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VOLUME BASED CLOSED-CYCLE HARDGROVE GRINDABILITY METHOD

Article · January 2019

DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2

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Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin

UDC: 66.03

grindability method DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2

Original scientific paper

Gábor Mucsi1; Ádám Rácz2; Gergely Mag3, Gábor Antal4; Barnabás Csőke5
Institute of Raw Material Preparation and Environmental Processing, University of Miskolc, 3515 Miskolc, Hungary
1,2,3,4,5

Abstract
This paper deals with the development of a volume based closed-cycle grindability test method based on the recently
introduced Universal Hardgrove mill and procedure. Five model materials with various origin and material characteris-
tics (hardness, grindability, heterogeneity) were chosen for the experiments, i.e. limestone, quartz, andesite, basalt and
cement clinker. The grindability of the material was characterized simultaneously in four various ways: 1) the standard
Hardgrove Grindability test (HGI), 2) Bond work index calculated from HGI, 3) the conventional Bond test and 4) the
closed-cycle volume based grindability test in the Universal Hardgrove mill. The grindability coefficient (G), and the
cumulative particle size distribution of 80% passing size (x80) of the product of the closed-cycle Hardgrove test were
determined. Relative deviation of the above parameters was very good (in most cases lower than 3%) which indicates the
new proposed method as a robust procedure for rapid determination of specific grinding energy of closed cycle grinding
in ring mills. Therefore, this test is able to ease the optimization of grinding conditions relatively fast and reliably.

Keywords
Universal Hardgrove mill, Bond index, grindability, specific grinding work, closed-cycle grinding.

1. Introduction Relationships between Bond and Hardgrove grinda-

bility numbers were investigated by various researchers,
Grinding has a very wide range of application in the alongside McIntyre and Plitt (1980), who revealed a
industry, i.e. minerals, wastes, biomass, chemicals, phar- correlation based on the experimental results of 11 min-
maceuticals, etc. (Juhász and Opoczky, 1990; Nagy, eral samples (ores, gypsum, limestone, coals). They de-
2010; Mucsi and Rácz, 2017; Mucsi et al, 2019). The scribe the grindability test introduced by Bond and Max-
grindability or the resistance of materials against a me- son in 1943 (Bond and Maxson, 1943), as a compli-
chanical effect is a very important material characteris- cated and time-consuming method, where the time
tic. Namely, this property significantly affects the mill- requirement could be as long as 20 hours, thus limiting
ing operation, the efficiency of the grinding process, the its applicability. Although, they agree on the importance
power requirement of the grinding, etc. Mill dimension- of the Bond-test utilized in the selection and dimension
ing, optimization and the specific energy demand deter- of mills or crushers.
mination are based on the knowledge of the grindability The relationship between the Bond work index (WiB)
of a given material. and the Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI) suggested
Grindability is generally characterized by the grind- by Bond (1954) and corrected later (Bond, 1961; Bond,
ing work required for a unit weight or a unit volume of 1964) can be described with Equation 1 and 2 respec-
material. This material property is determined in a stand- tively.
ardized apparatus under exactly defined conditions. The  (1)
most widely known and utilized grindability tests are the
Bond, Hardgrove and Zeisel methods (ASTM D409-71,
1931; Bond, 1943; Zeisel, 1953).  (2)
In the following segment, some relevant develop-
ments are presented briefly concerning grindability tests Where:
which were achieved in the last decades, moreover re- WiB – Bond work index (kWh/t),
calculation equations of various grindability numbers HGI – Hardgrove Grindability Index (-).
are described.
Regarding lignite grindability, Csőke et al. (2003 a)
Corresponding author: Gábor Mucsi realized that Eq. 2 can be used for other minerals as well
ejtmucsi@uni-miskolc.hu with homogeneous textures, but it is not suitable for het-

9-17
Mucsi, G; Rácz, Á.; Mag, G., Antal, G., Csőke, B. 10

Table 1. Chemical composition (main components) of the samples

SiO2 Al2O3 MgO CaO Na2O K2O Fe2O3 MnO TiO2 P2O5
% % % % % % % % % %
Sand 87.7 5.4 0.32 0.31 1.04 1.09 1.00 0.012 0.156 0.042
Limestone 0.8 0.3 0.21 54.2 0.02 0.09 0.07 <0.005 0.006 0.071
Andesite 45.8 13.9 4.07 8.26 2.89 2.56 7.49 0.132 1.779 0.797
Basalt 46.0 12.9 5.33 7.81 2.74 2.27 8.10 0.148 1.731 0.753
Clinker 22.3 4.4 1.28 44.2 0.22 1.22 1.51 0.197 0.139 0.164

erogeneous and fibrous lignite which resulted in a big stations, this paper demonstrates the effects of particle
difference between Bond work indices. size and density on coal breakage, and elucidates the de-
However, the relevance of secondary materials in the ficiencies associated with the traditional HGI test.
cement industry are increasing more and more nowa- Development in grinding theories (Juhász and Opoc-
days, and they are characterized as very heterogeneous zky, 1990) and grindability tests are focusing mainly on
materials. The grindability of secondaries is reported by conventional ball mills (Smith and Lee, 1968; Beke,
Dvorak et al. (2016) by comparing the co-milling and 1974; Deister, 1987; Levin, 1989; Magdalinovic,
separate grinding. Concerning a heterogenous materials’ 1989; Deniz et al., 2003; Morrell, 2004, Todorovic et
grindability, Gável et al. (2000) revealed the relation- al., 2017) only a few papers deal with other methods for
ship between the material structure and technological ring mills (Shi and Zuo, 2014, Shi, 2014 a).
parameters, grindability of clinker grinding. Agus and Senetakisn et al. (2013) carried out a series of micro-
Waters (1971) introduced the so-called volume based mechanical tests in order to investigate the inter-particle
Hardgrove grindability test using 36 cm3 material which coefficient of friction in quartz minerals. For this pur-
resulted in accurate grindability values even in the case pose, a custom-built inter-particle loading apparatus was
of different density materials. However, based on the lit- designed and constructed. This apparatus can perform
erature, this method was not used in practice. shearing tests in contact with soil minerals of particle–
Haese et al (1975) carried out Hardgrove, Zeisel particle type in the range of very small displacements.
and Bond grindability tests with limestone, marble and The laboratory data showed that the effects of the nor-
loess samples. Comparing their results in the unit of mal force and the sliding velocity on the coefficient of
kWh/t, they identified that neither of the above methods dynamic friction are not significant, while dry and satu-
were in accordance with each other. The difference be- rated surfaces had similar frictional characteristics.
tween the Hardgrove- and Zeisel-numbers were found Ring mills i.e. bowl mills are more and more applied
to be too high. However, if we do not take into consid- apparatuses in a very wide range of the mineral process-
eration the low grindability loess samples, the difference ing industry from cement grinding to ore preparation
is in the range from -23.8% to +6.3%. Contrary to this, due to their favourable energy consumption compared
by comparing the Hardgrove and Bond results, a rela- with the tumbling ball mill (Nagy, 2010). Based on these
tively lower difference was achieved, namely from preliminaries, it can be identified that most of the grind-
-13.1% to +5.6%. Finally, a weak correlation was found ability tests or simulation methods developed recently
in the comparison of the Zeisel and the Bond experi­ are focusing mainly on ball mills in the spite of the fact
mental data which resulted in a -18.2% to +14.0% differ- that ring mills are more and more widely used in indus-
ence. trial practice. Therefore, it is important to develop a
Shi and Zuo (2014) improved a method for coal grindability test method simulating ring mill conditions,
breakage characterization. This paper presents the break- additionally, operating in a closed-cycle similarly to the
age testing method and results, while Shi (2014 a) gives Bond-test. To date, no such literature is available on the
a breakage model that determines the energy-size reduc- closed-cycle volume based Hardgrove grindability test.
tion relationship for multi-components of particle size Starting from the above lack in available grindability
and coal density. Furthermore, Shi (2014b) demon- test, the main aim of our research was to develop such a
strates the applications of the model for HGI predictions grindability testing principle and method which can be
and coal breakage simulations. The new method incor- applied for the determination of grindability in various
porates hardware for a fine particle breakage characteri- industrial fields (mineral processing, cement industry,
zation test, the JKFBC (JK Fine-particle Breakage Char- waste treatment,…) in order to determine the specific
acteriser), a device modified from the standard HGI mill, grinding energy, which can be successfully used in de-
which has a precision torque meter installed to record signing new grinding facilities, and in the optimization
energy utilization during the experiments. Using an Aus- of the existing operations, resulting in significant sav-
tralian and a Chinese coal sample collected from power ings in both investment and operating costs.

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
11 Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove grindability method

2. Materials and methods This equation was validated for various minerals as
well as for bauxite grinding in recent papers (Mucsi et
2.1. Materials al., 2011; Mucsi et al., 2016).
Five model materials with various grindability char- 2.2.3. Bond Grindability Test
acteristics, hardness and origin were chosen for the ex-
perimental investigation: andesite, basalt, clinker, lime- The Bond-method simulates closed-circuit grinding
stone and quartz. For the experimental investigation, which is carried out in sections until the establishment of
two sedimentary rocks (sand and limestone), two vol- equilibrium. The Bond work index can be determined as
canic (andesite and basalt) and one artificial rock (clink- follows using Equation 5:
er) were used. The chemical composition of the raw ma-
terials is found in Table 1. [kWh/t] (5)
The chemical composition of the raw materials was
measured using a Rigaku Supermini 200 type X-ray flu-
orescence apparatus. After determination of the loss on
ignition (L.O.I.), 1.000 g of the burned powder sample Where:
was mixed with 6.000 g of lithium tetraborate (Li2B4O7) WiB – Bond work index (kWh/t),
which explores metals in powder. The melted mixture xmax – max. particle size of product (mm),
was analyzed with the Fusion bead oxide method built in G – weight of sieve undersize per mill revolution in
XRF software. Every sample was analyzed 3 times; the Bond mill (g/revolution),
these values were averaged.
x80 – 80% passing size of the product (mm),
2.2. Methods X80 – 80% passing size of the feed (mm).

2.2.1. Laser particle size analyzer 2.2.4. New grindability test and device
The particle size distribution (PSD) of the ground ma- The Hardgrove mill was equipped with a device suit-
terial was measured by a HORIBA LA-950V2 laser dif- able for the measurement of the grinding energy. Since
fraction particle size analyzer in wet mode using dis- the screw drive of this mill burdens a high energetic loss,
tilled water as a dispersing media and sodium-pyrophos- the electric energy measurement method could not be
phate as a dispersing agent applying the Mie-theory as applied reliably, therefore the determination of the grind-
an evaluation method. Prior to the measurement, ultra- ing work was solved by a torque measuring device. This
sonic treatment was applied for 1 min in order to reach method, the so-called Universal Hardgrove mill test was
better dispersion of the suspension. reported recently in other papers (Mucsi, 2008, Mucsi
and Csőke, 2010)
2.2.2. Hardgrove Grindability Test
The mill was equipped with a simple torque-meter
The Hardgrove Grindability test procedure was car- (load cell) which enabled direct measurement of the
ried out as follows: the feed mass was 50 g of 600…1180 power delivered to the grinding chamber. (see Figure 1).
μm size interval, the loading of the top grinding ring was For this reason, the whole grinding chamber (1) was
290 N, the grinding time was 3 min (60 revolutions of mounted on an axial bearing (3), so it could rotate practi-
the mill at a speed of 20 rev/min). The test sieve was 75 cally freely. This rotation was fixed by a force arm (5)
μm and the Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI) was de- connected into a force transducer (4). In this way, the
termined using Equation 3: torque necessary for the grinding could be measured.
The developed Universal Hardgrove mill consists of
HGI = 13 + 6,93mH (3) the following main parts:
Where: 1 – Grinding chamber,
HGI – Hardgrove Grindability Index (-), 2 – Control unit,
mH – weight of the ground product passing 75 μm (g). 3 – Axial bearing,
According to the Csőke (Csőke et al., 2003 b) for- 4 - Torque-meter (load cell),
mula, the Bond work index can be calculated from the 5 – Torque-meter arm,
Hardgrove number as follows by using Equation 4: 6 – Starting unit.
Temperature can be set by a digital control unit (2)
 (4) and the grinding energy (work) can be registered which
is used for the calculation of specific grinding work. The
Where: grinding stress can be varied in a wide range up to 600 N
WHB – Bond work index calculated from HGI (kWh/t), compression force. Additionally, the temperature can be
HGI – Hardgrove Grindability Index (-), controlled in the range from 20 to 300oC.

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
Mucsi, G; Rácz, Á.; Mag, G., Antal, G., Csőke, B. 12

mp – mass of the final product i.e. the mass of particles

<106 µm in the mill product (g),
M(t) – measured torque (Nm),
M0 – no-load torque (Nm),
n – revolution number (1/s).
Therefore, the Bond-work index is calculated by
Equation 9:

 (9)

Where:
WiB – Bond work index (kWh/t),
Wh – specific grinding work (kWh/t),
x80 – 80% passing size of finished product (<106 mm)
(µm),
X80 – 80% passing size of the mill feed (µm).
As it is well known, it is reasonable to assume that
various factors may affect the actual torque input to the
Figure 1. New Universal Hardgrove Mill grinding chamber, i.e. frictional, cohesive, adhesive and
flow characteristics of the bulk material. These parame-
ters are taken into account when specific grinding work
The rotation of the grinding chamber placed on the is measured by torque measuring.
bearing was stopped by the torque meter arm. The torque
The method was carried out after the Bond test. The
(see Equation 6) is proportional to the measured force maximum particle size of the feed material was 3.15
F(t) arisen on the arm (k): mm, and the volume was 58 cm3. The volume of the feed
M1=kF (6) was determined using brown coal samples since origi-
nally the Hardgrove test was created to measure the
Where:
grindability of coal. The bulk density of 50 g of three
M1 – grinding torque (Nm), various brown coal samples was measured five times
k – torque arm (m), and it resulted in 58 cm3 as an average value, and origi-
F – force (N). nated from the average bulk density of 0.862 g/cm3. The
This torque relates to the turning moment of the driv- closed cycle grinding was performed until the grindabil-
ing axis: M1=M2. The angular velocity of this axis is ω, ity coefficient G (G = weight of sieve undersize per mill
hence performance (P) can be calculated using Equa- revolution in the Hardgrove mill) reached the steady
tion 7: state conditions in the three last cycles, constant G value.
P=M2ω. (7) The compression force on the material being ground was
constant at 290 N during the measurement as suggested
Where: in the Hardgrove procedure. The mill revolution in the
P – performance (W), first cycle was 100 as in the Bond test. Calculation of the
M2 – axis torque (Nm), mill revolution of the next grinding cycle similarly to
ω – angular velocity (1/s). Bond method is as follows (see Equation 10):
Knowing the grinding torque M and the angular ve-
locity (ω=2πn; n=20 min-1), the instantaneous grinding  (10)
power can be calculated. The control unit calculates the
integral of the grinding power according to the time, i.e. Where:
the grinding work. Ni+1 – revolution of the next grinding cycle (1/min),
The specific grinding work (knowing no-load torque mt – mass of the total feed (g),
M0) can be calculated with Equation 8: mMi – mass of mill product finer than 106 µm (g),
∆m (x<106 µm) – mass of material finer than 106 µm
being present in the original feed (g),
 (8) Gi – weight of sieve undersize per mill revolution of
the cycle „i“ (g/revolution).
Where: The 80% passing size of the feed and the product can
Wh – specific grinding work (kWh/t), be determined from the particle size data. However, it

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
13 Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove grindability method

must be highlighted that the above Equation 10 is based

on a 250% circulating load as it is in the Bond test, but
that of the ring mill can be varied from 1 up to 10 in in-
dustrial practice (Boehm et al, 2015). Therefore, the ef-
fect of this parameter will be investigated in detail in the
future.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Conventional Hardgrove grindability test
As a first step of the research, a conventional Hard­
grove test (according to ASTM D409-71) was carried
out for each sample. The measurements were performed
in triplicate and the HGI average calculated with Equa-
tion 3 is shown in Table 2. The difference in the results
for the same material does not exceed the 3% limit val-
ue. Moreover, the Bond work index was calculated using
Equation 4.
It can be seen from the results that the limestone sam- Figure 2. Particle size distribution of the feed
ple has the lowest grinding resistance (WiB=12.01
kWh/t). On the other hand, the andesite, basalt and sand feed materials were used as feed for the Bond as well as
samples are characterized as hardly-to-ground materials for the volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove tests.
with Bond work indices of 21.52 kWh/t, 19.07 kWh/t In order to investigate the grinding behaviour of the
and 19.92 kWh/t respectively. Finally, the clinker was various materials, after each grinding cycle the grinda-
found to be a medium grindability material with a Bond bility coefficient (G) is demonstrated as a function of the
work index of 16.37 kWh/t. grinding steps in Figure 3. As a general phenomenon, it
was observed that the G value became constant in the
Table 2. Hargdrove Grindability Index (HGI) and calculated last three cycles in all the cases as it is required accord-
Bond work index (WiB) of the samples ing to Bond test procedure description. However, the
tendency was very different depending on the material
WiB (calculated from
Sample HGI, -
HGI), kWh/t
used.
The sedimentary rocks (limestone and sand) behave
Sand 46.99 19.92
similarly from this point of view. The initial slight de-
Limestone 87.06 12.01
Andesite 42.77 21.52
Basalt 49.56 19.07
Clinker 59.58 16.37

3.2. Bond grindability test

After carrying out the conventional Hardgrove test,
the well-known Bond grindability test was performed
for each material. The Bond work index was determined
using Equation 5 after measuring the grindability coef-
ficient (G), and the 80% passing size of the feed (X80)
and the product (x80).
In order to compare the fineness of the feed samples,
the cumulative particle size distribution curves are
shown in Figure 2. It can be established that the finest
particle size distribution belongs to the sand and andesite
sample, while the coarsest one was the basalt. Limestone
and clinker were characterized as similarly fine materi-
als. However, if the size fraction of < 106 µm is taken
into consideration for comparison, the fineness is in the Figure 3. Variation of the grindability coefficient of the Bond
order: andesite>limestone>clinker>sand>basalt. These test as a function of grinding cycles

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
Mucsi, G; Rácz, Á.; Mag, G., Antal, G., Csőke, B. 14

Table 3. Results of the Bond grindability test

Sample Feed X80, μm Product x80, μm Grindability coeff. G, g/rev. Bond work index, WiB, kWh/t
Sand 1790 85 0.95 20.59
Limestone 2440 69 1.45 12.39
Andesite 2165 70 0.84 19.73
Basalt 2530 57 0.65 21.08
Clinker 2453 89 1.21 17.05

crease of the G value was followed by a section of linear er value then decreased followed by a slight fluctuation
increase, and finally it became constant in the last three section before the constant stage.
cycles. The results of the Bond grindability measurements,
Contrary to the previously presented sedimentary i.e. grindability coefficient, 80% passing size of the feed
rocks, volcanic rocks behave differently concerning the and the product are summarized in Table 3. A constant
G values. The shape of the andesite and basalt curves grindability coefficient was reached after at least 7 cy-
were similar to each other. Namely, they started with cles in all cases.
relatively high values followed by a sudden decrease in The product fineness (x80) and grindability coefficient
the second cycle. From the third step, the mass of <106 (G) of the Bond test are of the most significant effect on
micron material started to grow gradually before the the value of the Bond work index. The coarsest product
constant section. was achieved in the case of clinker and sand with 89 µm
Regarding the clinker sample as a product of the cal- and 85 µm x80 respectively, on the other hand, basalt re-
cination of minerals (mainly limestone and clay) behave sulted in the finest product characterized with 57 µm
similarly to the volcanic rocks, e. g. started from a high- 80% passing particle size. Andesite and limestone fine-
ness were between them, 70 µm and 69 µm. Regarding
the grindability coefficient, the finest basalt resulted in
the lowest and limestone had the highest G value. In
terms of the Bond work index, limestone behaved as the
easiest-to-grind and sand and basalt as the hardest-to-
grind materials. These results are correlated well with
the Hardgrove based Bond work index (see Table 2).

3.3. Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove test

The results of the new suggested method are present-
ed and discussed based on the grindability coefficient,
80% passing size of the product and the grindability in-
dices.

3.3.1. Grindability coefficient

Figure 4 shows the variation of the grindability coef-
ficient (G) of the samples related to the volume based
closed-cycle Hardgrove test as function of the grinding
cycle number. It can be clearly seen that the limestone
sample has a significantly higher G value (0.181 g/revo-
Figure 4. Grindability coefficient of the closed cycle lution). On the other hand, the sand sample resulted in
Hardgrove test the lowest coefficient, namely 0.046 g/revolution. Fur-

Table 4. Grindability coefficient of the closed circuit Hardgrove test

Sample GI GII GIII Gaverage Deviation Relative deviation [%]

Sand 0.048 0.045 0.044 0.046 0.00183 3.99
Limestone 0.183 0.180 0.180 0.181 0.00192 1.06
Andesite 0.057 0.058 0.057 0.058 0.00034 0.58
Basalt 0.080 0.083 0.084 0.082 0.00236 2.86
Clinker 0.064 0.066 0.064 0.065 0.00110 1.70

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
15 Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove grindability method

Table 5. Product fineness (x80) of closed circuit Hardgrove test

Sample x80,I, µm x80,II, µm x80,III, µm x80,aver, µm Deviation Relative deviation, %

Sand 71.33 74.97 72.37 72.89 1.87 2.57
Limestone 46.00 45.33 40.80 44.04 2.83 6.42
Andesite 77.07 77.67 76.07 76.94 0.81 1.05
Basalt 68.77 71.23 68.23 69.41 1.60 2.30
Clinker 79.90 81.63 81.33 80.95 0.92 1.14

thermore, it is established that in this case, there was no Table 6. Closed cycle volume based on the Hardgrove
similar trend in sedimentary nor in volcanic raw materi- grindability test results
als. A constant grindability coefficient was achieved af- Sample Closed cycle Hardgrove WiB, [kWh/t]
ter a maximum of 9 cycles.
Sand 33.74
Table 4 shows the grindability coefficient of the
closed circuit Hardgrove test obtained in the three ex- Limestone 7.67
perimental series (I., II. and III.). Namely, the triplicate Andesite 26.10
results of the last 3 cycles (GI, GII, GIII) and the average Basalt 19.03
(Gaverage) is presented. It can be stated that deviation of Clinker 23.55
the results is relatively low, from 0.00034 to 0.00236,
additionally the relative deviation was found to be from
0.58 to 3.99%. and maximum particle size of the material being ground
is not high enough, and in this way, there is not enough
3.3.2. Product fineness stress on the particles for particle size reduction (in the
case of Bond ball mill test max. media size is 40 mm!).
The finest product was achieved (see Table 5) in the This is supported by the result that the softest material
case of the limestone sample (x80 = 44.04 μm) and the (limestone) behaves as expected, and resulted in a lower
coarsest one was found in the clinker sample (x80 = 80.95 specific grinding energy in ring mill than in the ball mill.
μm). Basalt (x80 = 69.41 μm), andesite (x80 = 76.94 μm) On the other hand, the hardest materials (with strong in-
and sand (x80 = 72.89 μm) were between these values. termolecular cohesion forces) cannot be comminuted
Reproducibility of the 80% passing particle size re- easily by the compression which occurs in the Hardgrove
sults was very high. The relative deviation for andesite mill. To overcome this problem, two possible experi-
and clinker was approximately 1%, while for basalt and mental conditions can be modified: 1) increase the com-
sand, it was about 2.5%. However, limestone resulted in pressing stress or 2) decrease the feed particle size.
the highest relative deviation with 6.42%. This can be Additionally, it is important to note that these materi-
explained by the relatively soft nature of limestone als have various friction coefficients, hence the condi-
which resulted in the aggregation of the fine particles
tion of nip is not satisfied in the case of low coefficient
especially in the size range below 50 μm.
materials, like sand might result in high specific grinding
Table 6 shows the specific grinding work results of work. Based on literature, the lowest friction coefficient
the proposed test. Compared with the previously pre- (Cobb, 2008) was found to be in the case of quartz (0.4-
sented results, it can be stated that the new test resulted 0.5), however the limestone resulted in the highest num-
in higher values in most cases except for limestone and ber (µ=0.75). Consequently, if the particle shape is more
basalt. or less identical, the limestone has better conditions to
In the case of the sand sample, the closed-cycle HGI be ground which will decrease the grinding work.
test resulted in more than a 1.5 time higher Bond work
index value than that of the conventional methods. On Acknowledgment
the other hand, limestone resulted in a 36% lower Bond
work index using the new method compared with the The described work was carried out in the framework
traditional numbers. In this latter case, a similar differ- of the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Natural Re-
ence (~35%) was found between the industrial Bond sources Management at the Faculty of Earth Science and
work index of an industrial ring mill (50 t/h) and the Engineering, University of Miskolc. The authors appre-
laboratory Bond work index was calculated from HGI ciate the X-ray Fluorescence measurements for Mr. Fer-
(Árvai, 2008) which is in correspondence with the better enc Móricz in order to determine the chemical composi-
energy efficiency of a bowl mill. tion of the raw materials.
There might be several reasons for the above discrep- The described article was carried out as part of the
ancies. A possible reason for the bad correlation might “Sustainable Raw Material Management Thematic Net-
be that the ratio of the grinding ball (compression force) work – RING 2017”, EFOP-3.6.2-16-2017-00010 pro-

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2
Mucsi, G; Rácz, Á.; Mag, G., Antal, G., Csőke, B. 16

ject in the framework of the Széchenyi2020 Program. Bond, F.C. (1964): Berechnungsmethode zur Feinzerkleine-
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4. Conclusions
Csőke, B., Bokányi, L., Bőhm, J., Pethő, Sz. (2003 a): Selec-
Based on the experimental results the following con- tive grindability of lignites and their application for pro-
clusions were drawn: ducing an advanced fuel. Applied Energy, 74, 359-368.
Csőke, B., Hatvani, Z., Faitli, J., Solymár, K, Papanastassiou,
• The reproducibility of the proposed grindability test
D. (2003 b): New test method for investigation of grinda-
was very good since the relative deviation of the
bility in alkaline media at high temperature. In: Lorenzen,
examined parameters were low.
L. (ed.) XXIII International Mineral Processing Congress,
• The above presented method can be used both for Cape Town – South African Institute of Mining and Metal-
systematic laboratory experiments as well as for op- lurgy, 434-441.
timization of the operating conditions of industrial Deister, R.J. (1987): How to determine the Bond work index
ring mills. using lab ball mill grindabilitytests. E&MJ, 42-45.
• Through comparison of the new test results with Deniz, V., Sütcü, N., Umucu, Y. (2003): The effect of Circulat-
those of the well-known procedures, it can be seen ing Load and Test Sieve Size on The Bond Work Index
that the value of the specific grinding work strongly Based on Natural Amorphous Silica, 18th Internatio-
depends on the used grinding stress since there are nal Mining Congress and Exhibition of Turkey-IMCET,
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mills. Dvorák, K., Dolák, D., Vsianský, D., Dobrovolný P. (2016):
• The main benefit of this method compared to tradi- Evaluation of The Grindability of Recycled Glass in the
tional standardized methods lies in its fast determi- Production Of Blended Cements. Materiali in tehnologije /
nation possibility, which can be used for industrial Materials and technology, 50, 729–734.
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well. Additionally, the direct measurement of grind- terek és a klinker szövetszerkezete, valamint őrölhetősége
ing energy can be managed by using the developed közötti összefüggések. Journal of Silicate Based and Com-
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Volume based closed-cycle Hardgrove grindability
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Sažetak
Volumna metoda zatvorenoga ciklusa određivanja
Hardgroveova indeksa meljivosti
Prikazan je razvoj volumne metode zatvorenoga ciklusa meljivosti temeljen na nedavno uvedenome univerzalnom Hard­
groveovu mlinu i postupku. Odabrano je pet materijala različita podrijetla i svojstava (čvrstoća, meljivost, heterogenost),
poimence vapnenac, kvarc, andezit, bazalt i tvrdo pečena cigla. Meljivost je usporedno određena na četiri načina: (1)
standardnim Hardgroveovim testom meljivosti (engl. skr. HGI), (2) indeksom vezivanja određenim iz HGI-ja, (3) kon-
vencionalnim testom vezivanja, (4) volumenom zatvorenoga ciklusa temeljenom na meljivosti u univerzalnome mlinu.
Određeni su koeficijenti meljivosti (engl. skr. G) te kumulativna raspodjela veličine čestica na 80 % promjera (x 80).
Relativna odstupanja tih parametara bila su vrlo dobra, tj. uglavnom manja od 3 %, što je novu metodu istaknulo kao
robustan postupak za određivanje specifične energije meljivosti u zatvorenome sustavu mlina. Stoga je takav test pogo-
dan za određivanje meljivosti i njezinu optimizaciju na brz i pouzdan način.

Ključne riječi:
univerzalni Hardgroveov mlin, ideks vezivanja, meljivost, specifično mljevenje, zatvoreni ciklus

Authors contribution
Gábor Mucsi (PhD, Associate Professor) provided the evaluation of the overall experimental results, interpretations and
presentation of the results. Ádám Rácz (PhD, Assistant Professor) provided the evaluation of the Bond tests. Gergely
Mag (MSc Student, researcher) provided the raw material preparation and Hardgrove tests. Gábor Antal (Senior rese-
archer) performed the mechanical engineering development of the machine. Barnabás Csőke (CSc, Professor Emeri-
tus) performed interpretation of the test results.

The Mining-Geology-Petroleum Engineering Bulletin and the authors ©, 2019, pp. 9-17, DOI: 10.17794/rgn.2019.4.2

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