Description

HPGR has been used for many years and is emerging as an energy-efficient alternative to conventional and AG/SAG comminution circuits. One of the interesting features of HPGR is its capability to produce a particle size distribution with a greater than typical amount of fines, thus reducing the power requirement for the downstream ball mill. This makes the use of standard ball mill analyses based on the K*0 inadequate, unless appropriate corrections are made. (This problem is shared by AG/SAG mill circuits.)

The most appropriate way to get around this data problem is to run the entire circuit at pilot-scale and analyze the data based on the overall power applied in kWh/t. This requires a fair quantity of sample, and the difficulties inherent to performing such a pilot plant make it difficult to come up with reliable conclusions.