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Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng
Optimization of a fully air-swept dry grinding cement raw meal ball mill
closed circuit capacity with the aid of simulation
. Gen
Mugla Stk Koman University, Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Mining Engineering, Ktekli, Mugla 48000, Turkey
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 August 2014
Accepted 9 January 2015
Keywords:
Grinding
Classication
Modelling
Simulation
Optimization
a b s t r a c t
Production capacity of a fully air-swept industrial scale two-compartment KHD Humboldt Wedag
cement ball mill was optimized with the aid of simulation. It was proposed to operate the mill as a single
compartment by eliminating the pre-drying compartment. In this respect, grinding performance of the
air-swept ball mill was evaluated and modelled as a perfectly mixed single tank using the perfect mixing
ball mill modelling approach (Whiten, 1974). Static separator was modelled by efciency curve model
(Whiten, 1966). The empirical breakage function required in the estimation of average specic breakage
rates was measured by drop-weight technique. The full scale model parameters were used to simulate
the raw meal mill grinding circuit with the aid of JKSimMet Steady State Mineral Processing Simulator.
Simulation results indicated 23% production capacity increase in cement throughput in case the predrying compartment was used in grinding.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Air-swept raw meal ball mills introduced by the cement mill
2002) and KHD Humboldt Wedag are the most commonly used
ones. KHD Humboldt Wedag manufactured fully air-swept raw
meal mills which have two compartments used for drying and
grinding processes. In these mills drying and grinding are per
formed in a single mill as similar to the Polysius fully air-swept
mill (Polysius, 2002). First compartment is used as a pre-drying
compartment where it is equipped with lifters and operated without grinding media in order to increase the drying efciency. In
such systems, kiln discharge gases are used as a drying air. Drying
compartment consumes more energy as compared to the other
systems due to the high level of moisture in the feed. In air-swept
mills circulating load is carried pneumatically. Thus, the energy
consumption for a fully air-swept grinding circuit is higher by
approximately 1012% as compared to the grinding circuit with
bucket elevator (Duda, 1985). Modelling of fully air-swept ball
mills used in the cement industry were studied with different
approaches in the literature (Austin et al., 1975, 1984;
Viswanathan,
1986;
Viswanathan
and
Narang,
1988;
Viswanathan and Reddy, 1992; Zhang et al., 1988; Zhang, 1992;
Ergin, 1993; Apling and Ergin, 1994; Benzer, 2004). Grinding model
Tel.: +90 252 2111938; fax: +90 252 2111912.
E-mail addresses: ogenc@mu.edu.tr, omurdeng@gmail.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2015.01.006
0892-6875/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
42
Nomenclature
i
j
fi
pi
ri
di
di
a
si
Q
D
L
r/d
Eoa
C
B
d50c
b
d
x
43
Fig. 1. Simplied owsheet of a raw meal grinding-classication circuit. Streams/sampled: (1) iron ore bunker belt; (2) clay bunker belt; (3) limestone bunker belt; (4) total
fresh feed; (7) static separator reject (coarse); (9a) product cyclone-1 underow; (9b) product cyclone-2 underow; (10) product cyclone combined; (12) electrolter return;
(13) dust from cooler. Streams/not sampled: (5) mill feed; (6) mill discharge; (8) static separator ne; (11) cyclone dust.
Table 1
Design specications for air-swept raw meal ball mill and static separator.
Raw meal ball mill
Diameter (m)
Drying compartment length (m)
Grinding compartment length (m)
Mill power (kW)
Mill rotational speed (rev/min)
Critical speed %
Ball lling %
Discharge diaphragm middle grate aperture size (cm)
Static separator
Separator diameter (m)
Table 3
Control room recordings during the sampling survey.
3.8
2.935
6.935
1600
15
69
27
88
5.2
Table 2
Design ball size distribution of the grinding compartment.
Ball size (mm)
Weight (kg)
Weight %
Cumulative weight %
80
70
60
50
40
30
2853
17,552
18,594
17,040
17,442
6827
4
22
23
21
22
9
100.00
96.45
74.59
51.44
30.22
8.50
Total
80,308
100
Operational variables
Value
Standard deviation
Limestone (t/h)
Clay (t/h)
Iron ore (t/h)
Total fresh feed wet owrate (t/h)
Static separator reject (t/h)
Ball mill lling %
Ball mill inlet temperature (C)
Ball mill discharge temperature (C)
Ball mill inlet pressure (mmSS)a
Ball mill discharge pressure (mmSS)
Ball mill ventilation pressure (mmSS)
Static separator pressure difference (mmSS)
Ball mill (Amper)
Ball mill elevator (Amper)
Ball mill motor (kW)
Mill specic energy consumption (kW h/t)
Kiln capacity (t/h)
65
26
1.72
92.72
64
83
325
93
25
360
767
335
120
24
1240
14.57
71
1.38
1.37
0.13
1.55
14.40
1.44
2.96
3.31
4.04
22.46
27.79
19.49
0.00
0.00
7.90
0.26
44
Table 4
Moisture contents of mill feed and calculated dry owrates.
Raw meals
Moisture %
Measured wet
owrate (t/h)
Dry owrate
(t/h)
Limestone
Clay
Iron ore
Total raw meal
2.08
22.64
4.12
6.64
65
26
1.72
92.72
63.65
20.11
1.65
85.41
the work of (Kolacz, 1999). Effect of air owrate on the discharge rate of material in an air swept ball mill was studied
by Kolacz (1999). It was concluded that, transportation of material through the mill by air sweeping becomes more difcult if
the mill content is ner which is due to the agglomeration of
very ne particles falling back into the mill bed,
material coating observed at the discharge grate could
have affected the ne material accumulation amount in the
mill and decreased the grinding performance of the grinding
media.
Particle size distribution of the mill discharge estimated by
mass balance calculations was found to be ner than that of the
sample collected at the mill discharge end which corresponded
to the sample at the seven point fourth meter of the grinding
length. This condition is expected under sufcient screening effect
of the discharge diaphragm (Fig. 6). Screening effect was
explained as the rejection of coarse particles to the last meter of
the compartment length after screening at the diaphragm and discussed in the literature (Benzer, 2000; Gen, 2008; Gen and
Benzer, 2009) for intermediate and discharge diaphragms of overow (gravity discharge) type multi-compartment cement grinding
ball mills.
Table 5
Mass balanced owrates and neness as 0.045 mm passing %.
Stream No
Stream identication
0.045 mm passing %
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9a
9b
10
11
12
13
14
64.86
47.36
55.77
5.36
2.56
2.60
2.65
3.24
4.55
2.42
1.65
20.07
63.41
85.13
149.26
149.26
64.14
85.13
82.73
2.40
4.97
2.57
87.70
3.57
2.79
1.58
1.91
8.00
52.32
16.29
79.58
80.00
78.80
78.10
100.00
100.00
100.00
80.71
Fig. 2. Agreement between experimental and mass balanced size distributions of the circuit streams.
45
Fig. 6. Axial mill inside particle size distributions towards the mill discharge end.
Grinding
compartment
Classifying
liners
100
80
60
40
20
0
0
Table 6
Mill inside sample amounts.
Length (m)
Sample (kg)
Mill inlet
1
2
3
4
5
6
6.7
7.4
10.42
6.60
7.96
5.79
3.91
3.43
3.83
3.72
6.30
46
Fig. 9. Normalized single particle breakage functions (replotted after Gen et al.,
2008).
Standard Bond work index value of the mill feed material was
also experimentally determined as 11.03 kW h/ton according to
TS 7700 standard (TS 7700, 1989) using a 90 lm test sieve.
3.5. Ball mill model
Air-swept ball mill was modelled using the perfect mixing modelling approach (Whiten, 1974) which denes the comminution
process in terms of three parameters; breakage rate, discharge rate
and breakage function Eq. (1). On the other hand, discharge rate
(di) of particles were dened to be a function of mill product (pi)
and mill hold-up (si) as given by Eq. (2) (Napier Munn et al.)
f i pi r i =di
1
2
3
4
26.27
33.14
28.80
15.43
j1
di pi =si
Table 7
Ball sample amounts along the mill length.
i
X
aij pi r i =di pi 0
47
di
di
Fig. 11. Specic breakage rates (ri) in the air-swept raw meal ball mill. Replotted
after (Gen et al., 2008).
4Q =D2 L
Eoa C
Fig. 10. Measured normalized discharge rate function (di ) in a full scale fully airswept raw meal mill (xc = 50 lm). Replotted after (Gen et al., 2008).
1 bb xexpa 1
expab x expa 2
4
where,
Eoa: fraction of feed reporting to overow.
C: fraction undergoing real classication (1-bypass fraction).
a: reduced efciency curve sharpness parameter.
b: reduced efciency curve sh hook parameter.
b: parameter to preserve the denition d50c, i.e. d = d50c when
E = (1/2)C where E denotes the fraction of feed.
x: ratio of particle size d to corrected size d50c.
48
performance is not at maximum as 11.85% of feed reports to separator coarse product. However, this value is reasonable and classication performance of the static separator is sufciently high.
4. Simulation
Fig. 12. Agreement between experimental and calculated (model tted) mill
product size distributions.
Table 8
ln(r/d) combined model parameters of the ball mill.
Particle size (mm)
ln(r/d)
1.18
0.425
0.15
0.045
4.00
1.78
0.83
0.23
Fig. 13. Efciency curve (tromp) for static separator (d50 = 0.099 mm; bypass = 11.85%; sh-hook = 2.39%).
Table 9
Model tted efciency curve parameters used in the simulation of circuit.
Model parameter
Value
d50c
C (1-by-pass)
0.1069
85.15
3.74
0.3633
1.16
a
b
b
49
Stream ows
t/h
0.045 mm passing %
t/h
0.045 mm passing %
85.13
149.26
64.14
4.97
90.10
1.91
52.32
16.29
100.00
80.71
105.00
165.27
60.27
4.97
109.97
1.91
58.21
21.43
100.00
82.41
Acknowledgements
Authors appreciation goes to SET Italcementi Group Balkesir
Plant for providing the access to the plant and their valuable support during the sampling survey. Prof. A. Hakan Benzer for his valuable discussions and contributions, Assistant Prof. Okay Altun and
Assistant Prof. Hakan Dndar from Hacettepe University are also
gratefully acknowledged.
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