mill
was conveyed to an air separator via a spiral conveyor. As
an adjustable parameter the spirals conveying capacity was
used at three levels, namely 800, 1700 and 2800 g/min. The
oversize from the separator was carried back to the stirred

Fig. 12. Change of amounts of separator products and the circulating load
rates with the separators feeding rate.

172

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Table 4
Blaine surface area values of the finish products at different circulating loads

Table 5
The specific energies of the finish products for closed circuit stirred milling

Experiment no.

Circulating load, %

Blaine, cm2/g

Experiment no.

Capacity, g/min

Specific energy, kW h/t

1
2
3

87
182
452

4850
4060
4300

1
2
3
Average

485
537
475
500

113
102
115
110

mill, whereas the undersize was collected in a dust box as an

end product or finish cement.
The classifier products were determined by direct
weighing at 2-min intervals. Since the oversize is to be
returned to the mills feeding chute, only the accumulated
amount of product for half a minute at the beginning of
each 2-min intervals was used to calculate the coarse
products capacity. In order to balance the ingoing and
outgoing streams of the stirred mill, the flowrate of the
closed circuits fresh feed was equalised to the finish
product discharge and continuously controlled during the
experiments.
The duration of the experiments were held constant at 20
min. The analyses of the samples were carried out by the
laser sizer and surface area by the Blaine manometer. The
average values of the flowrates around the separator and the
circulating load ratios were given in Table 3. Increase of the
spiral conveyors capacity does not have much effect on the
fine products capacity but rather on the coarse product
amount and thus on the circulating load. This can be better
visualised in Fig. 12, where coarse product flowrate and the
circulating load linearly changes with the separators feed
rate. A small deflection from the linearity for the circulating
load has of no importance since this is the result of a small
change in the fine product amount which accounts for a high
ratio after division as denominator by the nominator coarse
product rate.
The Blaine surface areas of the fine products (finish
cement) were measured at the end of 20th minute for the
closed circuit experiments. These results were tabulated in
Table 4. The Blaine values ranged between 4000 and 4900
cm2/g. The size distributions of the three experiments do not
show much difference (Fig. 13). The difference between the

Fig. 13. Size distribution of the fine products from the closed circuit tests.

Blaine surface areas is supposed to be caused by the

manipulation of the fine product collection system during
the experimental procedure. However, the results enable us
to have insight about the closed circuit stirred mill grinding
of the tube mill rejects.
We can conclude that the Blaine will range in a couple of
hundreds vicinity of 4500 cm2/g. The 90% passing size for
the fine product is 30 Am, which is convenient to the cement
industry. The fine product fineness can be easily adjusted by
changing the separator settings so reducing or increasing the
Blaine values to improve the concretes physical properties
to the standard values. But in the scope of this study the
physical properties of the concrete obtained was not
assessed.
Specific energy consumptions were calculated based on
the finish cement discharge rate. Their values are given in
Table 5. Closed circuit grinding tests resulted in an average
specific energy consumption of 110 kW h/t at 4500 cm2/g
average Blaine surface area.

6. Discussion
Open and closed circuit experiments have resulted in
different specific energy consumption figures. If open and
closed circuit experiments are compared in terms of specific
energies of the products of equivalent Blaine surface area,
closed circuit experiments uses more energy than the open
ones. Closed circuit experiments resulted in a Blaine area of

Fig. 14. Size analysis results of the finish cement, ball mill and stirred mill
products.

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

Fig. 15. Frequency difference between cement and ball and stirred mill
products.

4000 cm2/g at a specific energy consumption of 100 kW h/t.

However, the same surface area can be achieved at 55 kW
h/t for open circuit stirred mill grinding. These results
cannot be used without strength measurements of the
concrete products since the standard requirement is based
on the products strength rather than Blaine surface area.
However, 100 kW h/t specific energy consumption is rather
high compared to the real cement manufacturing process
(i.e. 30 50 kW h/t).
In order to utilise the stirred milling in the cement
grinding technology, these mills should produce similar
product fineness in a cheaper way. This can be expected
since literature dedicates 50% energy saving compared to
that of tube milling. This will lead to an estimation of a
possible consumption of 15 kW h/t. But, pilot scale tests of
stirred milling of separator rejects in this paper have resulted
in a minimum specific energy consumption of 38 kW h/t at
a Blaine surface area of 3500 cm2/g.
Besides, the effect of rerouting the separator rejects to the
stirred milling over the tube mill performance should be
evaluated, too. Because, separator rejects is quite a fine
material as a mill feed compared to fresh clinker, which has
to travel a long size reduction progress until the fine sized
product is obtained.
During the evaluation of the results [11], investigation of
the mass distribution into size groups has proved beneficial

173

for comparing the stirred milling and ball milling results to

the finish cement from a tube mill of a neighbouring cement
factory. All the products subjected to the comparison have
the same surface area of 3500 cm2/g. Here, we will demonstrate these results.
Fig. 14 shows three size analysis results, namely finish
cement, stirred mill and laboratory ball mill products size
analysis based on amounts in the indicated sizes. The stirred
mill and the cement products are much closer to each other.
They have nearly equal peaks at 20 25 Am and possess on
the similar size range which is mostly between 1 and 100
Am. However, ball mill product peaks at 70 Am and its
coarse range extends to 200 Am.
In order to see the difference of the stirred and ball mill
products from the real cements size frequency, Fig. 15 was
prepared. This figure was drawn according to the difference
of the amounts between the cement and the mill product at
the same sizes. The curves above the zero line denote that
the cement amount at these sizes is higher than the referred
mill products and vice versa. This figure better visualises the
product comparison. Table 6 shows both the areas below
(for positive difference) or above (for negative difference)
the frequency difference curves between each of the two
adjacent intersecting points on the x axis and the peak of the
difference distributions.
The minus signs show that mill products are in larger
amount than the cement, whereas the plus sign shows that
the mill products are deficient in amount compared to the
cement. Cement and stirred milling products mostly differ at
0.25 6.1, 6.1 21 and 38 879 Am size ranges. 0.25 6.1
Am size range has 7.5% excess for the cement, i.e. the
stirred mill weighs less at this range. However, at 6.1 21
and 38 879 Am ranges stirred mill product has 2.7% and
5.6% extra mass, respectively. If ball mill product is
compared to the cement, the main difference occurs at
0.25 38 and 38 879 Am size ranges. The former is the
amount for a ball mill product to reach the cements
fineness. In other words, 30% of the 38 879 Am size range
of the ball mill product has to be comminuted down to 38
Am size range to obtain a cements size distribution.
The positive and negative only summation of the
amounts are equal and was given at the bottom row of the
table and expresses the total difference at all sizes between

Table 6
The total amounts hold within two adjacent sizes at which Cement-StirredMill and Cement-BallMill frequency difference curves intersect the size axis
Cement-stirred mill

Cement-ball mill

Areas of intersecting points

Intersecting
sizes, Am
0.05 0.25
0.25 6.14
6.14 21
21 38
38 879
Sum of equal signs

Amount in
between, %
0.1
7.5
2.7
0.9
5.6
8.4

Peaking points

Areas of intersecting points

Size,
Am

Amount,
%

Intersecting
sizes, Am

0.2
3.1
12.2
26.2
76.3

0.03
0.66
0.57
0.42
0.6

0.05 0.25
0.25 38
38 879
Sum of equal signs

Peaking points
Amount in
between, %
0.5
30.6
30.1
30.6

Size, Am
0.17
16.6
76.3

Amount, %
0.09
3.18
4.67

174

C.C. Pilevneli et al. / Powder Technology 139 (2004) 165174

the cement and the mill products. The difference of the

stirred mill and ball mills are 8.4% and 30.6%, respectively.
This figure outlines that stirred mill produces a product with
more fines than that of a ball mill product has. This would
mean value if they also had the same specific energies. But,
laboratory ball mill (20 cm in diameter) consumes 20 kW
h/t, whereas stirred mill expenses 40 kW h/t. Their difference in energy consumption seems to offset the gain
obtained from the fine size range improvement by stirred
milling. It is worth mentioning here another experimental
result obtained by Bonds mill and batch stirred mill (1.75 l)
that they gave 28 kW h/t and 60 kW h/t specific energy
consumption at the same Blaine fineness, respectively. This
shows that their motor rating and capacity has an important
effect on power draw. Further experiments are necessary
to clarify the economy of stirred milling over ball milling.
Strength measurements should support the results and form
basis on evaluation.

the production of fines at the sizes suitable for finish

cement compared to ball milling. However, the stirred mill
consumed twice the specific energy that the ball mill uses.
This is expected to happen because of motor power ratings
and too low capacities compared to commercial mills.
Usage of additives may enhance the grinding process,
thereby reducing the specific energy consumption.

Acknowledgements

7. Conclusions

Authors would like to appreciate very much the

contributions made by the following authorities during this
research: Zonguldak Karaelmas Universitys Research Fund
(Project No. 97-115-001-07) and Mining Engineering
Department (Turkey), A.J. Lynch (Australia), Julius
Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (Australia), Universiti
Sains Malaysia School of Materials and Mineral Resources
Engineering (Malaysia), Mining Engineering Department of
Hacettepe University (Turkey), Oyak Bolu Cement Industry
(Turkey).

Pilot scale open and closed circuit stirred milling tests led
to further conclusions on the grinding of separator rejects
from a cement tube mill.

References




The maximum fineness attainable by open circuit stirred

mill tests is 6200 cm2/g.
During the open circuit tests, specific energies excessively increases beyond Blaine values of 4500 cm2/g
which corresponds to a specific energy consumption of
60 kW h/t. Beyond this point, further grinding can be
obtained for the speeds above 600 rpm.
Closed circuit tests carried out at the same separator
setting but different circulating ratios led to a constant
product discharge rate, but different Blaine surface areas
above 4000 cm2/g. These products have a minimum
specific energy consumption of 110 kW h/t.
Closed circuit experiments doubled the specific energy
consumption. However, this is expected to be caused by
separator settings. Besides, the strength comparison of
the concretes prepared from the cement products is to be
evaluated in addition to their Blaine surface areas and
specific energies.
Comparison of size distribution of products form a
laboratory ball mill, open circuit pilot scale stirred mill
and the finish cement marketed at the same Blaine surface
areas showed that stirred mill product have a pronounced
similarity to the finish cement. Stirred mills have doubled

[1] M.J. Mankosa, G.T. Adel, R.H. Yoon, Effect of media size in stirred
ball mill grinding of coal, Powder Technology 49 (1986) 75 82.
[2] S. Miranda, S. Yaeger, Homing on the best size reduction method,
Chemical Engineering 105 (1998) 102 110.
[3] H. Fadhel, C. Frances, Wet batch grinding of alumina in a stirred bead
mill, Powder Technology 119 (1991) 257 268.
[4] A. Kwade, J. Schwedes, Breaking characteristics of different materials and their effect on stress intensity and stress number in stirred
media mills, Powder Technology 122 (2002) 109 121.
[5] Anonymous, Energy-saving ultra-fine grinding with the SALA Agitated Mill, Zement-Kalk-Gips 46 (9) (2002) 600 601.
[6] Y. Wang, E. Forssberg, Product size distribution in stirred media
mills, Minerals Engineering 3 (4) (2000) 459 465.
[7] B.A. Wills, Mineral Processing Technology, 3rd ed., Pergamon, Great
Britain, 1985. 630 pp.
[8] M.F. Young, F. Gao, Performance of the isamills in the george
fisher flowsheet, Proceedings of AusIMM Seventh Mill Operators
Conference, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, 12 14 October, 2000,
pp. 75 81.
[9] K.R. Weller, M. Gao, P. Bowen, Scaling-up Horizontal Stirred Mills
from a 4-Litre Test Mill to a 4000-Litre ISAMILL, Mount Isa
Mines Australia Internet Site, 8 pp.
[10] TSE, TS 24: Physical and Mechanical Test Methods of the Cements,
UDK 666.94.06, Turkish Standards Association, Ankara, 1985. 28 pp.
[11] C.C. Pilevneli, Investigation of the fine sized clinker grinding in a
stirred bead mill, PhD thesis, Graduate School of Natural and Applied
Sciences, Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Turkey, 2003. 159 pp.