Semiautogenous Grinding of Copper Ores

Autogenous grinding, broadly defined as the self-comminution of ore in a cylindrical tumbling mill without using auxiliary grinding media, was first applied in the early 1930s in the so-called Hadsel mills (Hardinge, 1955) as seen in [Fig. 1], mainly used in gold mines on the US West Coast. A number of these mills were built in sizes of 6.1 to 7.3 m (20 to 24 ft) in diameter and 1.5 to 1.8 m (5 to 6 ft) in length but were later abandoned because of operating and maintenance problems. Further development of autogenous grinding led to the Hardinge wet grinding mill, the Aerofall dry grinding mill, and others. A tabulation of all known autogenous and semiautogenous installations around the world was sent recently to the authors by G. J. Kushner of Koppers Metal Processing Division. In the size range of 7.3 to 9.8 m (24 to 32 ft) in diameter, it lists a total of thirty mills used in the processing of copper ores. An additional 120 units are listed in the same size range for the processing of iron ores and other minerals. The largest mills in existence are 11.1-m-diam X 4.6-m-long (36-ft-diam X 15-ft-long) mills in Minnesota, powered by 8950 kW (12,000 hp) motors and used in taconite beneficiation. It is indicative of the phenomenal growth of this technology that none of the above 150 mills was in operation prior to 1964. Grinding rates in autogenous mills are very sensitive to variations in ore breakage characteristics and even with fairly constant ore type can exhibit large fluctuations in throughput. Autogenous grinding also depends on availability of a fraction of the ore to be ground in the form of "competent" rock which can withstand to a certain degree the tumbling and impact action within the mill. If the ore is uniformly "soft", it will soon be crushed into small size particles and further grinding, which depends on the existence of large size rocks in the mill, becomes impossible. This apparently is the case with most copper ores, as discussed by Bachman, Last and Nabbs (1970) who described pilot testing of a large number of ore samples from Kennecott 's Chino Mines. Under circumstances where autogenous grinding is impractical, it is possible to realize most of its benefits by utilizing large grinding balls in place of the "competent" rock and practice what has become known in the mining industry as semiautogenous grinding. In semiautogenous grinding (SAG), a grate discharge tumbling mill is fed the product of a primary crusher or run-of-mine rock. Forged steel or alloy grinding balls, in proportions ranging from 3.10% of the total volume in the mill, are used to complement the self-grinding ability of the ore. Semiautogenous circuits can be either designed for single-stage closed-circuit grinding which produces a final product for recovery processes, or for two-stage operation in which the SAG mill product is fed to a second stage of grinding in a conventional ball mill.