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Jan 1, 1953

By C. A. Stetefeldt

The purpose of this paper is to convince the managers of silvermills that their customary reports in regard to the percentage of silver saved are far from the truth. It may be unpleasant for them to have the proofs of this fact brought before the public, and for this rezson the author refrains from giving the names of the mines and mills from which the statistics here recorded were obtained. It may be asked: What is gained by informing the stockholders of our silver-mines that they receive incorrect reports? Will this increase their dividends or lessen their assessments? In the first place, it is always better to publish honest facts than fiction. In the second place, many superintendents believe in the correctness of their reports, and have no idea how much they deceive themselves. Finally, the knowledge that hitherto unexpected losses of silver take place may lead to the adoption of methods by which these losses are greatly reduced. These remarks refer also to smelting-works. The present paper, however, is concerned exclusively with amalgamation and lixiviation. The first and most important error is found in the inaccuracy of the commercial assay; the second in the incorrect sampling of tailings in amalgamation. Further, mills not doing custom-work, but reducing exclusively ores from mines to which the mills belong, are in the habit of weighing the ore only approximately and without making moisture-tests. Thus, a correct basis for calculating the actual percentage of silver extracted is lacking. The superintendent, then, finds it convenient to report the apparent extraction, i.e., the extraction indicated by comparing the value of the roasted ore, minus soluble salts, with the value of the tailings. How many errors are thereby committed it is not necessary to point out.

Jan 1, 1895

By AIME AIME

FOR the development of a mine, a shaft of small cross-section is usually sunk, of no larger size than is absolutely necessary. After the mine has been developed and put on a production basis it is a common practice to sink a shaft of larger cross-section for hoisting and use the original shaft for the handling of men and material into the mine. While that ar¬rangement is usually expedient, the small size of the supply cages presents a problem in the handling of ma¬terial. Where a cage is, say, 4 by 4 ft., which is not an uncommon size, all lengthy and bulky material must be handled piece by piece several times from the supply department to the underground stations. Thus drill steel and timbers over 4 ft. long will be loaded on cars at the supply department and wheeled to the shaft, where each piece must be unloaded from the cars and stood up in the cage. They are then lowered to the shaft station, unloaded piece by piece and placed in cars, run to the supply station and again unloaded and stored until called for. In such a case handling becomes a major item in the cost of supplies.

Jan 1, 1930

By Philip E. LaMoreaux

Fluoride, generally less than 0.5 ppm, is present in ground water from rocks of Paleozoic age and older, in northern and eastern Alabama. Some of the water-bearing formations in the Coastal Plain area of the State yield water with as much as 6.8 ppm fluoride.

Jan 1, 1950

By C. H. Jr. Herty

THE removal of sulfur from steel has been studied by many investigators, but the quantitative relationships between the factors involved have not been determined. This is undoubtedly due to the number of variables encountered in practice, an attempt to study any one reaction or relation being affected by other reactions the relative importance of which cannot be estimated. The factors that affect the extent of removal of sulfur in the basic open-hearth process are generally considered to be: 1. Basicity of the slag: (a) Iron oxides in the slag; (b) carbon in the metal, or carbide in the slag; (c) temperature. These factors affect the reactions: FeS + CaO = CaS + FeO FeS + CaO + C = CaS + CO + Fe. 2. Amount of sulfur in the gas. 3. Amount of manganese in the metal. The factors which affect the rate of removal of sulfur include, in addition to these 4. Fluidity of the slag: (a) Normal changes in fluidity with temperature; (b) changes in fluidity because of the addition of special reagents such as fluorspar. 5. Agitation of the bath.

Jan 3, 1925

By L. C. De Jong, J. F. Shirley, M. L. Campbell

The Toquepala concentrator of the Southern Peru Copper Corp., located approximately 720 miles southeast of Lima near the Chilean border, processes 36,500 tons of ore daily containing between 0.50% and 3.00% copper. The molybdenite content in the ore also varies greatly, ranging from essentially nothing to as high as 0.15%. The 1966 yearly averages were approximately 1.20% copper and 0.03 % molybdenite. The three basic problems that plague the opera- tion of any molybdenite recovery plant are all present at Toquepala in large measures. Both the quantity of plant feed and the quantity of molybdenite contained in the plant feed are continuously changing. Even more detrimental to an efficient operation is the fact that the copper mineralization in the feed frequently changes once in every 24 hours and occasionally once a shift. From the point of view of the molybdenite plant metallurgist, there are four distinctive chalcopyrite concentrates and, at least, an equal number of chalcocite concentrates treated in the molybdenite recovery circuit. The various types of concentrates are distinguished mainly by their mineral content and how effectively the copper minerals are depressed by the different reagents used in the circuit.

Jan 9, 1967

By Heinrich Siemes, Christa Hennig-Michaeli

The effect of temperature and orientation on the plastic behaviour of an impure titaniferous magnetite from Palabora (South Africa) has been investigated. Prismatic specimens were axially compressed along [001], [110] and [111]. The strain rate was about 3.10-6 s-1. Trace analyses of glide lines revealed a plastic anisotropy due to glide on several non-equivalent crystallographic planes. At 200 °C {111}<112> twinning, {111}<110> slip and {100}<011> slip have been operative. At 400 °C {111}<110> slip and {100}<011> slip are primary glide modes. {110}<110> slip seems to be a secondary glide mode in the [001] specimens at 400 °C. {III}<112> twin glide generates isolated sharp lamellae. {111}<110> slip produces smooth surface striae. {100}<011> slip is characterized by coarse and partially wavy slip bands. {I10}<110> slip displays faint remarkably equidistant glide lines. The critical resolved shear stresses (CRSS) decrease with rise of temperature. The CRSS ratio of slip on [100) to slip on {lll} increases from 1.1 at 200 °C to 1.4 at 400 °C giving rise to a distinct flow anisotropy of the magnetite at 400 °C.

Jan 1, 1982

By Stanley D. Michaelson

THE selection of the proper size of grinding mill for a given installation has long been a subject of discussion by mill manufacturers, consulting engineers, and their clients. It would be presumptuous for the author to propose a simple cure-all. Instead this paper describes a method that has been used over a period of years to determine mill size with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Furthermore, this method claims no theoretical background, for ball milling, as practiced today, is still an art. The selection of the proper size and type of mill must, therefore, be made on an empirical basis. A ball mill, in order to grind, must deliver power through its grinding media to the material to be ground. Assuming that a mill is properly supplied with grinding media, ore pulp, and power, the amount of grinding done is closely proportional to the power expended. With this as a basic premise we can, for the moment, forget about type of mill (i.e., overflow, low-level mill, or other design) and base our calculation of mill size on the total power required to grind a ton of a particular ore from a given size of feed to a given size of product. When this is determined the type and size of mill, its speed, and the weight of the load of grinding media can be selected to absorb this amount of power. DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNIQUE Some years ago, W. L. Maxson, F. Cadena, and F. C. Bond, working in the Minerals Research Laboratory of Allis-Chalmers Co., Milwaukee, developed and described a laboratory technique for comparing grindability (or relative ease of grinding) of various ores at different mesh sizes of grind.1 Additional papers2 have described the work done since that time, and the most recent paper3 summarizes results for hundreds of tests on many ores and materials. The essentials of the testing method are: a I a by 12-in. laboratory mill operating at a constant speed of rotation, using a constant volume of ore, and a constant ball load having a relatively constant grinding surface. Tests are run at 250 per cent circulating load with the feed, circulating load and products screened on calibrated Tyler standard screens. Certain ores from operating mills, representing various mineralogical types, were selected for reference and designated "standard ores." In most cases, detailed studies of the grinding circuits were made when samples of mill feed were taken for grindability tests. Each analysis formed a basis for comparison of the grindability in the laboratory with actual power requirements for a particular grinding circuit. In addition, a critical study was made, to evaluate the differences in the various grinding circuits so that two or more field installations having different layouts (single-stage grinding, two-stage grinding, or others), and using mills of various diameters operating at various speeds with differing circulating loads, etc., could be compared. Large-scale tests by mill operators complemented by laboratory investiga-

Jan 1, 1945

By Thomas S. Carnahan

UNION MINIERE D HAUT-KATAIGA operates a group of mines and metallurgical works in the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo. It is especially prominent as a copper producer, but its output of accessory metals, such as cobalt, radium, silver, tin and gold have been considerable. The Belgian Congo covers 920,000 sq. mi. of central Africa, with a native population of about 8,500,000. In addition, Belgium controls by mandate the districts of Ruanda-Urundi (formerly a part of German East Africa) with an area of some 20,000 sq. mi. and a population of about 3,500,000 natives. Most of the native population of the Belgian Congo is found on the wide fertile plains of the great rivers, living under primitive conditions in a tropical climate, where it has survived throughout the centuries in spite of tropical diseases and intertribal wars. In more recent times, especially during the last two centuries, &apos;the natives have been subjected to frequent raids by the slave traders, which made their existence even more precarious, and if continued much longer would probably have resulted in their complete extermination.

Jan 1, 1932

At the Gateway Coal Co.&apos;s mine, about 70 miles above Pittsburgh&apos;s Point on the Monongahela River, a battery of television cameras stands guard over what is billed as the longest conveyor belt system ever installed in a coal mine. In all, this system consists of 9% miles of 42- in. and 48-in. wide belting, and is capable of transporting 500 tph at a speed of 625 fpm from working face to the tipple located outside the mine. Gateway Coal, located near Waynesburg, Pa., is owned jointly by Jones & Laughlin. Steel Corp. (64% %), Pittsburgh Steel Co. (22lh%), and Shenango Inc. (13%). Managed by J & L, the mine is under a long-term lease from the Hillman Coal and Coke Co., which formerly operated it as the Emerald mine. Hillman produced 700,000 tons per year of metallurgical-grade coal from this mine, but since J & L et al. took over in 1962, annual output has increased to 1.7 million tons. Mine capacity will reach its peak early in 1964 when total production hits an annual rate of 3.1 million tons.

Jan 7, 1963

By Luther Wagoner

HAVING given in a former paper1 the results of assays of sea-water, bay-mud, dredgings from San Francisco bay, etc., and&apos; believing it might be interesting to extend the work to include&apos; some deep-sea dredgings, I procured from the Smithsonian Institution six samples taken by the U. S, steamer Albatross, and marked as follows

Jan 9, 1907

By B. H. Bergstrom, C. L. Stevenson

In any process wherein materials must be pelletized, a crucial period exists during the interval between the manufacture of the green pellets and their subsequent heat treatment. The pellets must possess sufficient strength and plasticity to withstand conveying and sizing. Also, they must be neither excessively brittle nor excessively plastic when placed in a bed on a traveling grate for heat treatment. An acceptable pellet, in the event sufficient forces are applied to cause its fracture, will merely split into two or three large fragments which would not drastically alter the permeability of the pellet bed. However, when brittle pellets are broken, they shatter so that the resultant fine particles either decrease the perimeability of the bed or become entrained in the gas stream and thereby cause dust problems. On the other hand, excessively plastic pellets may not break at all but may merely flatten. This would seriously hamper bed permeability. In the past, pellet evaluation has usually been left to the creative and artistic talents of the balling operators. A multitude of techniques have evolved, of which the most common is the simple compression test. For this test a hand-operated device loads single pellets to fracture, but reliability is strictly operator- dependent. Probably the next most common test is the drop test, which is conducted according to several different procedures. This is an important quantitative test for estimating the amount of handling a pellet will withstand. There are many other tests, such as pinching a pellet between the thumb and index finger, but none are capable of producing reproducible results.

Jan 4, 1962

By George A. Grandy, D. W. Fuerstenau

Simulation of nonlinear grinding systems is discussed in the context of the size-discretized batch-grinding model. A linear approximation of environment-dependent (or nonlinear) selection functions is postulated for systems which exhibit feed grinding orders less than unity. For this, a convex linear combination of zero and first-order selection function forms is used to obtain an analytical solution that can be used for simulation. An example in which marked nonlinear behavior occurs is rod-mill grinding. Accordingly, a series of grinding experiments was carried out in a batch laboratory rod mill to test these techniques; agreement between experiment and the model was found to be very good. Recently, significant progress has been made in the simulation of linear grinding systems by using a population balance mathematical model. Herbst and Fuer-stenaul presented a parameter estimation scheme that can be used with the size-discretized batch-grinding model, and Gumtz and Fuerstenau3 have extended these techniques to the simulation of locked-cycle grinding. Grandy et aL." summarized the simulation of linear systems and noted important alternate solutions to the batch-grinding equation. Kelsall et a1.&apos;-" discussed the dynamic simulation of linear batch grinding, as well as linear open and closed-circuit grinding. In all of these, the key word is linear, which certainly restricts the engineer trying to simulate a variety of grinding systems. This paper discusses an approach for the simulation of non-linear grinding systems, particularly those which exhibit grinding orders less than unity. Experimentally, dry rod-mill grinding is used to evaluate the technique presented. Batch Grinding Model The size-discretized batch-grinding model has been discussed in detail by Mika et al.&apos;.&apos; and by Herbst and Fuerstenau,&apos; and therefore, will only be briefly developed here. The model is formulated by making a differential mass balance of each size fraction in such a manner that the equation parameters are precisely defined in terms of selection and breakage functions,&apos; which can be either calculated&apos;.&apos; or estimated1 from experimental data. The model is phenomenological because it averages all stress-application events in the system and, therefore, does not distinguish the manner in which individual particles are stressed.&apos; For this average environment, the resistance of all particles in a size fraction to breakage is defined by that size-frac-tion&apos;s selection function; and when fracture occurs from an average event, the breakage product size distribution is defined again by that size-fraction&apos;s breakage function. The model is deterministic and is derived in terms of a continuous time variable and a discretized size variable,&apos; i.e., the n mass fractions associated with the n defined size intervals (see Table 1 for nomenclature).

Jan 1, 1971

By C. M. Loeb, T. E. Norman

THE use of ball, rod and tube mills for grinding ore, cement and other materials has grown so rapidly during the past forty years that the world&apos;s annual consumption of ferrous grinding media for these mills is now estimated to be between one half million and one million tons per year. Ferrous grinding balls constitute the major portion of this tonnage. Obviously they represent sufficient value to justify thorough studies&apos; of the factor sgoverning their performance. The selection of grinding balls is governed principally by: I. Quality (wear resistance, impact resistance, soundness, and the like). 2. Sources of supply and delivered cost. 3. Grinding characteristics or efficiency in the ball mill. This paper deals principally with the quality of ferrous grinding balls. In the study of these factors certain data relative to the fundamental nature of ball wear in ball mills have been obtained. These data are also presented and discussed briefly. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SUITABLE WEAR TEST A study of the fundamental factors governing the quality of grinding balls has been hampered seriously by the fact that a competent test has, in the past, involved the purchase of several hundred tons of balls of a specific type which were then run in one or more ball mills for a period ranging from several months to several years&apos; duration. Often, during the period of test, it became necessary to change operating conditions or the character of the ore fed, to the test mill with the result that the rate of ball consumption changed and the test figures became of little value. Under such circumstances, progress in the development of better grinding balls, has been necessarily slow. Economic factors and variations in the quality of balls produced by different sources of supply generally make it necessary for each mill operator to determine for himself the most suitable type of balls for his mills. In our own ball mill grinding operations at Climax, Colo., we were faced with this problem. After we had run a few large scale wear tests at considerable expense we decided to investigate the possibilities of a small scale wear test which would be capable of testing numerous types of balls within a relatively short time. The most important requirement of any test is, of course, that it give results which can be used to predict accurately the wear in full scale operations. It was known that Ellis and his associates1,2 had developed a method of testing grinding balls by small scale tests run at the Ontario Research Foundation. Ellis&apos; method of testing was used as a starting point in our investigations. In the course of our tests a number of modifications of the original method were found to be desirable so that, by an evolutionary procedure, a method of small scale

Jan 1, 1947

By A. V. Deforest, A. R. Anderson, C. W. MacGregor

ONE of the important problems in the design of structures and machine parts subjected to rapidly applied loads is the determination of the strength and ductility of the material itself under such conditions. Realizing the need for such information, many investigations have been carried out in the past. Most of these experiments have been made using notched bars in bending either with the Charpy or Izod impact machine. While yielding valuable data on the effect of notches in the energy absorption of the material and on the condition of heat-treatment, this form of test does not lend itself readily to a determination of fundamental stress-strain relations. For this and other reasons, more attention has been paid recently to the tension impact test. An extensive literature already exists on the subject and only those investigations somewhat closely related to the present paper will be mentioned. For a more comprehensive list, the reader is referred to the Symposium on Impact Testing of the A.S.T.M., 1938. The work of Mann,1 Clark and Dätwyler,2 Nádai and Manjoine,3 Winlock and Leiter,4 Deutler,5 and Brinkmann,6 however, deserve especial mention. In most of the previous investigations on the subject, when stress-strain relations were obtained under high rates of loading, it was the common procedure to determine stresses based on the original area and strains based on the original length. Stress-strain curves were then constructed by plotting [So = ooT as a function of eo =o] where A o and Lo refer to the original area and gauge length, respectively. At present there exists a paucity of true stress-strain data in the impact problem. The advantages of constructing so-called true stress-strain curves in order to reveal the fundamental physical properties of the material for the tension test were discussed recently by one of the authors? It was shown that the true physical behavior of the material in the tension test could best be represented by plotting the average true stress, [S = P] as a function of [e = q&apos; = log A-le = log Lo] where P, A, L, S, [e], and q&apos; refer to the load, the cross-sectioned area while the load P is applied, the actual gauge length, the average true stress, the true strain and true reduction in area, respectively. Besides giving a better physical representation, the method has certain additional advantages in that the stress-strain curve so plotted becomes a straight line from the maximum load point to fracture. The construction of such curves, however, while comparatively simple for the slow rates of loading customarily used in the tension test, presents certain difficulties for tensile impact in that both loads and diameters are required throughout the test. The continuous measurement of test-piece

Jan 1, 1941

By G. E. McElroy

Though air jets occupy only a minor role in the ventilation of mines and other enclosures, their importance in this respect is greater than is commonly recognized and may be considerably increased as our conception of their modes of operation becomes clearer. The object of this paper is to discuss some of the ways in which air jets are involved in mine ventilation and some possible applications to the ventilation of mines and other enclosed spaces. The mention of air jets ordinarily suggests the use of some form of an air injector, such as the Venturi blower occasionally used for auxiliary ventilation in mines, or the Saccardo (injector) system used to a limited extent for ventilating railroad tunnels. Actually, the term covers such common phenomena as the discharge of air from fan pipes and coal-mine line brattices, and even from smoke stacks and fans. A knowledge of the general mode of air entrainment by jets also helps to explain certain phenomena—some mine-gas explosions, for instance—that otherwise would remain obscure. Jet action has been involved in three recent series of Bureau of Mines experi-ments in which the author has participated: experiments on fan-pipe discharge, On the dilution of gases discharged from a stack and On the ventilation of a ship&apos;s hold. Available data on the discharge of jets into large openings and on the design and performance of air injectors have been analyzed in considerable detail and supplementary experiments are planned for after the war. The results of the fan-pipe experiments have been combined with the analyses of data on jet discharge into large spaces, and have been published.&apos; The results of the stack-gas dilution tests, which refer to a jet discharged into a crosswind, have also been published2 and a paper on the design and performance of injectors has been prepared for publication.3 These technical experiments and analyses form the background and the documented evidence for the following nontechnical discussion of the use of air jets in mine ventilation. Jet Characteristics The jets commonly encountered are those in which the air is in turbulent— as opposed to laminar, or streamline-— motion. The characteristics under discussion apply only to such turbulent jets and have their basis in theories of the mixing of turbulent air currents. Such jets have basic characteristics that are present, though variable in form, regardless of whether the jet expands freely in space, whether the expansion is limited by adjacent walls, or whether the jet propels air through a flow circuit. They expand at definite angles and entrain the surrounding air, even though the entrained air must be obtained by recirculation of their own air streams. As the quantity of air in motion in the mixed stream increases, the average velocity of the stream decreases.

Jan 1, 1946

By Ursula E. Wolff

Il.lechanica1 twins have been observed in brigsten single crystals of a variety of axial orientations defornzed at room temperature in tension or bending. The twins formed near the final fracture and were up to 3 p thick. The twinning plane was always of the type (113). Twinning at room ternperature occurred only after considerable prior slip. Twins usually preceded fracture and nucleated cracks. The crack surfaces often alternated between a (001) plane and the twin interfaces. Secondary twins could also nucleate from cracks. In the absence of twinning tensile samples failed by shear; twinned samples failed by cleavage. On the assumption that observed sudden load drops in the stress-strain curves are associated with twinning, a critical resolved stress for twinning of 60, 000 to 65, 000 psi was calculated. MeCHANICAL twinning has been observed in iron and iron alloys at low temperature by a number of investigators.&apos;-7 Similarly, for high-purity tungsten, twinning has been reported for deformation temperatures below 211°K.8-10 In W-Re and Mo-Re alloys, 20 pct Re was determined as the lower limit for twin formation at room temperature." Since the twins are generally very narrow, they are usually identified only by etching techniques. The expected (112) habit plane has always been confirmed by angular analysis of the surface traces. Recently, however, a complete identification by X-ray analysis has been performed on twins in a Mo-35 pct Re alloy.12 During an investigation of the deformation charac- teristics of tungsten single crystals, twins were revealed in tensile and bend samples deformed at room temperature. This paper deals with the conditions for such twinning and the relation of twinning to fracture. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Tungsten single crystals, 1/8 in. in diam, of a variety of axial orientations were grown from un-doped material by four-pass electron-beam zone melting. A representative analysis is given in the following table: From these crqstals, tensile samples with 1 in. gage lengths were made by surface grinding, leaving shoulders for gripping. The diameter after grinding was 0.082 in. The distorted surface layer was then removed by ele1:trolytic polishing which reduced the diameter of the gage length to 0.080 in. Tensile tests were carried out at room temperature in an Instron machine under two different sets of conditions: a) Rigid mounting; strain rate 0.02 in. per in. per min. b) Gimbal mounting; strain rate 0.002 in. per in. per min up to a total strain of approximately 0.2 pct, then 0.01 in. per in. per min to fracture. Stress axis and growth direction coincided in all samples and are subsequently called orientation.

Jan 1, 1962

By M. R. Geer, H. F. Yancey

WITH the exception of pneumatic processes and ii few special beneficiation methods of comparatively limited application, all mechanical coal-cleaning and mineral- dressing processes involve the admixture of solid particles with a liquid, generally water. Upon completion of the beneficiation process the solids must be reclaimed from the water. With coarse particles separation of solids from water is accomplished readily by the simple expedient of screening, but recovery of fine solids presents a much more difficult problem. Thickening and dewatering are practiced so generally, both within the mineral industry and else- where, that they have been the subject of study through the years and a number of processes for making the solid-liquid separation have been developed. Dorr-type thickeners have been standard equipment for many years, and more recently driers employing centrifugal force have gained in popularity. 1 A cyclone device employed to thicken the loess suspension is a novel feature of the loess heavy-medium coal-cleaning process developed by the Netherlands State Mines in the thirties. The cyclone thickener was first mentioned by Driessen2 in 1939 in a paper describing the loess process and has been the subject of two more recent reports by the same author.3 The cyclone does not differ greatly from cyclone dust collectors used in this country for years, except that it is operated wet rather than dry. Advantages of the cyclone over other thickening devices are its simplicity of construction, high capacity, and the fact that, having no moving parts, it is simple and inexpensive to operate. The Bureau of Mines became interested in the cyclone after one of the present authors observed it in operation in the Netherlands in 1945. The first experimental work with the cyclone conducted by the Bureau of Mines was an investigation of the unit functioning as a heavy-medium cleaner for fine coal-a use for the cyclone that was conceived long after it had been perfected as a thickener. The results of this investigation were published last year.4 The present investigation deals exclusively with operation of the cyclone as a thickener. OBJECT AND SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION Although the cyclone thickener has been dealt with in three reports by Driessen, its use as a thickener was not the principal subject of any of these reports and therefore neither the cyclone itself nor its operation was described completely. The design of the cyclone was described only in a very general way, only limited operating results were given, and virtually nothing was disclosed about the influence of the various possible operating variables. Moreover, the Netherlanders apparently had employed the cyclone exclusively for thickening loess and had not employed it on coal slurries. One English colliery has used a cyclone to thicken coal slurry,5 and as it appeared that

Jan 1, 1948

By C. M. Loeb, T. E. Norman

The use of ball, rod and tube mills for grinding ore, cement and other materials has grown so rapidly during the past forty years that the world&apos;s annual consumption of ferrous grinding media for these mills is now estimated to be between one half million and one million tons per year. Ferrous grinding balls constitute the major portion of this tonnage. Obviously they represent sufficient value to justify thorough studies of the factors governing their performance. The selection of grinding balls is governed principally by: I. Quality (wear resistance, impact resistance, soundness, and the like). 2. Sources of supply and delivered cost. 3. Grinding characteristics or efficiency in the ball mill. This paper deals principally with the quality of ferrous grinding balls. In the study of these factors certain data relative to the fundamental nature of ball wear in ball mills have been obtained. These data are also presented and discussed briefly. The Development of a Suitable Wear Test A study of the fundamental factors governing the quality of grinding balls has been hampered seriously by the fact that a competent test has, in the past, involved the purchase of several hundred tons of balls of a specific type which were then run in one or more ball mills for a period ranging from several months&apos; to several years&apos; duration. Often, during the period of test, it became necessary to change operating conditions or the character of the ore fed to the test mill with the result that the rate of ball consumption changed and the test figures became of little value. Under such circumstances, progress in the development of better grinding balls, has been necessarily slow. Economic factors and variations in the quality of balls produced by different sources of supply generally make it necessary for each mill operator to determine for himself the most suitable type of balls for his mills. In our own ball mill grinding operations at Climax, Colo., we were faced with this problem. After we had run a few large scale wear tests at considerable expense we decided to investigate the possibilities of a small scale wear test which would be capable of testing numerous types of balls within a relatively short time. The most important requirement of any test is, of course, that it give results which can be used to predict accurately the wear in full scale operations. It was known that Ellis and his associates1,2 had developed a method of testing grinding balls by small scale tests run at the Ontario Research Foundation. Ellis&apos; method of testing was used as a starting point in our investigations. In the course of our tests a number of modifications of the original method were found to be desirable so that, by an evolutionary procedure, a method of small scale

Jan 1, 1949

By C. M. Loeb, T. E. Norman

THE use of ball, rod and tube mills for grinding ore, cement and other materials has grown so rapidly during the past forty years that the world&apos;s annual consumption of ferrous grinding media for these mills is now estimated to be between one half million and one million tons per year. Ferrous grinding balls constitute the major portion of this tonnage. Obviously they represent sufficient value to justify thorough studies of the factor sgoverning their performance. The selection of grinding balls is governed principally by: I. Quality (wear resistance, impact resistance, soundness, and the like). 2. Sources of supply and delivered cost. 3. Grinding characteristics or efficiency in the ball mill. This paper deals principally with the quality of ferrous grinding balls. In the study of these factors certain data relative to the fundamental nature of ball wear in ball mills have been obtained. These data are also presented and discussed briefly. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SUITABLE WEAR TEST A study of the fundamental factors governing the quality of grinding balls has been hampered seriously by the fact that a competent test has, in the past, involved the purchase of several hundred tons of balls of a specific type which were then run in one or more ball mills for a period ranging from several months to several years&apos; duration. Often, during the period of test, it became necessary to change operating conditions or the character of the ore fed to the test mill with the result that the rate of ball consumption changed and the test figures became of little value. Under such circumstances, progress in the development of better grinding balls, has been necessarily slow. Economic factors and variations in the quality of balls produced by different sources of supply generally make it necessary for each mill operator to determine for himself the most suitable type of balls for his mills. In our own ball mill grinding operations at Climax, Colo., we were faced with this problem. After we had run a few large scale wear tests at considerable expense we decided to investigate the possibilities of a small scale wear test which would be capable of testing numerous types of balls within a relatively short time. The most important requirement of any test is, of course, that it give results which can be used to predict accurately the wear in full scale operations. It was. known that Ellis and his associates1.2 had developed a method of testing grinding balls by small scale tests run at the Ontario Research Foundation. Ellis&apos; method of testing was used as a starting point in our investigations. In the course of our tests a number of modifications of the original method were found to be desirable so that, by an evolutionary procedure, a method of small scale

Jan 1, 1948