THE COPPERBELT UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

FIRSTNAME: SIMON

SURNAME: MWALE

COMPUTERNUMBER: 05067659

COURSECODE: CE 330

TASK: LABORATORY REPORT #1

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 25 – APRIL – 2007

SUPERVISOR: MR MUNDIKE
TITLE: SCREEN ANALYSIS

AIM: To separate the given sample into fractions after thoroughly mixing, by using a set
of standardized Tyler screens and weighing the retained fractions.

INTRODUTION
Size analysis of various products of a mil constitutes fundamental part of laboratory
testing procedure. Industrial sizing of materials is extensively used and the types of
equipment are many and varied. Size separation is the parceling of particulate material on
the basis of size (Luckie 1984). In mineral processing plants, the main objective in both
crushing and grinding is to liberate valuable minerals from their associations with gangue
material and ensure that subsequent mineral separation processes operate efficiently. In
order to have an idea on the size of the material being conveyed from one stage to
another, it becomes necessary to measure the size of the particles. Devises employed for
size separation may be screens (grizzlies, fixed, revolving, shaking and vibrating screens)
or classifiers (non-mechanical, mechanical, cyclone and pneumatic classifiers). Screening
is one of the oldest sizing methods known. In ancient times, for example, woven baskets
were employed for hand screening (Taggaard 1951). There is of course a wide range of
purposes for screening. The main purposes in mineral industry are:

1. To prevent the entry of under size into crushing machines, so increasing their
capacity and efficiency;
2. To prevent oversize material from passing to the next stage in closed circuit fine
crushing and grinding operations;
3. To prepare a closely sized feed to certain gravity concentration processes;
4. To produce a closely sized end product. This is important in quarrying, where the
final product size is an important part of the specification.

Applications include; dewatering, trash removal, conveying and media recovery. In

other fields, size-separation devices produce narrow size fractions of material for purpose
such as road building and construction.
 APPARATUS
Tyler screens: mesh # 70, 100, 140, 200, 270 and 235 mesh; pan, cover/lid, fine
brush, balance and sieve shakers.

THEORY
Screening is generally carried out on relatively coarse material, as the efficiency
decreases rapidly with fineness and classifiers are employed for finer ones. In its simplest
form, screens are surfaces having a multiplicity of apertures of given dimensions.
Screens/sieves with various size openings are available and the opening sizes have been
standardized. The two common sizes used in the USA are the Tyler Sieve series and the
US Sieve series. Tyler Series is standardized based on the 200 mesh sieve with average
opening size of 0.0029 inches, where as the US Sieve series is based on the 19 mesh
sieve with an opening of 1.00mm. Sieving is carried out with wet or dry samples and the
sieves are usually agitated to expose all the particles to the openings. Successive screens,
in the series, have openings in the fixed ratio of square root of 2 in the standardized series
and 4th root 2 in the exponential series.
Certain forms of mechanical shaking or vibration are essential with sieving. Size analysis
by sieving is accomplished by stacking sieves one over the other in order of increasing
size of openings and by shaking to cause complete fractionation. Two commonly used
laboratory equipments are the Rotap and Syntron sieve shakers. The process of sieving
may be divided into 2 stages; first the elimination of particles considerably smaller than
the screen apertures, which should occur fairly rapidly and the separation of the “near-
size” particles, which is a gradual process rarely reaching final completion. Material of
mixed size presented to the surface will either pass through or be returned, according to
whether the particles are smaller or larger than the governing dimensions of the aperture.

METHOD
The screen chosen were arranged in a nest, with the coarsest screen on the top and the
finest on the bottom, i.e. at the bottom we had the 325 mesh size, followed by the 270,
then 200, next was the 140 mesh size and so on, with the largest mesh size at the top. A
tight-fitting pan or receiver was placed below the bottom screen to receive the final
 undersize, and a lid was placed on top of the coarsest screen to prevent escape of the
sample. The sample to be tested was placed in the uppermost, coarsest screen and the nest
was then placed on a shaker which vibrates the material in a vertical plane (Shaking
screen have a reciprocating movement mechanically induced in the horizontal or with a
gentle slope and operate in the range of 60 – 800 strokes per minute). The duration of
screening was controlled by a timer. During the shaking, the undersize material falls
through successive screens until it was retained on a screen having apertures which were
smaller than the diameter of the particles. In this way, the sample was separated into
fractions.
After a time of 15minutes, the nest was taken apart and the amount of sample retained on
each screen, weighed. Most of the near mesh particles, which blocked the openings, were
removed by inverting the screen and tapping the frames gently. The underside of the
gauze was also brushed gently with a soft nylon brush. The results were then tabulated as
shown and graphs were plotted of;
1. Cumulative weight (net) size in microns.
2. Weight % retained against size in microns.

RESULTS
Weight of sample taken = 200 (g)

Size Weight retained % Wt. Cumulative Wt. Cumulative Wt.

(microns) Tyler mesh (g) retained % retained % passing
212 70 131.2361 65.93% 65.93% 34.07%
150 100 24.5789 12.35% 78.28% 21.72%
106 140 11.4686 5.76% 84.05% 15.95%
75 200 10.6183 5.33% 89.38% 10.62%
53 270 10.8261 5.44% 94.82% 5.18%
45 325 5.2072 2.62% 97.44% 2.56%
PAN 5.1046 2.56% 100.00% 0.00%
199.0398
CALCULATION
Total weight collected = 199 0398 g
For the % weight retained, cumulative Wt % retained and cumulative Wt % passing, the
formulas used were;
1. % weight retain = [weight retained (g) / total weight collected (g)] * 100;
 2. For cumulative Wt % retained;
The 1st value was the % Wt retained on the 1st screen:
Then the 1st + 2nd values of % Wt retained were gave the 2nd value of cumulative
Wt % retained and
The 1st + 2nd + 3rd values of % Wt retained gave the 3rd value and so on for the 4th,
5th and 6th values.
3. For cumulative Wt % passing;
The 1st value was given by 100 – (1st value of % Wt retained):
100 – (1st + 2nd values of % Wt retained) gave the 2nd value:
100 – (1st +2nd +3rd values of % Wt retained) gave the 3rd value and so on for 4th 5th
and 6th values.
To find the 80% passing size;
The range was given by;
(34.07 – 2.56) = 31.51,
Then 80% passing;
0.8 * 3I.51 = 25 208
Hence it was the 25.208th value from the graph of cumulative Wt % passing vs. mesh
size (microns).
DISCUSSION
Although separation occurred in which the sample was separated into several fractions,
the separation may not have being completely completed, and this may have been due to
the following reasons;
1. Although dry screening is reasonably accurate for screening of coarse particles
and is faster as drying of the size fraction is not needed, the problem with dry
screening in the finer size, is the problem of dust emission. Particles in form of
dust may have escaped from the screens and this may have being the contribution
factor for the difference in the amount of the initial and final weights of the
sample.
2. The presence of clays and other sticky materials which should have been
removed early in the treatment route, might also have affected the results. Fines
may agglomerate in the presence of clay, which acts as a binder.
 3. Also the amount of time in which the sample was subjected to the screening
process would have also contributed. When subjected to long time, more
separation would have occurred and vise-versa when there is less time.

RECOMMENDATIONS
In order for us to perhaps achieve much better results, the following should have been
alternatives;
1. Fine screens are very fragile and expensive and tend to become blocked rather
easily with retained particles (blind), also because of continuous brushing of the
gauze and because screening is generally limited to materials above about 250um
in size, screens get damaged. Screens therefore have to be replaced regularly for
maximum efficiency to be attained hence we needed to have new screens as the
current ones were very old.
2. The sample would have been subdivided into a number of charges to over come
the effect of the amount and depth of the sample in the screening process.
3. Also a higher vibration rate sieve shaker could have being used with that amount
of feed, as the deeper bed of the sample had a cushioning effect which inhibits
particle bounce.

CONCLUTION
The experiment was successively carried out and the sample was separated into seven
fractions as shown above. From the graph of cumulative weight passing against screen
size in microns the 80% passing was found to be the 160 mesh size (micron)
This shows that the sample was composed of a large percentage of coarse (retained on the
first screen) particles (65.95%) and little or few finer particles (about 2.56%).
It was also concluded that the weight retained (g) is proportional to the screen size
(microns)

REFERENCE:
1. Mineral processing technology
3rd edition by
 B .A. Wills
Pages 96 to 107 & 231 to 238.
2. principles 0f mineral processing
Edited by Marcie C. Fuerstenau and Kenneth N. Han
Pages 119 to 126.