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DEM modeling of ball mills with experimental validation: influence of contact parameters on charge motion and power draw

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Abstract

Discrete element method simulations of a 1:5-scale laboratory ball mill are presented in this paper to study the influence of the contact parameters on the charge motion and the power draw. The position density limit is introduced as an efficient mathematical tool to describe and to compare the macroscopic charge motion in different scenarios, i.a. with different values of the contact parameters. While the charge motion and the power draw are relatively insensitive to the stiffness and the damping coefficient of the linear spring-slider-damper contact law, the coefficient of friction has a strong influence since it controls the sliding propensity of the charge. Based on the experimental calibration and validation by charge motion photographs and power draw measurements, the descriptive and predictive capabilities of the position density limit and the discrete element method are demonstrated, i.e. the real position of the charge is precisely delimited by the respective position density limit and the power draw can be predicted with an accuracy of about 5 %.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the company Magotteaux International s.a. for providing the charge motion photographs and power draw measurements presented in this paper. The first author would also like to thank the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS, Belgium) for his research fellowship and the YADE community [40] for sharing their source code.

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  1. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering/LTAS-MN2L, University of Liège, Quartier Polytech 1 (B52/3), Allée de la Découverte 9, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Dominik Boemer & Jean-Philippe Ponthot

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Correspondence to Dominik Boemer.

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Boemer, D., Ponthot, JP. DEM modeling of ball mills with experimental validation: influence of contact parameters on charge motion and power draw. Comp. Part. Mech. 4, 53–67 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40571-016-0125-4

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