Investigating the effect on power draw and grinding performance when adding a shell liner to a vertical fluidised stirred media mill

Abstract

A comparative testwork programme was conducted using a laboratory scale vertical fluidised stirred media mill. The mill was operated with and without the presence of a disc liner on the shell. Results showed that when the mill was operating with pin and disc type stirrers, the addition of a stationary liner to the mill shell significantly increased the mill power draw. In grinding experiments conducted with silica, it was found that the production rate was enhanced as a result of the higher power draw. No detrimental effect on the grinding energy efficiency was observed. It was postulated that the addition of the disc liner increased the stress intensity of the milling operation. The results of this study show that the addition of stationary internal disc liners have a potential to increase the production capacity of fluidised stirred media mills. Further work is recommended to confirm that these observations are valid at a larger scale and in continuous milling configuration.