Ball Mill

What is a ball mill?

The ball mill is the key equipment for the stone or ore materials which has been crushed. This type of grinding machine is equipped with a certain number of steel balls as grinding media in its cylinder.

4 types of ball mill media

According to the difference of grinding media, there are mainly the following types of ball mills:

• When the grinding media is steel ball, the mill is called a ball mill.
• If the grinding medium is pebble, we call the ball mill pebble ball mill.
• When the grinding medium is ceramic ball, it is called ceramic ball mill.
• When the grinding medium is an iron rod, it is called a rod mill.

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What is a ball mill used for?

Grinding Metal ore

Preparation of non-metallic ores such as coal-water slurry

The preparation of coal water slurry is mainly divided into two solutions:

The roller crusher, a large crushing equipment, can compensate for the insufficient capacity of the ball mill when working with ball mill together, and double the production capacity of the ball mill;

Powder concentrator can control the particle size and adjust the load distribution of the roller press and the ball mill, so as to realize the large-scale single-machine process system.

The advantages of the two processes:

• The new technological processes can reduce the space occupied and the number of equipment and auxiliary facilities. Finally, it can cut down investment by more than 10%.
• The new process adopts a large-scale, single-machine system to simplify the parallel control system and instrumentation, and reduces operating personnel.
• Reduce energy consumption per ton of pulp by 30-50%.
• Reduce wear medium consumption by 30-100%.
• Improve the adjustment and control of the process.

Ball mill is widely used in building materials and chemical industry

How does ball mill work?

It runs steadily and smoothly

The working principle of dry grinding of ball mill:

The three-phase motor drives the gear to rotate, then the small gear drives the ring gear connected to the ball mill drum to rotate. Three-phase machine can increase or decrease the running speed of the drum.

Materials evenly enter into the first storehouse in a spiraling way from feeder through the empty tube. There are stepped lining plate and corrugated plate in this house which is equipped with different kinds of steel balls. And the steel balls are lifted at a certain height under the influence of centrifugal force generated by running tube and then fall down.

The ball mill itself is rotating at a relatively low speed with 30-40rpm

During such process, the moving steel balls hit and grind materials. Actually, the materials are coarse crushed in the first storehouse, then they enter into the second storehouse through single-wall partition for further grinding with the help of steel balls and a plane liner in the second storehouse.

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The working principle of wet grinding of ball mill:

When it is working, the raw materials are fed into the cylinder through the hollow shaft journal, and the steel balls of different specifications in the cylinder move under the action of the cylinder rotating at a certain speed.

When the grinding medium reaches a certain level with the cylinder height, and if the self-weight is greater than the centrifugal force, the steel balls fall down from the inner wall of the cylinder. Since the potential energy of gravity is converted into kinetic energy when falling, the steel balls impact the ore at a certain final speed.

Wet ginding is mainly used in ore  beneficiation

The most essential difference between wet grinding and dry grinding is whether it is necessary to add water to form a slurry. Generally speaking, the proportion of pulp should be 50% of the volume of the drum.

Perfect final material ground by ball mill

The ball mill can process about 200 kinds of ore materials, and the common materials in our lives can basically be ground with the ball mill.

Below we list the grinding effects of seven materials:

Gravel material

Mineral materials

Outstanding advantages of ball mill

Save energy: Fully hydraulic operation helps to realize automatic operation, greatly improving reliability and longevity of the machine;

The flexible design of the discharge port: The discharge port is designed reasonably, and customers can choose the iron remover according to their needs;

Turning part: The cylinder, lining, medium, compartment board and discharge raft of the turning part are all made up of high-quality original parts;

Large feeding unit: Reasonable feeding port design greatly increases feed volume;

High grinding efficiency and good quality of the liner: The lining and grinding body are made of alumina ceramic, quartz, SILEX or special materials, and it is designed with no iron pollution when crushing hard materials;

Closed system to reduce dust: Ultra-fine ball mill and classifier form a closed system with advantages of negative pressure delivery, low dust, reducing damage to the human body; Besides, the ball mill has higher product quality and cheaper operating prices.

Customer case - ball mill sold in India and Indonesia

Cement ball mill working in India

Fote ball mills sold in India

India is a populous country in the world and one of the "BRICS" countries. It has good cooperation and win-win relationship with China. For machinery processing enterprises of China, the business opportunities contained in India are limitless, and mining equipment from China is entering deeply in India market.

With the gradual recovery of the mining market, the market position of mineral processing equipment is more stable with the increasing position. The cement ball mill produced by Fote is more prosperous in the Indian market.

So what is a cement ball mill?

The cement ball mill is mainly used in the grinding of finished products and raw materials of cement plants for open-flow grinding, and also for circulating circulation grinding with the powder separator.

ball material is chrome steel alloy or manganese steel alloy

It has the characteristics of strong adaptability to materials, continuous production, large crushing ratio, and easy to adjust the fineness of the milled product. The cement ball mill can be produced either dry or wet, or both at the same time as grinding and drying.

In February 2018, an Indian customer contacted us and hoped to purchase a large ball mill equipment for his ore dressing line. Because our company has a large number of ball mills exported to India, the customer finally chose us to provide with a little investigation.

According to the information provided by the customer, Fote engineers recommended a ball mill suitable for him, the specific data is as follows:

• Use location: India
• Capacity: 100T/H
• Material name: cement
• Raw material hardness: soft
• Feeding size: ≤25 mm
• Production line type: fixed
• Specific model: Ф4000×5000

Iron ore grinding in Indonesia

The large-scale ball mill grinding line

The concentrator of the client in Indonesia is an old factory with a long history, and one of the main raw material bases in the area.

The mining of high-quality iron fine powder with grade of 67.50% is gradually advancing to the deep mines, and the annual output of the main mining area has dropped from the original 10 million t/a to 6 million t/a.

The ore in the mining area has fine grain size and complex mineral composition. It is a difficult to grind ores, which has caused large fluctuations in the quality of concentrate in recent years, and a decline in concentrate output.

The company commissioned the Fote Group to study the grindability, selectivity, iron mineral composition and degree of mineral liberation in the mining area.

After repeated research with experts, the company chose a solution with low investment and fast efficiency based on the actual situation, that is, the design of adding a one-stage grinding and dressing process. They transformed the original two-stage grinding and dressing process into a three-stage process, so that the ore is fully finely ground to achieve monomer dissociation. That design ensured the quality of the concentrate while maximizing the metal recovery rate.

Economic benefit analysis after transformation

1 The three-stage grinding and dressing process makes the grinding process operate stably and effectively.

2 Compared with the general separation before the transformation, the metal recovery rate has increased by 6.73%, and the annual processing of 2 million tons of transition type ore increases the production of iron concentrate by 35,200 tons.

3 It also helped to release original ball mill feeding capacity. Compared with the original Φ3600 mm×6000 mm and Φ2700mm×3600 mm ball mill before the transformation, the new process increased the average processing capacity increased by 7.58t/h and 0.82t/h respectively.

4 It raised concentrate production by 4.83 Million tons and 83,500 tons of prolific concentrate in total.

5 Based on the current price of iron concentrate, the successful operation of this project can increase the sales revenue by 5.94 million $/a, and it can create an additional profit of 1.92 million $/a.

Why FTM ball mill?

High-quality parts minimize maintenance cost

The ball mill produced by Fote Machinery shows good casting process performance, high mechanical properties and good heat treatment performance to minimize the wear during materials impacting.

The grinding balls are mainly made of high manganese steel: it makes ball mill balls good toughness, good manufacturability with low price. Its main feature is that under the action of greater impact or contact stress, the surface layer will become harden quickly. Its work-hardening index is 5-7 times higher than other materials, and the wear resistance is greatly improved.

Ball mill accessories include big gear, pinion, hollow shaft, ring gear, big ring gear, steel ball, compartment board, transmission, bearing, end lining and so on.

Big gear is an important part of ball mill, so the choice of big gear is a crucial process when produce a ball mill. According to the working conditions of the big gears, they are usually manufactured as follows:

• Medium carbon structural steel
• Medium carbon alloy steel
• Carburized steel
• Nitrided steel

The structure of the ball mill big gear has various shapes due to different requirements, but from the technical point of view, the gear can be regarded as composed of two parts: a ring gear and a wheel body.

According to the distribution form of the teeth on the ring gear, it can be divided into straight teeth, helical teeth, herringbone teeth and the like.

Reasonable prices

• Usage/Application: Industrial
• Rotational Speed of Chamber: 36 R/ Min
• Type: Grinder
• Voltage: 380 V
• Weight: 50 T
• Power: 710 kW

Fote ball mill manufacturer has 40 years of producing experience. Due to the continuous improvement of machine itself and production capacity, it has won the recognition of customers at home and abroad.

Compared with other merchants, our more reasonable prices are also an important reason for many old customers to purchase products for the second time.

Fast delivery speed

Even during the Covid-19, according to different national policies, as long as countries where conditions permit, we will always deliver the products to customers in the fastest way and put them into production on schedule.

The following is the fastest shipping method and approximate delivery time according to the actual situation of different countries. (Only some customer countries/regions are listed)

Fote Machinery has set up a strong after-sales service to maintain on-site production and provide users with 24-hour online service.

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10 Purchasing tips of ball mill

1 Guarantee the production capacity of the ball mill: The selected ball mill should realize the specified output while ensuring the required fineness of grinding.

2 The production capacity should be higher than design: The designs should take the change of hardness and fineness of the ore into account. Generally, while the deep ore of the ore deposit becomes hard or thin, the selected grinding machine should be able to adapt and ensure that the initial operation runs well.

3 Grinding test is a must: When there is no actual data in the designs, the grinding test must be required. Especially for large-scale mines, the grinding machine selection calculation and proportional enlargement should be carried out from the basic data obtained.

4 Due consideration of large-scale equipment: The large-scale equipment is the trend since the 21st century because of its advantages of light in total equipment, small in area, few in operators and auxiliary systems, and correspondingly low in investment and production costs.

5 Select equipment with high operating rate: There are also good and bad points in the same type of equipment. Rod mills and self-grinding machines sometimes have lower operating rates but are still suitable under certain conditions.

6 Understand the hardness, grade and other properties of minerals and try to choose energy-saving ball mill.

7 Know about the fineness required for mineral grinding, and select the aperture and bin position of the closed plate according to the fineness required by the mineral.

8 According to the requirements of production, choose the suitable diameter and length of the ball mill.

9 Choose a new updated ball mill, preferably choose the professional ball mill manufacturer corresponding to your minerals.

10 Select the modulus of the large teeth and small teeth of the ball mill. According to the price of the ball mill, customize the material of the liner and the thickness of the steel plate.

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