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Minerals Engineering
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JKMRC, The University of Queensland, Isles Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland 4068, Australia
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences, Private Bag 33, Clayton South, Victoria 3168, Australia
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 December 2007
Accepted 5 June 2008
Available online 15 August 2008
Keywords:
Comminution
Discrete element modelling
Grinding
SAG milling
a b s t r a c t
Towards the end of the 1990s readily available personal computers became sufciently powerful when
combined with an efcient numerical code to use discrete element modelling (DEM) in two dimensions
for models involving a few hundred to a few thousand particles in commercially available packages. Some
proprietary codes reported up to 200,000 particles [Herbst, J.A., Nordell, L., 2001. Optimization of the
design of sag mill internals using high delity simulation. In: Vancouver, B.C., Barratt, D.J., Allan, M.J.,
Mular, A.L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the SAG Conference, University of British Columbia, IV, 150164; Cleary,
P.W., 2001a. Charge behaviour and power consumption in ball mills: Sensitivity to mill operating conditions, liner geometry and charge composition. Int. J. Min. Process. 63, 79114 and Cleary, P.W., 2001b.
Recent advances in DEM modelling of tumbling mills. Minerals Eng. 14, 12951319].
In early 2000, JKMRC and CSIRO-MIS agreed to an informal collaboration with the objective of testing
various DEM approaches against detailed process measurements. The initial collaboration demonstrated
that 3D-DEM using spheres was sufciently realistic for ow patterns and power estimation within tumbling mills. The results were reported in papers which were presented at SAG 2001 and in the technical
literature [Morrison, R.D., Cleary, P.W., Valery, W., 2001. Comparing power and performance trends from
DEM and JK modelling. SAG 2001, Department of Mining and Minerals Process Engineering. University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, 284300; Cleary, P.W., Morrison, R., Morrell, S., 2003. Comparison of DEM
and experiment for a scale model SAG mill. Int. J. Min. Process. 68, 129165].
The commencement of the CRC for Sustainable Resource Processing in 2003 provided an opportunity
to formalize the collaboration and bring increased resources to bear. The objective of this collaboration is
to develop a virtual comminution machine (VCM). The VCM will allow a comminution machine design
which exists as a suitably detailed design in a 3D Computer aided design le (CAD) to simulate processing
an ore (which has been characterised by suitable test work) to predict progeny, power consumption, wear
and even machine component loadings.
This paper reports on the substantial progress made to date towards a practical Virtual Comminution
Machine.
2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
1.1. Preamble
A new comminution device typically requires 1525 years for
development and to gain a sufcient degree of industrial acceptance to have any chance of commercial survival. Unsurprisingly,
many promising devices suffer from interruptions to their development schedule or fail altogether for lack of development nance as
much as any technical shortcomings.
There are also broader reasons for seeking more efcient ways
to carry out comminution. It has been estimated that comminution
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9545 8005; fax: +61 3 9545 8080.
E-mail addresses: R.Morrison@uq.edu.au (R.D. Morrison), Paul.Cleary@csiro.au
(P.W. Cleary).
0892-6875/$ - see front matter 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2008.06.005
771
2. A simple example
The vertical shaft impactor (VSI) turns out to be very well suited
to the VCM approach. Particles are fed into the center of a rapidly
spinning rotor. The rotor accelerates each particle to a high velocity
and throws them into a circle of steel anvils or a bed of particles.
The resulting kinetic energy of each particle of mass m is mV2/2.
Therefore the specic energy or energy per unit mass is simply
Fig. 1. Comparison of measured and predicted VSI product size distributions based
on DWT characterisation (after Djordjevic et al., 2003).
772
The discharge grates can be seen on the end of the mill. Small collections of nes are also observed to collect on the end wall radial
lifters.
Impact breakage on the toe of the charge has long been considered to be a dominant contributor to throughput for SAG mills.
Fig. 3 plots DEM estimates of impacts against time for a 26 mm
particle. As expected, the particle receives about one major impact
(say > 0.05 J) per revolution of the charge (Morrison and Cleary,
2004). This conrms the common wisdom but also shows that
Fig. 2. Cut away views of the Hardinge pilot mill including discharge grates and
pulp lifters. Particles of lighter shades are larger in size.
Impact Energy J
To explore a full scale SAG mill in 3D would require many millions of particles. Instead we have typically chosen to use slice
models of full scale units (Morrison et al., 2001) and developed a
full 3D simulation of a Hardinge style AG/SAG pilot mill (Morrison
and Cleary, 2004). This mill is 1.8 m in diameter with conical ends
and an internal volume equivalent to a cylinder 0.6 m long. The
Hardinge mill is the industry standard for pilot scale test work. It
requires 350450 thousand elements to simulate mill charge down
to 6 mm particles. Typically, particles greater than 6 mm would
constitute more than 9095% of the mill charge.
Fig. 2 shows a cut away view of the simulated mill including
discharge grates and pulp lifters. This is a complete mill model
and includes the feed end, the main/belly/circumferential lifters,
the end lifters, the grate, the pulp lifters, the discharge cone and
the external mill shell. This conguration has 16 belly lifters with
10 face angles, 16 lifters on the feed end cone and 8 lifters on
the discharge end. A representative SAG mill charge was used, with
a rock top size of 122 mm and the bottom size resolved in the DEM
model chosen to be 6 mm, so that >90% of the charge was correctly
represented in the model. The ll level was 39% with a ball load of
5% giving around 425,000 particles. The mill rotation rate was
24 rpm corresponding to 76% critical. Fig. 2 also shows a view of
the mill, which has been sectioned by an axial plane, and viewed
along the axis looking towards the discharge end of the mill. The
particles are shaded by size. A typical mill ow pattern is visible,
with the particles carried up clockwise by the motion of the mill
until they reach the shoulder position and then ow down the cascading free surface of the charge. For these lifters and this mill
speed, there are signicant cataracting streams that are composed
almost entirely of nes (due to strong radial segregation) leading to
signicant numbers of impacts on the liner above the toe position.
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0
4
Time s
Fig. 3. Impact history for a 26 mm particle circulating through the toe of the charge
of the simulated pilot mill. The mill rotates at 30 rpm (after Morrison and Cleary,
2004).
the energy levels are much too small to cause breakage in a single
impact. Indeed about 25 J would be required to achieve a t10 of 10
in an average (A x b = 50) ore. The denition of t10 is the percentage
of the progeny which will pass through an aperture one tenth of
the size of the original particle. Napier-Munn et al. (Napier-Munn
et al., 1996 Chapter 5) provide a detailed description of how A
and b can be measured. Hence, comminution models based on
the concept of high energy single impact breakage events in the
toe region do not reect the reality of the collision environment
actually occurring within the mill. Therefore we rst consider
some low energy modes of breakage and then return to impact
breakage.
3.3. Particle rounding
Almost all freshly broken ore particles are angular in shape.
Applying a force transverse to a sharp corner can remove the corner through a shear fracture in tension. As this is a low energy
mode of breakage, there will be many shear events of sufcient energy and rounding is likely to happen quickly. Hence a particle will
be well rounded soon after it enters the mill charge. A useful working denition of the rounding mechanism is simply the removal of
corners from freshly broken, angular particles. The recent addition
of parameterised super-quadric particles to the CMIS code (Cleary,
2004) allows such shape evolution of the particles based on the energy dissipation of these interactions.
Fig. 4 shows a DEM simulation of 1.19 m diameter by 0.31 m
long rubber-lined pilot mill. The mill was tted with 14 square metal lifters with heights of 40 mm. The rotational velocity of the mill
was 3.14 rad/s (77% of critical speed or 30 rpm). When the experimental mill charge contained fresh ore, very rapid rounding occurred as the sharp corners of the particles were removed. This
process is simulated using super-quadric particles in Fig. 4. To
evolve their shapes, the contact locations on the non-spherical particles are used to analyse the fraction of the energy that is trans-
773
Fig. 4. Elongated angular particles are rounded in a few mill revolutions with the largest rate of shape change occurring early.
774
Cumulative % Passing
0.1
0.01
0.39 J
1.24 J
3.17 J
6.83 J
0.001
0.0001
0.01
0.1
10
100
Size (mm)
Fig. 5. Progeny of 90 + 75 mm copper ore particles tumbled in a series of small mills at low energies, (after Banini, 2002).
775
S 1 exp b
!
Ei Eo
X
Ei Eo
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
30%
40%
50%
X
Ei Eo
While Fig. 9 shows a good deal of scatter, the trend lines for 30% and
50% are reasonably linear and coincident. As might be expected, the
lower energy inputs will show more scatter as a single soft or
hard particle will make a large difference. As this is a relatively
new idea in mineral processing, it is worth considering a little further in the context of DEM. Powell and Morrison (2006) suggested a
10
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 7. 26.5 + 22.4 mm preliminary test results for breakage caused by successive
impacts at various fractions of the minimum energy required to cause breakage in a
single impact (after Morrison et al., 2007).
100.00
90.00
80.00
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
20%
30.00
30%
20.00
40%
10.00
50%
0.00
1
10
1.000
Ln(Probability of Survival)
lnPSurvivalji b
Number of Impacts
20%
30%
40%
50%
0.100
0.010
0.000
0.200
0.400
0.600
0.800
1.000
20%
Fig. 9. Data from Fig. 6 plotted as log of the probability of survival as vs. net
accumulated comminution energy (Eq. (4)).
30%
40%
50%
10
Number of Impacts
Fig. 6. 19 + 16 mm test results for breakage caused by successive impacts at
various percentages of the minimum energy required to cause breakage in a single
impact, (after Morrison et al., 2007).
776
Fig. 10. DEM impact energy spectrum for a 38 mm sphere with rock like properties in an 8 m diameter mill (after Powell and Morrison, 2006).
where
0
t10 A1 exp b
!
Ei Eo
where t10 = is the fraction of the mass of the original particle which
will pass through an aperture of 1/10 of the original particle size
after the impact event; A = represents the maximum t10 achievable
in a single breakage event; Eo = is a threshold energy per unit of particle mass below which the particle essentially does not accumulate
any impact damage. Ei = is the applied energy per unit mass for each
of i impact events. Note that the contribution from (Ei Eo) is zero if
Ei is less than Eo.
By its nature, incremental breakage also has the interesting feature that very few particles are likely to be severely broken when
they do nally fail. Fig. 11 shows the size distributions of progeny
produced by incremental breakage compared with progeny from
single impacts. Progeny from one quite severe impact is included
for comparison. It is clear that the size distributions produced by
the two processes fall within the same progressively ner pattern
with increasing severity of breakage and are unlikely to be distin-
100.00
90.00
80.00
70.00
7 hits - total 0.28 kWh/t
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
0.10
1.00
10.00
100.00
Size (mm)
Fig. 11. Comparison of progeny size distributions produced by single and incremental breakage for 31.5 26.5 mm particles at 50% of the minimum for breakage in a single
impact (after Morrison et al., 2007).
777
% probability of breakage
t10 (%)
13.2 - 16.0 mm
19.0 - 22.4 mm
26.5 - 31.5 mm
Calculated
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Rounded
Angular
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Energy input (kWh/t)
0.5
0.6
Fig. 14. Cumulative breakage probability curves for angular and rounded particles
(after Bbosa et al., 2006).
0
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
Fig. 12. The re-grouped Whyte (2005) data tted to Eq. (5) including size
dependence (after Morrison et al., 2007).
ln1 t 10 =A b
X
Ei Eo
3500
DEM at 720s
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
However, a more detailed set of data from Whyte (2005) was a satisfactory t to Eq. (5) as shown in Fig. 12.
Two further pieces of experimental work conrm the process of
incremental damage without obvious physical damage. Hocking
(2006) subjected small cylinders of rock to successive impacts
Fig. 13. Two CBT reconstructions of a small cylinder of granite which had been subjected to repeated impacts with a steel ball, (left) the top of the sample and (right) a cross
Section 2 mm below. The indentation is visible to the eye but the cracks are not (after Hocking, 2006).
778
4000
Mass (f)
3500
DEM at 720s
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
Fig. 17. Discharge of coarse sub-grate particles though the grate and ow along the
pulp lifters in the Hardinge pilot SAG mill.
Fig. 18. Slurry ow in a SAG mill, (left) ow within the grinding chamber, and (right) ow through the discharge grate into the pulp lifter chamber.
779
Fig. 19. Equilibrium distribution of slurry for (a) half the amount of slurry 3.6 m2, (b) base case amount of slurry 7.2 m2, and (c) double the amount of slurry 14.4 m2. The
slurry is coloured by (left) its uid fraction with red being pure slurry and dark blue being 0.35 and (right) by the slurry speed with red being 7 m/s and dark blue being
stationary.
780
from the charge on the inside of the grate forces particles smaller
than the 12 mm grate opening to move through the grates. They
fall and collect on the liner and on the radial pulp lifters in the lower and right sides of the mill. As the pulp lifters rotate, they lift and
throw the discharged nes. These move on parabolic trajectories
due to the sideways motion imparted by the lifters and the downward motion produced by gravity. The intention of pulp lifters is
that the nes should ow down along the pulp lifters and onto
the discharge cone, which should push them out through the trommel of the mill. What is actually observed is that they are thrown
from the front face of one pulp lifter onto the back face of the preceding lifter (generating wear) and then fall down onto the outside
liner (generating more wear) and are trapped at the bottom of the
mill, destined to be lifted and to repeat the same behaviour forever
trapped in the discharge region. Of the falling particles that avoid
hitting the back of the previous lifter, most are deected by the discharge cone, not into the trommel but down into the bottom of the
mill again. The dry discharge performance of this mill is very poor
indeed. However, in industrial practise, some degree of air ow
would be used in a dry mill to transport the nes or else they might
ow over a weir onto a screen and the screen oversize would be
recycled. The more common case is transport by slurry which is
discussed next.
Fig. 18 shows the ow of slurry within the grinding chamber of
the SAG mill (in the absence of the rock and grinding media) (from
Cleary et al., 2007). This is a challenging modelling problem since
the speeds are high and the geometry is complex. The mill rotation
means that the slurry is distributed over a wide part of the mill
shell from the toe (lowest part) to the shoulder, where the slurry
can be seen owing off the rising lifter bars. The lifters crashing
into the slurry pool at the toe generate signicant wave motion
and splashing. The end wall lifters generate signicant recirculation against the end walls which could lead to accelerated wear
of these surfaces. SPH is easily able to model this system because
of both its free surface capabilities and the absence of advection
problems (because of its Lagrangian nature). The right frame of
Fig. 18 shows the discharge of slurry through the ne grate that
separates the grinding chamber from the pulp lifters that are
responsible for pouring the slurry out through the discharge port
around the axis of the mill on the discharge side. As mentioned earlier, the slurry ow is much cohesive than that of ne particles and
the deector cone directs much of the ow towards the trammel
which would be attached to the end of the mill.
The pilot scale work has been extended to simulation using one
way coupled ow between a slurry simulated by a ow of SHP uid
in a 36 ft SAG mill charge with dynamic porosity estimated from a
DEM simulation. This simulation method offers some interesting
insights into slurry behaviour within the mill charge, (Cleary
et al., 2006). Fig. 19 illustrates the likely effects of different levels
of pulp lling within the SAG mill charge using this sequential
DEM-SPH model. In case Fig. 19b, just enough slurry is added to
completely ll the voids within the charge. In case a), half as much
slurry is added and in case c), twice the volume of slurry is added.
The left hand column of Fig. 19 shows the uid fraction (with blue
being the lowest and red being 100% uid) and the right hand column shows the uid velocity (with hotter colours indicating higher
velocities).
It is clear that the charge acts in a similar manner to a positive
displacement pump. That is, slurry ows into the loose charge at
the toe. Next, cascaded material covers the slurry lled charge
and seals it to some degree. Then the motion of the mill compresses the charge and carries it upwards with the contained slurry. Hence in case a), the slurry is swept around the mill shell more
quickly than it can diffuse into the center of the charge. A large
elliptical dry region appears below the shoulder. The slurry being
pumped upwards against the mill shell by the charge is much thin-
ner (due to the lower volume of slurry available) and turns over
just below the shoulder producing a matching stream owing
down through the cascading region. The permeability is not sufciently high for this thinner stream to be able to ow down into
the region directly below the shoulder, so this region remains
dry. By the time the charge has owed down to the tail, the slurry
that was in its upper regions has had plenty of time to ow down
into the middle and lower sections of the charge. This leads to a
sharp reduction of slurry in the toe region which is now much
drier. Hence, the charge lls from the outside and leaves a void
in the middle at lower levels of volumetric ll. If we instead double
the amount of slurry available, then it lls all the pores available in
the charge. This leads to a higher shoulder for the slurry and to the
formation of a large slurry pool. This is readily identiable as the
thick red layer of slurry on top of the charge in the region leading
from the toe. Of interest is the observation that the slurry toe is
higher than the level of the uid closer to the center of the mill.
This means that the slurry free surface is angled upwards towards
the toe. This results from the momentum of the slurry coursing
down the cascading free surface which pushes the slurry towards
the toe. The strong dynamic pressures in the uid produced by
the surface uid ow from the shoulder continually maintain the
slurry pool prole near the toe.
Full two-way coupling between the DEM and SPH models
should reveal just how much this pool can interfere with the magnitude of the one good hit per charge revolution with industry
experience suggesting a serious decrease in throughput is a likely
result.
4. Conclusions
The collaboration to develop a VCM has been running for almost
three years. As well as the work reported in this paper, crushers,
dry vibratory screening, tower and stirred mills have been modelled, (Sinnott et al., 2006). Hence, progress to date is very
encouraging.
For Autogenous and SAG mills, some more specic conclusions
can be drawn:
Mill power draw can be predicted with high precision
Particle rounding can be considered in terms of DEM interactions between particles with realistic shapes.
Mass loss of rounded particles is proportional to the DEM estimates of frictional energy loss between the particles.
Typically, particles larger than 2030 mm are not broken by single impacts but acquire internal damage by many impacts
whose magnitude is greater than an ore dependant, specic
threshold energy.
The required specic energy depends on degree of smoothing of
the particle by the action of the mill charge.
Contrary to some historical views, the mill charge does not
behave like a partially lled tank of slurry. The mill volume lls
with slurry from the outer edge and a slurry pool forms only
when the charge is completely full.
Within the next three years the project team hope to complete
comprehensive models of tumbling mills and other types of crushers. The combination of DEM and detailed experimental verication for SAG mills and for ore characterisation has exposed nonobvious opportunities for process improvement.
Acknowledgements
Some parts of the VCM development have been carried out under the auspices and with partial nancial support of the Centre for
Sustainable Resource Processing, which is established and supported under the Australian Governments Cooperative Research
Centres Program.
Input from collaborators at the University of Cape Town, the
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and McGill University and also of colleagues at CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences and the
University of Queensland is gratefully acknowledged.
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