Effect of the operating parameter and grinding media on the wear properties of lifter in ball mills

Abstract

The wear of lifter in ball mill directly affects the grinding efficiency and economic cost. However, how to evaluate the variation of wear process and predict the wear distribution of lifter is poorly developed. To this end, a laboratory-scale ball mill was used to evaluate the variation of wear process of the lifter in different milling conditions of mill speed, ball filling, grinding media size and shape. Besides, a wear prediction method was used to compare and validate the experimental results. The experimental results showed that the Abbott-Firestone curve can evaluate the lifter surface topography. The wear rate of the lifter specimen is increased first and then decreased with mill speed and grinding media size. Increasing ball filling will increase the wear rate, and the grinding media shape of ball has a maximum wear rate. The wear characteristics of the lifter specimen are consisting of impact pit, indentation, plastic deformation and scratch. Furthermore, the discrete element method (DEM) simulation showed that the wear behavior on the upper surface is higher than that on the side surface of the lifter. The DEM simulation with Archard wear model is an effective tool to investigate the wear distribution on the lifter, which is in good consistent with the wear behavior measured by the experiment.