Anvita Sharma

Mechanical Operation
• Solids generally are difficult to handle than
liquids and gases
• In processes solids appear in different
forms: angular, sheets, powder etc.
• Can be at times hard and abrasive; tough
and rubbery; soft and fragile; dusty;
cohesive; free flowing or sticky.
• They should be made easy to handle using
any means.
• One of the means is use of mechanical
equipments.
Size Reduction Equipments
• Applied to all ways in which solid particles
are cut or broken into smaller size.
• Through out the process industries solids
are reduced by different methods:
– Chunk of crude core are crushed to workable
size
– Synthetic chemicals are grounded into powders
– Sheets of plastic are cut into small size
• Commercial products must often meet
stringent specifications regarding the size
and shape
 By reducing the size:
Reactivity of solids increases
Permits removal of unwanted ingredients
Reduces the bulk of fibrous materials for easier
handling and waste disposal
 Solids can be broken into many different
ways:
Compression
Impact
Attrition or Rubbing
Cutting
• Four types of actions are:
– Nutcracker
– Hammer
– File
– Pair of shears
• Compression: Coarse reduction of hard
particles to give fine particles
• Impact: Gives coarse, medium or fine
products
• Attrition: Very fine products from soft and
non-abrasive materials
• Cutting: Definite particle size and shape
Criteria for Comminution
• Generic term for size reduction
• Examples: Grinders and Crushers
• Ideal Crusher or Grinder has:
– Has large capacity
– Small power input per unit of product
– Yield a product of single size or size distribution
• Method of studying performance:
– Compare ideal operation as standard
– Characteristic comparison of actual with ideal
Characteristic of Comminuted
Products
• Unlike ideal crusher or grinder does not yield
product in uniform size or shape
• Product always contain mixture of particles
• Having range of maximum to minimum size
• Grinder class are designed to control
magnitude of largest particles in their products
but fine sizes are not under control
• In case of homogeneous feed: shape of
particles and chemical & physical structure of
individual units may be uniform
• Ratio of small and large size particles is 10 4 .
Equipments
 Crushers
 Grinders
 Ultra-fine Grinders
 Cutting Machines
Principle size reduction machines
• Crusher(coarse and fine)
– Jaw Crusher
– Gyratory Crusher
– Crushing Rolls
• Grinders (intermediate and fine)
– Hammer mills, Impactors
– Rolling- Compression Mills
• Bowl Mills
• Roller Mills
 Attrition Mills
Tumbling Mills
○ Rod Mills
○ Ball Mills, Pebble Mills
○ Tube Mills, Compartment Mills
 Ultrafine grinders
Hammer Mills with internal classification
Fluid energy Mills
Agitated Mills
 Cutting Machines
Knife Cutters, Dicers, Slitters
Crushers
 Heavy work
 Large pieces to small lumps
 Primary Crusher works on “run-of-mine”
material.
 Crushes anything coming from mine
face
 Breaking into 150-250mm lumps
 Secondary Crusher reduces these to
size 6mm.
Jaw Crusher
Jaw Crushers
 Feed is dropped in between two jaws
 Making a V opening at the top
 One jaw is fixed that is the anvil jaw
 Anvil jaw is almost vertical
 Other jaw is swinging jaw
 It reciprocates in horizontal plane
 Making angle of 20˚ to 30˚ with the anvil jaw
 Jaw faces are slightly bulged, flat or carry shallow
grooves
 Large lumps are caught in the upper part of the jaws
and are broken and caught in narrow space below
 From there they are re-crushed when the jaw moves
again
 The jaw opens and closes for about 250-400 times per
minute
 Common types is Blake Crusher
Gyratory Crusher
 Gyratory Crusher is a jaw crusher but with circular jaws
 Conical crushing head gyrates inside a funnel shaped
casing open at the top
 Crushing head is on a heavy shaft fitted at the top of
the machine
 Solids caught between the V shaped space between
the head and the casing are broken and rebroken until
they fall down
 Crushing head is free to rotate on the shaft and turns
slowly because of friction with material being crushed
 Speed of gyration is 125 to 425 gyrations per minute
 Some parts of this crusher are always working
hence the discharge is continuous
 Load on motor is uniform hence maintenance is
low.
 Power consumption per ton of material is low
 Biggest gyratory handles upto 4500 ton/h
 Capacity varies with:
Jaw setting
Impact strength of feed
Speed of gyration of machine
 Capacity is independent of compressive
strength
Crushing Rolls
Smooth Crushing Rolls
 Secondary crushers
 Feed size: 12 to 75mm; Product: 12 to 1mm
 Working element: two heavy metal rolls
 Particles caught between the rolls are compressed
and dropped down
 Rolls turn towards each other at the same speed
 Have relatively narrow face and larger diameter for
“nipping” large particles
 Dimensions: D=600mm, 300mm face to D=2000
mm, 914mm face
 Speed: 50 to 300 rpm
 Particles size depends on the spacing between the
rollers
 Forces exerted by rollers is as great as 8700 to 70000
N/cm of roll width
 In order to allow unbreakable material to pass through
without damaging the machine atleast on roller should
be spring mounted
Toothed Roll Crusher

Two Corrugated Rollers Single Corrugated Roller

 Sometimes rollers have corrugations, breaker bars
or teeth
 This types can have either two rollers or one
 In case of one breaker bar there is a stationary curve
 Disintegrator: Machine with two corrugated rolls
 Contain two rolls ripping the material apart
 For coarse material teeth are pyramidal
 Other designs use large number of thin toothed disks
to saw through sheets of materials and slabs
 Are versatile only limitation they can’t handle very
hard materials
 Operate by compression, impact and shear
 Feed Size: 500mm
 Capacity: 500 tons/h
Grinders
 Reduces crush feed to powder
 Product from intermediate grinder might
pass through 40 mesh screen
 Product from fine grinder might pass
through 200 mesh screen with 74 µm
opening
Hammer mills
 Contains high speed rotor turning inside a
cylindrical casing
 Usually the shaft provided here is horizontal
 Feed dropped from the top is broken and falls
out from the bottom opening
 Here particles are broken by sets of swing
hammers pinned to rotor disk
 A particle entering will not escape without being
struck by the hammer
 Once shattered into pieces the particles fly
against a stationary anvil plate inside the casing
and breaks into smaller fragments
 These are then rubbed into powder by hammers
 Then are pushed through a grate or screen that
covers the discharge opening.
 Several rotor disks, 150 to 450mm in diameter
and each carrying eight swing hammers are
mounted on the same shaft
 Hammers can be straight bars of metals with
plain or enlarged ends or with edges sharpened
to a cutting edge
 Intermediate hammer mills yields 25mm to 20
mesh in particle size
 For fine reduction,
peripheral speed of hammer tip may reach
110m/s
Reduce 0.1 to 15 tons/h to sizes finer than 200
mesh
 Can grind anything:
tough fibrous solids like barks or leather,
steel turnings,
soft wet pastes,
sticky clay,
hard rocks
 For fine reduction: restricted to softer materials
 Capacity and power vary with nature of feed
 Commercially reduce 60 to 240kg of solid
per kilowatthour
Impactor
 Resembles a hammer mill
 It doesn’t contain grate or screen
 Particles broken only by impact
 No rubbing as in hammer mill takes place
 Primary reduction machines for rock or ore
 Processes upto 600 tons/h
 Rotor runs in either direction to prolong life
of hammers
Rolling- Compression Mills
 Particles are caught and crushed between
vertical cylindrical rollers and stationary anvil
ring or bull ring
 Speed of rollers is moderate in circular paths
 Plows lift the solid lumps from the floor of the
mill and directs them into the rings and rolls
 Product is swept out of the mill by stream of air
to a classifier separator, from which oversized
particles are returned to the mills
 In case of other mills like bowl mill and some
roller mills bowls or rings are driven
 Rollers rotate on stationary axes, can be vertical
or horizontal
 Application: Reduction of limestone, cement
clinker and coal
 Pulverizes upto 50 tons/h
 Products may be as fine as 99% through a 200
mesh screen
Attrition Mills
Attrition Mills
 Particles of soft solids are rubbed between
grooved flat faces of rotating circular disks
 Single Runner Mill: One disk is stationary
and other rotates
 Double Runner Mill: Both disk driven at
high speed in opposite direction
 Working:
 Feed enters through an opening in the
hub of one of the disks
 Product passes outwards through narrow gap
between disks
 Discharges from periphery into stationary casing
 Width of the gap between the rolls is adjustable
 One of the two rollers is spring mounted
 Mills with different patterns are available
 These perform operations like:
Grinding
Cracking
Granulating
Shredding
Blending
 Single runner attrition mills contain disks of
burrstone or rock emery or metals
 Feed reduced by burrstone or rock emery: clay
and talc,
 Feed reduced by metal disks: solids such as
wood, starch, insecticide powders and curnauba
wax
 Double runner attrition mills grinds to finer
products but processes softer feeds
 Air is drawn through the mill to remove product
and prevent choking
 Disks are cooled with water or refrigerated brine
 Dimensions of single runner mills:
Disks:250-1400mm in diameter
Turning: 350-700 r/min
 Double runner mills dimensions:
 Turning: 1200-7000r/min
 Feed is precrushed to maximum particle size of 12mm
 Grinds from ½ - 8 tons/h that passes 200 mesh
screen
 Energy depends on:
Nature of feed,
Degree of reduction
 Energy requirement:8 -80 kWh
Tumbling Mills
Working of Ball Mill
 Working:
A cylindrical shell slowly turns about a horizontal axis
Filled with one half its volume with grinding material
 Shell material is steel, lined with high carbon
steel plate, porcelain, silica rocks or rubber
 Grinding medium:
Metal rods in rod mills
Lengths of chain
Balls of metal, rubber or wood in ball mill
Flint pebbles, porcelain or zircon sphere in pebble mill
 This mill can be continuous or batch type
 In these mills the grinding element is taken to
the top and then it falls on the material
 In case of rod mills
 Rods slide over one another as well as the
material
 They undergo reduction by rolling
compression, attrition
 Grinding rods are generally steel
Ultra fine Grinder
 Feed particles no larger than 6mm
 Product size 1- 50 µm
Fluid energy Mills
Agitated Mills
Cutters
 Particles of definite size and shape
 2- 10mm in length
Knife Cutters, Dicers, Slitters