The Influence of Stirred Mill Orientation on Calcite Grinding

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dry grindability of calcite powders in a vertically and horizontally orientable laboratory batch type stirred mill. The experimental results were evaluated using stress intensity analysis. The performance was also compared in terms of mill orientation. The results showed that the d(50) values decreased with increasing stress energy down to a certain point and then increased for both milling orientations. Even though the optimum stress energies for both vertical and horizontal orientations were in the range of 1*10(-3) to 5*10(-3) Nm at 750 and 1500 kJ/kg energy consumption, the product size was finer for the horizontal orientation at the same stress energy value. Additionally, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to compare mill orientation (vertical vs. horizontal) for the same mill and under the same test conditions.