Investigation of liner shape effects on load movement in SAG mills by discrete element method (DEM)

One of the reasons of importance of liners in grinding is its role in providing an appropriate trajectory for the charge (ore and grinding media) movement. Since it is not possible to study the charge movement by directly in industrial mills, physical (laboratory) or mathematical (software) simulation are used. Physical simulation is expensive and slow, so mathematical simulations have received much more attention. The simulation of the effect of liner shape on charge movement has provided a means to select the proper liner shape based on operating conditions and objectives. Furthermore, the liner shape changes during operation due to wear and impact which in turn influences the charge trajectory. The change in liner shape could be determined through liner profile measurement during operation or simulation. In this research, KMPCDEM software was used to simulate the charge movement by geometrical method of implementing the shell liners of the Sarcheshmeh and Gole-E-Ghohar SAG mills in the software. Point by point implementation of the measurements of liner profiles facilitated to study the trend of change in charge movement as liners wear. Comparison of the simulation and laboratory (i.e., 1 m diameter mill) results showed that the simulation of liners using the impact point as the criterion with an accuracy of 95.6% has been achieved.