PROCESS DIAGNOSTIC STUDIES OF CEMENT MILL CIRCUIT TO

IMPROVE ITS GRINDING EFFICIENCY - A CASE STUDY

R M Sahu and Subrato Chowdhury

Central R & D UltraTech Cement Limited, Mumbai

Introduction

The mill in question is cement mill circuit with roller press combination as semi-finish grinding. The
circuit consists of single chamber ball mill of 4.6 m x 14.5 m long. The ball mill is in close circuit with O-
Sepa separator along with a product collection bag house was envisaged to be used in combination with
Roller press with VSK separator. The arrangement is a typical circuit, where the reject from VSK
separator will go to Roller Press and the product from VSK separator will go to mill via solid flow meter.
The rejects of the O-Sepa separator are conveyed to the ball mill via a solid flow meter. The product of
the O-Sepa is collected in Bag House with O-Sepa fan. The flow diagram of the mill circuit is shown in
Figure 1.An option is also provided in the circuit to take VSK separator product completely to cement
storage silo via air slides.

Fig.1 Process Flow diagram of the milling circuit

Mill operating staff envisaged that after replacement of mill shell liner from Dragpeb of FLS to Classifying
liners of AIA Engineering and change in the internal quality specification the mill throughput rate has
been dropped by 25-30 tph from current level. In order to find out the possible causes of throughput
rate reduction a comprehensive performance evaluation of the mill has been carried-out. The present
paper exemplifies the findings of the study suggested measures to regain the optimum mill throughput
rate through the mill circuit.

Roller Press Operation:

The typical specifications of the roller press supplied by KHD are given below:

KHD Roller Press: RP 13-140/140 Drives: 2 x 1000 kW

Roller Diameter: 1400 mm Circumferential velocity: 1.6 m/sec
Roller width : 1400 mm Rated throughput: 720 tph

The present limit of operating pressure is 135 bars in the hydraulics which at 2 Nos. of 700 mm diameter
cylinders results in a grinding force of 10,598.63 kN and a maximum grinding pressure
of5407.50kN/m2.This appears somewhat on the low side considering that the rollers have a solid surface,
for which most suppliers prescribed a maximum pressure of 7000 kN/m2 while limiting the segmented
units to 6000 kN/m2.The drives are fixed speed and the feeding arrangement is choke-feeding.

The roller press drive percentage loading is in the range of 65.84-81.16%, which is considerably lower
than the normally observed values of 90% in semi finish mode circuit. The power draw of the roller press
drives was found too low(about 65.84% -71.30%) during the month of Feb & Mar15 and the kW
difference between the two drives was too high (about 39-45% higher on the movable rollers).The feed
chute width also needs to be adjusted properly to equal the load. In order to equal the power draw on both
rollers it might then still be necessary to open the feed chute further on the fixed roller and close it
correspondingly on the movable roller side. This needs to be done as soon as possible to avoid
unnecessary high wear on the movable roller and to improve overall performance of the pre-grinding.
The possible reasons for lower loading of roller press may be attributed to:

a) Feed quantity less than optimum

b) Finer feed granulometry
c) Start up pressures less than the optimum.

These observations indicate a possible scope for improvement in roller press performance. Therefore, in
order to utilize full potential of the roller press, it is proposed that roller press start-up pressure be
optimized to increase the power uptake of the roller press stepwise in consultation with OEM.

Maximization and optimization of mill output:

Concerning the optimization of this type of installation 2 rules of thumb apply:

1. The roller press should always be operated at the maximum power uptake because each kW
absorbed by the press will generally reduce the power consumption of the ball mill by two power
 units. Currently roller press loading was 65.8% and usual maximum utilization of roller press
drives should be around 85-90%

2. Normally a ball mill should be charged for maximum power absorption of the drive because this
will lead to the highest throughput and thereby the lowest specific power consumption of the
auxiliaries.

Conclusions:

A thorough study of the data collected, mill circuit samples analyzed and following conclusions were
arrived at:
a. Substituting the present charge having a specific surface of approx. 40.51m2/t with a 20mm
equilibrium charge with 45 m2/t the relative grinding capacity of the mill will increase by 6.3%
from the current level and anticipated specific power consumption will be reduced by around 1.70
kWh/ton

b. Material to air ratio of separator fines material to air should be reduced from 1030 gm/m3 to 750-
850 gm/m3 by increasing the separator air flow to improve separator performance further.

c. Roller press loading is to be increased from 66% to 90% in phase manner by increasing its
grinding pressure in consultation with OEM

d. Roller press feed chute width is need to be adjusted properly to equalize the load. In order to
equal the power draw on both rollers it might then be necessary to open the feed chute further on
the fixed roller and close it correspondingly on the movable roller side.

e. Mill volumetric filling % is to be increased from 18.5% to 25% in phased manner. Filling %
increased should be tried in small steps. It is important that material level in the mill is properly
adjusted before the grinding media charge is increased.

f. The circulation factor has to be increased from 1.51 to 2.0 for PPC by increasing fresh feed to the
mill and increasing throughput rate of roller press.

g. The aeration velocity through the mill can be increased from 0.97 m/sec to 1.2-1.4 m/sec above
ball charge.