Experimental investigation of load behaviour of an industrial scale tumbling mill using noise and vibration signature techniques

Mill load (i.e. the load level of coal powder), which is critical in improving the production capacity and energy efficiency of pulverizing system in thermal power plant, has not been effectively monitored and controlled industrially. This paper investigates the load behaviour in an industrial scale tumbling mill under practical working conditions. A microphone and an accelerometer were installed to pick up mill noise and inlet trunnion vibration signals, respectively. By analyzing the sensitivity distributions of mill noise energy and mill vibration energy, characteristic power spectra (CPS) of mill noise and mill vibration were obtained. The CPS energy, centroid frequency and frequency domain variance of the mill noise and mill vibration were then investigated and compared under various working conditions.Experimental results show that the CPS energy of both mill noise and mill vibration can accurately represent the mill load. Moreover, the centroid frequency and frequency domain variance of mill noise can also be used to determine mill load. By combining these characteristics of mill noise and mill vibration, an improved estimation of mill load can be achieved.