2016 NOVEMBER : LAFARGE CEMENT EGYPT SUEZ DECIDES UPON FTR-MAGOTTEAUX BALL SORTING MACHINE
FTR Makina A.Ş. and Magotteaux S.A. has signed the official know-how contract to manufacture Ball Sorting Machined under the license of Magotteaux in 2015. The ball sorting machine delivered Lafarge Cement in Suez Egypt recently successfully.
Why Sorting of the Balls?
As the time goes by, the distribution/proportion of the grinding ball sizes inside the ball mill gets changed, as a natural outcome of wear phenomena and/or breakage of the balls. Therefore the grinding efficiency drops. Every ball mill has a unique process result due to its physical condition, size, circuit, ground material, finish product type and auxiliary equipment. There is, however, a global thumb-rule for every ball mill that its best working condition is achieved by proper ball charge distribution determined by process experts (classification of 2nd chamber ball charge in 2 chamber mills is a good example to this fact). The importance and effect of proper ball charge distribution is proved by many lab tests as well as real industrial applications.
It is, therefore, essential to keep the best pre-determined ball charge distribution inside the mill for as much as possible.
For this purpose, generally, the recommendation is to sort 1st compartment ball charge once a year and 2nd compartment ball charge every 2 years.
To sort the balls manually requires a big amount of time costing money and labor.
For example;
A ball mill with 4,0 m diameter will have the following figures;
If the mill has 2 chambers:
there are approximately 3,6 million balls available in the mill
If the mill is mono chamber due to Roller Press:
there are approximately 4,0 – 4,2 million balls available in the mill.