CRUSHING TECHNOLOGY - AN OVERVIEW

Technological advancements have bestowed on us a continuous endeavor to look for the optimum usage & economy on every sphere of life & the industries in totality. While, globally different methods & experiences have led to booms in capacity production, resultant output quality improvements, safe & secured methods of operation, it sometimes hover on the mankind as a future gloom, when the earths reserve shall dwindle; notwithstanding the development of the alternatives. Going back to the history of mankind, it was the minerals which people got attracted to among few others; comminuted & used for different purposes. The basic purpose of comminuting is to reduce the size of the minerals. The comminuting process engulfed a broad spectrum, from initial crushing to ore beneficiations. Some of the human & animal organs acted as natural crushers, like, the jaws, palm, foot etc & knowingly or unknowingly people have adopted those principals. The rocks & minerals that are available are required to be excavated, blasted, screened & cleaned before the final use. The impurities present in the Run of Mines(ROM) if cleaned out makes the next process more efficient. With machines handling 55 different types of materials in 50 countries around the world, the ranges of rock, coal & minerals differs from place to place & calls for in depth geological & mine survey for the proper selection of the crusher & their application. The growing energy conscious world adopts the best solution; the invest to return ratio has become one of the prime focus. While, these all said & done, it is imperative even now a- days that, the bottom line still revolves around the four basic methods of crushing i.e. by - compression, attrition, impact & shear using in different stage of crushings viz, Primary, Secondary & Tertiary. Most of the crushers use the principles as mentioned above discreetly or combindely. The application also is overlapping in many cases. Jaw Crusher, for example , is used in Limestone, Bauxite, Zinc ore, Rock phosphate, granite & iron ore etc which spreads over a broad compressive strength(MPa). Similarly, Gyratory, cone & sizers plays important roles in the mining industries. There are few crushers which have limited use use ,e.g. Ring Granulators , hammer mills, roll crushers & rotary Breakers,Feeder Breakers, which are preferred in coal applications. Impact crushers like impactors have also Medium to hard range of use with preference in lime stone; it does have also application in glass, sand,Bauxite,Pyrite ore, rare earth,iron ore etc. Intensive studies have also been done on the behaviour patterns of different crushers with different materials . These tests are are carried out in the laboratories. For 1st time usage of the materials, they are tried for crushability & other factors which gives the output in terms of gradation( shieve analysis)to 1

a very accurate percentage, capacity, life of wearing elements, fatigue life of important parts, drive criterions, like mass moment of inertia of the rotor, type of drive suitability etc. Mathematical models are also developed now-a-days to understand in a better way the breaking phenomenon in the crushing chambers. Through suitable softwares it is also possible to predict the above criterions. The breaking of rocks & minerals are generally done by converting electrical energy into mechanical energy; however, with the development & adaptation of new technology, different other modes or a combination of the energy sources are employed. The amount of input energy or work input required to perform a given size reduction is a function of the physical characteristic of the material to be reduced. Researchers like, Kick, Rittinger have done contributed in form of different theories regarding this. Fred C. Bond, a senior staff engineer, of crushing & grinding machinery section, Allis Chalmers mfg co, came out with the proposal that the total work required for reduction is inversely proportional to the square root of the diameter of the product. He further developed a method for quantitatively determining the crushing resistance of a given material by laboratory testing; This value was termed as the work index(W). The maximum HP required per T of crushing is further computed with the above work index, considering that feed materials will pass through 80% of the square opening and the product will pass through 80% of the square opening. HP/Ton= W* 13.41(1/P - 1/F ): where P & F are product & feed sizes in microns. The above formula, also known as Bond Index formula, assumes that the rock is free from cracks & fractures, but most of the rocks & minerals are blasted which introduces hair cracks along its natural cleavage & weakens the rocks. During the phenomenon of crushing ,the rock breaks along these weak boundaries; this helps in the crushing & reduces the theoretical energy requirement. This particular factor is known as the Blast Factor. The above formula of HP/T is multiplied by the Blast factor to arrive at the theoretical consumed power. This factor is not constant, it depends on the nature of rock & the blasting method adopted. The factor generally lies between 0.65 to 0.80. It must, however to be kept in mind that the power arrived by multiplying with the blast factor does not consider feed impurities or tramp iron which shall adversely affect the crusher performance; selecting too large a motor without proper interlocks shall also cause damage to crusher parts. With the increasing awareness of technical knowledge, global markets & applications, the end users have become more demanding from cost, dependability & options availability point of view in the project & systems. For example, it is a common feature that direct drives are fitted with Fluid Couplings & that too of different varieties suiting the applications; viz, constant fill type, delay fill type & variable type(scoop).The prime movers are electric motor, hydraulic pump-motor, IC engine or a combination of these. Hydraulic drives are finding increasing use in the crushing industries. As explained above that the HP/T or Kw/T depends upon the material characteristics & the type of crushers used, a brief indication of the same are outlined below:

Type of Crusher
Jaw Crusher Roll Crusher Ring Granulator Impactors Cone Crushers Sizers

HP/T
0.45-0.55 0.08 0.5 0.5 0.8 Prim(0.9 -1.25): Sec-(1.2 1.65) 0.70 1.10 0.40 0.6

Materials
Limestone,aggregate,oreCoal,lignite,-Coal Lime Stone,coal,overburden-Aggregates,ore--Lime stone,coal,overburden--

With the normal type of crushers ,like, the Jaw crushers, Roll Crushers, Impact crushers , Cone crushers etc retaining their market more or less in the old applications, few other machines have crept into the industries as new trends of crushing Technology. Some of them to mention are Mobile crushing plant, surface miner, sizers, Road millers, Soil Stabilizers. While the earlier type of crushers improved on their capability & spread their applications, the new generation of crushers were motivated by the demand in productivity, cost, dependability & product quality improvement. The improvements from the earlier phase to the new are seen as follows: More than a decade ago, it used to take 9/10 months to supply the crushers & its systems for a crushing plant of 200 -400tph;it took equal time for erection & commissioning ;i.e the total lead time to take off was nearly 2 years; With the advent of MOBILE CRUSHING PLANT the total time is now squeezed to 3-5 months, reducing the project cost many fold. The plant did not require any costly civil foundations & are either wheel or track mounted.The wheel mounted plants were either towed by trailors to different locations on roads to or as the mine phase progressed they were hauled to the new positions. This not only reduces the time but also expensive transportation.The crawler mounted plants are self primed by Diesel engines & have more flexibility. The cost of dumpers carrying feed materials were reduced considerably. The modular constructions of the mobile plants enable them to move & lined up for operation in less time. Once put in place & some minor assemblies are done, the unit becomes ready for the production. The manpower required for the operation for a two stage jaw-cone plant is not more than 3 operators/semiskilled. The cost of such crawler plant is around 4 crores, depending on the number of outputs ,re-circulation & type. The major players in this field are,Metso,Pegson,Sandvik,L&T,Puzzolana,Terex Finlay,TRF,IC etc. With Open Pit Mining finding more favour than underground mining, particularly for coal, the SURFACE MINER became an essential crushing equipment. The minings or the crushings are being operated near to human habitation or sometimes within the close by human settlements. The blastings, drillings or the profuse dust are detrimental to the population. The environmental laws & awareness among the people made the conventional type of operations more stringent. The advent of SURFACE MINER ,under these considerations were welcomed. This equipment is called a moving crusher; as it moves on the surface & crushes to the pre defined depth, the crushed material is conveyed through the integral conveyor to the trailing truck where it loads the crushed material. The depth of cut can be varied by the operator & thus obtain a required product size. The varying depth also enables it do selective mining. The picks on the rotating drums are so configured that a uniform layer of material can be extracted; the travel speed & the rotation of the drum are synchronized.The machine can straight start operating once 3

transported to the mine. This type of machines, however requires a straight seam face to produce the maximum. The machines are also suitable for soft to medium lime stone. The cost of one such m/c of 1000tph would be around 7/8 crores.The major manufacturers in this area are Wirtzen,Vermeer,L&T,. SIZERS are considered to be the evolution of toothed roll crusher.These machines operate at low speedhigh torque & are very compact. The biggest advantage is the the low head room. The generation of dust & fines are also minimum . The tooth on the rotors are placed in such a way (spiral) so as to distribute the feed material evenly allowing crushing & screening as well. The machines run at low speed thus generating the maximum torque for crushing. Torque imparted to the materials are varying in magnitude due to timing of sizing teeth on the roll periphery, this allows effective utilization of crushing forces thereby obtaining better crushing efficiency. The sizers are finding wide applications like, coal, limestone, overburden, different ores & minerals ranging from medium to hard rock. The reduction ratio in the secondary stage is 6 to 8:1 & the maximum capacity obtained is 2500t/hr.The compactness & low head room has enabled its use in underground minings also. Interestingly, at De Beer Finsch diamond mine 15 numbers of sizers are in use. The sizers also are used on the Primary mobile plants.The drives of the sizers are through single or twin shaft through custom built gear box. The major manufacturers of the Sizer are MMD( Mining Machineries Development), F.L.Smidth ABON. ROAD MILLERS are used for milling out 10 to 50 mm of road surfaces for repair & resurfacing purpose. In the towns & cities, the traffic cannot be stopped for long;repair works are generally done at night or on one part of the road while the other half remains open to traffic. The operation is same as that of the surface miner, the cut off bitumen is transported onto the trailing truck by a conveyor system which is integral to the machine. The machine travels as it cuts.The contractors who generally use takes it to other place once the work is finished in one location, thus making it cost effective. The major manufacturers of the Road millers are the Wirtzen & L&T in India. SOIL STABILIZERS are equipment for road making. While making a good quality road capable of taking substantial axle loads, like the highways, it is essential that the bottom layers which consists of sand.morum,earth,stone chips, DBM are uniformly crushed & mixed to produce homogenous layers & obtain the required hardness. The basic purpose is that the vehicles plying with load on the road surface are transmitted to the bottom face equally & sustain the same; otherwise if the bottom surfaces are weak & non co-herent load from the top will disperse the bottom layers leading to pot holes & other damages; this reduces the life of the road. While most of the foreign countries adopt the same, in India very few roads are built utilizing this process.The major manufacturer are Bomag. L&T developed as a prototype such equipment & which won the best equipment award in International Trade fair Baucon04. However, the equipment could not be put in the market. IMPACT BREAKERS are the same generation of Feeder Breaker but major changes in the Rotor assembly & operational parameters. The rotor discs are of different configuration & instead of the picks embeeded carbide tips are used as the crushing tool. The rotors have high rotation,imparting greater energy to the feed materials. The materials crushed are overburden,hard rocks in inpit mining. Presently, in India, these are not found to be used.

The two days presentation makes an attempt to understand the different configurations of the crushers,their applications & some basic calculations for capacity, power & the forces/stresses going into the members. The presentations attached are: !) Crushing Technology An overview 2) Salient Points of Design The datas & figures referred to are by way of experience, studies, net informations & standard sources. Any information, datas, reference identical are as meager coincidence only .The basic purpose of this deliberation is to create greater awareness & knowledge & imparting a guideline .The informations in no way can guarantee the accuracy.

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