This project aims to develop a robust methodology to characterise the grindability of particulate products in milling operations which will in turn provide a step-change in mill fingerprinting and optimisation. This involves developing a “grindability test” to measure the comminution characteristics of the particulates which, when coupled with the computational modelling work to characterise the milling function, will evaluate the milling performance measures including energy utilisation, breakage kernels for scale-up modelling such as population balance model of the mill.
This project attempts to deal with the challenges associated with handling and storage of cohesive solids in the mining industry. An adhesive-frictional model has been recently developed for DEM simulation of cohesive particles at the University of Edinburgh. This project will exploit the new method for modelling cohesive particulates for specific problems, such as effect of fines in silo discharge and the effect of time consolidation.