The book embodies an aggregate industrial and academic experiences of the authors gathered over the years of developing a process for converting low-quality Nigerian ores into super concentrates and also successfully operating a commercial ball mill installation equipped with a pilot grinding test facility. It presents step-by-step process design calculations, pilot tests, scale-up, and validation methods for optimizing the mill design parameters and improving the operational efficiencies. The principles detailed in the book provide a roadmap for tuning the mill when processing materials of new origin to obtain optimal grinding efficiency. With the current trend toward the use of larger mills, there have been situations where those larger mills have not realized their design capacities due to some limitations in the application of conventional scale-up procedures to results from small-scale grinding equipment.
The uniqueness of this book lies in the combination of the process design principles with the pilot test and scale-up methodologies that enable the efficient prediction of commercial mill parameters from small-scale results, thus avoiding the pitfall inherent in conventional scale-up procedures. The book features approaches to validate process parameters for optimality and also to establish grinding media losses necessary to establish an appropriate balance between the ore and the media. Mechanical design of the critical parts and their materials selection have been included in the text. The book promises to be an invaluable companion in the area of raw materials preparation and mineral dressing for students, practicing engineers, and scientists in the industry and the academia and research laboratories. Throughout the book, examples are provided, which illustrate the application of the relevant principles and methodologies to real-world situations.