Modelling of physical interactions between pulp, charge and mill structure in tumbling mills

• To develop a tumbling mill model that includes the pulp fluid and its simultaneous interactions with both the charge and the mill structure is an interesting challenge. The interactions have previously been modelled for dry grinding with a combination of discrete element method (DEM) or smoothedparticle hydrodynamics (SPH) together with the finite element method (FEM). In such combination the DEM particles or SPH particles represent the grinding balls and FEM is used to model the mill structure. In this work, the previous model is extended to include fluids using SPH. Wet milling with water and a magnetite pulp, for graded and mono-size charges are numerically modelled and validated. The charge behaviour and its interaction with the mill structure are studied. An important part of the model is the coupling between DEM and SPH elements. Sliding and impact along the contacting interfaces are important for the response of the model. In the present work, the contact between the grinding balls and the pulp is realized using a penalty based “nodes to node” contact. The combined SPH-DEM-FEM model presented here can predict responses from the mill structure, as well as the pulp liquid flow and pressure. Validation is conducted by comparing numerical results with experimental measurements from grinding in an instrumented small-scale batch ball millequipped with an accurate torque meter. The simulated charge movement is also compared with high speed video of the charge movement for a number of cases. In conclusion, the SPH-DEM-FEM can predict the charge movement and driving torque with good agreement compared to experimental measurement for a wet tumbling mill process. In addition, the presented methodology is generic and can as well be applied to dry or wet stirred media mills of various configurations

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Teknisk mekanik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Applied Mechanics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Metallurgi och metalliska material (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Metallurgy and Metallic Materials (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Hållfasthetslära

Solid Mechanics

Mineralteknik

Mineral Processing

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