Effects Of Sizing Equipment Efficiency On Product Gradation And Weight Splits ? The Problem

Sizing devices used commercially are unfortunately not 100% efficient, the splits that can be obtained are usually inferior to the results obtained in the laboratory. Often the capital and operating costs of equipment capable of high sizing efficiency cannot be justified by the economics or requirements of the process. To reconcile the desired sizing efficiency needed to obtain optimum process requirements with the sizing efficiency of equipment economically practical, it is often necessary or desirable to predict the gradation and weight splits of the products obtained based on the expectant efficiency of the contemplated sizing device or method. The less efficient the sizing device one must employ, the more important it is to know the results that may be expected for the establishment of the optimum flow sheet and the more difficult it becomes to estimate the results accurately. Air classification equipment which sizes materials by opposing the drag force created by an air stream acting on a particle with a combination of gravitational, inertial or centrifugal forces are substantially less efficient than, for example, a laboratory sieve analysis. Air classifiers allow oversize material to contaminate the fine fraction and leave undersize material in the coarse fraction. The techniques employed to predict the gradation and weight splits obtained from air classification outlined below are adaptable to other sizing devices less than 100% efficient such as screens, sifters and wet classifiers.