Role of particle stiffness and inter-particle sliding friction in milling of particles

Abstract Discrete element method (DEM) has been used to investigate the effects of particle elastic modulus and coefficient of inter-particle sliding friction on milling of mineral particles. An autogeneous mill of 600 mm diameter and 320 mm length with 14,500 particles has been selected for the simulation. Various mill performance parameters, for example, particle trajectories, collision frequency, collision energy and mill power have been evaluated to understand the effects of particle elastic modulus and inter-particle sliding friction during milling of particles. For the given model, it has been concluded that at high energy range, as the elastic modulus and particle sliding friction increase the energy dissipated among the particles increases. The collision frequency increases with the increase in elastic modulus, however, this trend is not clearly observed with increasing inter-particle sliding friction. The power draw of the mill increases with the increase in fraction of mill critical speed.