108  Mineral Processing Technology (MPT 2007)

Optimization of the Regrinding Circuit of Golgohar Plant

by Simulation
M. Taghimohammadi*, A. Farzanegan and B. Rezaie**
Student of Mining*, Professor of Mining**, Assistant Professor,
Metallurgy and Petroleum Faculty of Mining Engineering Department of
Amir_Kabir University of Technology, Kashan University,
Tehran, Iran Kashan, Iran

ABSTRACT: Golgohar iron mining company produced 5 million tonnes of iron concentrate which is approximately
32% of the concentrate production of Iran in 2005. The regrinding circuit contains three ball mills and its feed is the
dry magnetic separator circuit middlings (cleaner tailings and scavenger concentrate) plus wet magnetic separator
circuit middlings (cleaner and recleaner tailings). The primary plant sampling and investigation suggested that the
regrinding circuit layout can be changed to improve circuit performance. As the size of the wet magnetic middlings is–
125 µm, it is proposed to prevent these materials from entering the mill, as they are already fine and do not need any
further grinding and classifying dry magnetic separator circuit middlings to remove -125 µm particles. In this study,
first a proposed regrinding circuit configuration which includes only one operating ball mill was simulated. The
simulation results of the recommended circuit layout modification show an increased throughput by 33% and a
slightly reduced the production of-63 µm particles, which cause problems in wet magnetic separators. By leaving out
one mill from the circuit it is possible to reduce power consumption and operational costs by 30%.

1. INTRODUCTION mineral dressing units has considerably increased

Grinding is very energy intensive, consuming
approximately 4% of the electrical energy pro-
duced worldwide and comprising up to 70% of all
energy required in a typical mineral dressing plant.
In light of these factors, a small acquire in grinding
productivity can have a large effect on the
operating expense of a plant, while conserving
resources too (Fuerstenau and Lutch, 1999).
Throughout the last decennium, there have
been important advancement in grinding
productivity not only as a result of the evolvement
of machines with the ability to enhance energy
utilisation, but also because of the most efficient
design of grinding systems and operating variables
that enable more efficient use of existing machines
(O`ner, 1999).
Accurate designing of both circuit and
operating parameters are significant to improve
efficiency of power consumption, which can lead
to substantial economic benefit. Simulation can be
used as a serviceable tool in studying the behavior
and performance of grinding circuits by facilitating
the evaluation of various scenarios and identi-
fication of most efficient operating conditions.
Most recently, the development of simulators for
in last ten years (Broussand et al., 1988; JKTech.,
1989; Herbst, 1989; CANMET, 1989).
Golgohar iron mining company is located in
Kerman province in the center of Iran. Producing 5
million tonnes of iron concentrate in 2005, it is one
of the major suppliers of raw material for the steel
industries. In this plant, the ore is initially ground
into–200 mm particles by a gyratory crusher. Then
the crushed material enters a dry SAG mill and are
ground into d80 = 450 µm particles and send to dry
low intensity magnetic separator (LIMS). This
stage of separation includes rougher, scavenger and
cleaner. The concentrate and the dry LIMS tailings
are transferred to concentrate and tailing bins, the
middling is sent to three wet ball mills to reach the
appropriate degree of liberation. The eighty percent
passing of the ball mill product is 105 µm. The
water is added to ball moll product to obtain 35%
solids then the slurry is sent to wet LIMS. The dry
magnetic separator circuit includes rougher, cleaner
and recleaner stages. In rougher the feed is divided
into concentrate and tailing. The tailings of the
rougher stage is sent to the thickener which then is
send to final tailing dam. The rougher concentrate
is sent to the cleaner stage. The concentrate of
cleaner stage is sent to the recleaner stage. The
109  Mineral Processing Technology (MPT 2007)
tailing of the cleaner and recleaner stages are and fuersteneau, bérube and modified Herbst and
middles and sent back to the ball mill in the regrind fuersteneau’s methods.
circuit (Mehrvarasil, 2001). In the regrinding
circuit at any time, one ball mill works with a full 100

capacity, one ball mill works with a partial capacity 90

Cumulative Percent Passing %

(depending on the dry middling production) for 8 80
to 12 hours a day and the one is on standby mode.
The working capacities of each ball mils are 130 70

tph and length and the diameter of each are 5.8 m 60

and 4.5 m, respectively. In order to reduce the high 50
operational and maintenance costs of the ball mills
40
and providing a suitable feed for dry LIMS the
performance of the regrinding circuit were 30
Middling of Dry Separators
investigated. 20 Product
Cleaner Tail
10
Recleaner Tail
2. EXPERIMENTAL 0
10 100 1000 10000
To assess the efficiency of ball mills, first Particle Size (microns)
representative samples were collected. A
systematic random sample was taken from the feed Fig. 1: Ball mill feed and product sieve
and the product of a ball mill. The feed contains analysis
wet and dry magnetic separator middlings. The
flow rates of these streams are 120 tph and 10 tph, Table 1: Specification of the laboratory ball mill
respectively. The samples of wet middlings contain
the tailing of cleaner and recleaner. Totally four Ball mill Diameter (mm) 304.8
representative samples were taken: dry LIMS Ball mill Length (mm) 127
middling, wet LIMS cleaner tailing wet LIMS Critical Speed (rpm) 76.6
recleaner tailing and mill product. The first three Operational Speed (rpm) 60
samples constitute the feed of the ball mill. The Ball Size (mm) 24.28
d80 of dry LIMS middlings and mill product are Ball Specific Gravity (g/cm3) 7.61
461 µm and 105 µm, respectively. The actual and Porosity (%) (U) 21.45
apparent density of the iron ore samples are 4.5 and Fraction of mill volume filled by balls (J %) 11.56
2.3 g/cm3 respectively. The eighty percent passing
of wet LIMS cleaner and recleaner samples were
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
60 µm and 85 µm, respectively. Figure 1 shows
cumulative percent passing size distribution of ball The mill product sieve analysis indicated that d80 of
mill feed and discharge. Then the required model the product is 105µm and the size distribution of
parameters, breakage and selection functions, were the DMS middling which is 95% of the feed
calculated for simulation of circuit configuration. indicated that 25% of the feed is smaller than
First, 12 monosized samples for various size 105µm. in other words 25% of the feed is the same
intervals from 1680 µm down to 37 µm were size of the product, and the entrance of this feed to
prepared using a Tyler screen series with a √2 the mill will produce slime and take the mill
progression ratio. The grinding was carried out in a capacity and increase the cost. The slimes
laboratory mill specified in Table 1. The grinding (particles–63µm) cause problems in WMS. In the
medium was a mixture of 38.1 mm, 25.4 mm and WMS concentrate, particles–63µm have the
19mm steel balls that the number of balls in each highest amount of sulfur due to agglomeration and
size fraction was 15, 56 and 51, respectively. The adhesion.
grinding was repeated for cumulated time of 30, Previous studies have shown that when the d80
60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 seconds. Then, the of the WMS rougher feed (ball mills product) is
breakage function was calculated based on Herbst 125 µm, the WMS will have the best efficiency
Optimization of the Regrinding Circuit of Golgohar Plant by Simulation 110
(Fathi, 2005). The sieve analysis of the WMS 1
middling which includes cleaner and recleaner tail 1680 1190

(Bi 1)
840 590
indicated that d80 of them is 60 µm and 85 µm 420
210
300
149
respectively. Since the material has reached the 105 74

Breakage Function
53
degree of liberation, there’s no need to return it to 0.1

the ball mill because it produce slimes and take the

mill capacity. It’s better to send the WMS middling
to the beginning of the WMS circuit which is the
0.01
rougher feed instead of sending it to the ball mill 0.01 0.1 1
for regrinding. Xj/X1

As almost 28 percent of the feed to the ball
mill has a size of–125µm, classifying the feed and
removing particles–125µm prevent regrinding and
therefore the production of slimes. Additionally the
circuit capacity will increased by preventing the
middling of WMS grinding circuit will increased
by 15 ton per hour, that is the capacity of ball mill
circuit will totally increase by 82.2 ton per hour or
33%.
As figure 2 shows in the proposed circuit after
the DMS middling becomes 50 percent solid it
enters the hydrocyclone (flow 1) and the overflow
of hydrocyclone is taken away as the product of the
circuit (flow 3) and when the underflow of
hydrocyclone becomes 70% solid it enters the ball
mill (flow 2) gets ground and along with the
overflow of hydrocyclone, Comprise the final
product of the wet grinding circuit (flow 5) which
is sent to the WMS.
Fig. 3: Calculated breakage function by BFDS.
A method for determining the selection
function is using size distribution of feed and
product of operational industrial mill. To find the
size distribution, in this procedure a sample of feed
and a sample of product are taken and screened.
Then using this information and the previous
results of calculated breakage function and
inputting them in to the NGOTC software, the
selection function of the mill is calculated directly
(Austin, 1976; Dierckx, 1982; Morrel, 1990) .The
resident time function parameters are as follows:
τPF = 0.1, τSPM = 0.1 and τLPM = 0.7 (Prasher, 1987).
As three breakage function calculated by
berube, Herbst and fuersteneau and modified
Herbst and fuersteneau method were available, the
selection function of each was calculated and
compared. The results of calculated selection
function by software are shown in figure 4.
100
(1/min .)

10
Selection Function

Fig. 2: Proposed layout for regrinding circuit.

To predict the product of the proposed circuit 0.1

and to determine the required size of hydrocyclone, 10 100 1000 10000

the proposed layout was simulated. The values of
the breakage function were calculated using the
Herbst and fuersteneau, bérube and modified
Herbst and fuersteneau`s methods by BFDS
software written by students of polytechnic
university. The calculated breakage function is
shown in figure 3 (Yousefi, 2002). Investigation
shows that this function is nonnormalized.
Particle Size (microns)
MethodBerube H&F Method Modified H&F Method
Fig. 4: Calculated selection function by NGOTC.
As observed here, these three methods almost
agree with each other and minor difference is due
to the inevitable lab and calculational errors. The
fluctuations of the diagram are because of the
111  Mineral Processing Technology (MPT 2007)
multiphase ore. as a matter of fact the diagram is a 100
combination of a few selection function diagrams. 90

The particle breakage follows the first order 80

Cumulative Percent Passing %

70
kinetics. The diagrams show that the selection 60

function (breakage kinetics) decreases by the 50

reduction of particle sizes. In other words the 40

30
kinetic of smaller particle grinding is slower. 20

For simulation of the proposed circuit layout 10

0
used BMCS software. The specifications of the 10 100 1000 10000

needed hydrocyclone according to BMCS software Particle Size (micrones)

are as follow (Farzanegan, 1998): Regrinding Circuit Feed Ball Mill Feed Regrinding Circuit Product
- Number: 1
- Hydrocyclone diameter: 900 mm Fig. 6: Proposed circuit simulation results by BMCS
- Inlet area: 34600 mm2
- Vortex diameter: 340 mm 4. CONCLUSIONS
- Apex diameter: 150 mm
The simulation shows the hydrocyclone We showed that the classification of the ball mill
parameters as follow: feed and preventing particles–125µm (DMS
- D50 = 108µm middling) from entering the ball mill, the
- P = 15.51 kPa production capacity increases by 33%. Having the
- S = 0.35 current production, only one mill is need to work
- M = 3.65 with its maximum effective capacity, and removing
- Rf = 0.15 a mill from the circuit saves energy up to 30% and
The circuit simulation results show that the considerably reduces the costs related to
given grinding circuit can have a product with a d 80 depreciation, ball consumption and lubrication.
of about 100 µm. The simulation also shows that The results of the simulation indicate that that
by maintaining the maximum capacity of the ball removing the particles–125 µm from the feed
mill (130 tonnes per hour) it’s possible to increase slightly decreases the production of particle -63µm
the capacity of the ball mill circuits up to 173 tph (about 2%).
or 33% and reduce the production 0f particles -64
µm near to 2%.
REFERENCES
The hydrocyclone streams size distribution
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figures 5 and 6, respectively. Effect of Ball Size on Mill Performance" Powder
100 Technology 14: 71-79. (1976).
[2] Broussand; Connil and Fourniguet. USIM: An
Cumulative Percent Passing %

90

80

70
easy to use industrial simulator for mineral.
60 (1988)
50 [3] CANMET, 1989. SIMBAL Brochure, CANMET,
40
552 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
30

20
K1A-0G1.
10 [4] Computer Applications in the Mineral
0
10 100 1000 10000
processing plants Industry, ISBN 906191 7603,
Particle Size (m icrones) Balkema Rotterdam, 137-145.
Hydrocyclone Feed Hydrocyclone Overf low Hydrocyclone Underf low [5] Dierckx, P. "A Fast Algorithm for Smoothing
Data on A Rectangular Grid While Using Spline
Fig. 5: Hydrocyclone simulation results by BMCS
Functions" SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 19, 6: 1286-
1304. (1982).
[6] Farzanegan, A. Knowledge-Based Optimization of
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University, Department of Mining and
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[8] Fuerstenau, Lutch, The effect of ball size on the
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[11] Mehrvarasil, A. The enhancement of golgohar
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