Metodologia para escalonamento e simulação de moinho vertical

Abstract

Currently, the mining industry professionals have discussed much about the use of more efficient comminution circuits in terms of energy. On this line, the vertical mill appears as an option for replacement of the ball mill. The vertical mill has already been consolidated in regrinding applications and, more recently, has also been successfully applied to coarser grinding operations. This study proposes a methodology for scale-up and simulation of vertical mills through batch tests using small tubular ball mills with reduced amounts of sample. The population balance model, coupled with a scale-up procedure, has been successfully used to predict the vertical mills product particle size distribution. The vertical mill net power has been estimated by means of a scaling-up factor applied to the energy specific selection function, determined in the laboratory scale tests. The model developed in this study has been implemented in a plant-wide simulator (ModsimTM), and has been validated with data from pilot scale tests. The model is accurate enough for engineering calculations that include the vertical mill as part of the process.