Continuous grinding mill simulation using Austin's model

Abstract

Comminution is a frequently-required step in mineral processing and is responsible for almost 90% of all energy consumption in a mineral processing plant. Tumbling mill design has been studied since the middle of the XIX century. There are many comminution models in the literature, with preponderance, however, of Austin’s model (2002) for mineral impact breakage. In this paper, Austin’s model was applied to tubular tumbling mills. Once Austin’s model was proposed for batch processing of narrowly-distributed fraction sizes, an artifice has allowed it to be used in continuous grinding mill processes with widely-distributed fraction sizes. Interesting results were obtained with errors less than 0.005 for mills with sharp residence time distributions.