Журнал материаловедения и инженерии

The Effect of Ball Size Diameter on Milling Performance

Abstract

Kabezya KM and Motjotji H

An investigation was conducted to determine the effect of the ball diameter sizes on milling operation. A laboratory size ball mill was used with ball media of sizes 10 mm, 20 mm and 30 mm respectively. Quartz was the material used to perform the experiment and was arranged into 3 mono-sizes namely -8 mm +5.6 mm, -4 mm +2.8 mm and-2 mm +1.4 mm for the experiment. A mill run having a mixture of the 3 ball diameter sizes was also conducted. It was determined that the 30 mm diameter balls were most effective of the three sizes during the grinding of the 3 monosize feed material samples. The 10 mm diameter balls were the least effective as minimum particle breakage was observed whereas the 20 mm diameter balls were relatively effective to some extent. The selection function of the 30mm balls was also much greater as it had a higher maximum point and a very low small abnormal region. The mill run conducted using a mixture of ball sizes however was slightly better than that of the 30 mm diameter balls. The primary breakage function was observed as to be non-related to the ball diameter but rather to the 3 mono-sizes of the feed material. In terms of the power draw, there seemed to be no link between it and the ball diameter size.