Measurement system of the mill charge in grinding ball mill circuits

Investigation of a dry fine grinding circuit has shown significant influence of the mill load (powder filling) on the production capacity. To improve the circuit performance at industrial scale, alternative ways of mill load measurement were investigated. Detection of strain changes in the mill shell during mill rotation, by using a piezoelectric strain transducer, provided very interesting results, allowing evaluation of the weight of the mill charge and control of the powder filling to obtain an optimal level. Power draw has thus been increased by about 5% compared to the old configuration where mill motor power input was used to control the mill charge. By measuring mechanical vibration with the transducer, additional useful information has been obtained about the behavior of the cataracting and cascading balls inside the mill shell. Finally an important factor was simplicity and low investment cost of the total installation as many fine grinding mills operate in relatively small circuits that do not warrant large investment for alternative measurement methods. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.