An investigation on the effects of the ball filling on the breakage parameters of natural amorphous silica

•The ball filling are important factors for grinding.•In this study, it has found different than other researchers in terms of some kinetic parameters.•Specific power consumption (mp) is lowest in J = 0.3 for amorphous silica sample.•In this research, the optimum value of U for the mill capacity is U ⩾ 1.25.

The effects of ball filling on the selection (Si) and breakage functions (Bi,j) for the natural amorphous silica were investigated in this paper. At four levels (20%, 30%, 40% and 50%) of ball filling, the selection functions and breakage functions were determined by one-size-fraction tests. The selection function was found be quite effective with increasing ball filling for smaller particle size, but it was found to show differently for larger particle size. The breakage functions obtained by direct measurement were studied. When the ball filling was high, the breakage function was appeared to be higher for the natural amorphous silica.The results of tests, the effect of ball filling on the breakage parameters were found to be different than previous studies regarding some results. Therefore, it has appeared that the grinding kinetics for each material must be evaluated in order to lower the energy costs in grinding process.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide