How Much is Mill Liner Overdesign Costing You?
There are aspects of mill liner design that can have a substantial effect on your costs, not just in terms of product price, but also in lower performance effectiveness. While there may be a few differences between metallic, rubber, or combination liners, there are a number of mill liner features that can be overdesigned, resulting in increased costs and reduced mill throughput.
Understanding appropriate material selection, plate and lifter height, and shell lifter angles can help you improve the productivity of your grinding operations and lower your operating costs.
Over-engineered Alloy Selection
If you use metallic liners, your liner supplier should take the time to understand your operating conditions and performance goals then recommend an appropriate alloy to balance long wear life, effective grinding performance, and cost. They should have the experience and expertise to select the right alloy to balance the strength, wear resistance, and cost that are appropriate for your operating conditions. Otherwise, your supplier may be selling you something that’s more than you need – and you’re paying the price.
Inappropriate Plate and Lifter Height
Whether metallic, rubber, or a combination, some liner suppliers may overdesign the height of plates in an attempt to increase the product life. However, this approach reduces the size of the grinding chamber, which in turn reduces mill throughput. It also increases the product price.
An effective supplier will start by applying expert metallurgy and effective heat treatments to create mechanical properties that promote longer wear life and increased abrasion resistance before adding more material to their designs.
Inappropriate Shell Lifter Contact Angle
For SAG mills in particular, an overly aggressive shell lifter angle can cause liner damage by overthrowing grinding media resulting in ball-on-liner impact. A contact angle that is too shallow will result in loss of grind and decreased mill throughput.
An effective supplier will use trajectory simulation to verify that the contact angle creates a grinding media cascade that contacts the toe of the mill charge and avoids direct grinding media/liner contact.
Conclusion
An expert supplier will create the necessary and sufficient material/profile combination to balance maximum longevity and chamber size. They will then apply trajectory simulation to analyze the grinding media cascade to ensure contact with the toe of the charge without having direct grinding media/liner contact that can damage liners and require premature replacement.
“Right engineering” your mill liners will result in extended wear life, effective grinding performance and good cost control.
At FC Mill Liners, we partner with you to understand your specific needs and objectives to design the right product for your applications. Then we apply our efficient manufacturing processes to produce and deliver liners to you quickly and consistently.
We have decades of experience we bring to every job – contact us now to learn how you can benefit from working with FC Mill Liners to improve your mill performance and lower your grinding costs.
