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Drop Ball Testing: Background and Standard Procedure

This document provides an overview of drop ball testing (DBT), including the J-Tube test and ME Drop test procedures. DBT is a standardized testing method used to ensure grinding media quality and suitability for typical mill conditions. The J-Tube test simulates ball-on-ball impacts in a SAG mill but has low repeatability. The ME Drop test involves individually dropping balls from 10 meters to consistently simulate severe mill impacts and has better repeatability, though it is more time consuming. The presentation concludes with details on the ME Drop test procedure and reporting standards.

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Martin.c.figueroa
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92 views

Drop Ball Testing: Background and Standard Procedure

This document provides an overview of drop ball testing (DBT), including the J-Tube test and ME Drop test procedures. DBT is a standardized testing method used to ensure grinding media quality and suitability for typical mill conditions. The J-Tube test simulates ball-on-ball impacts in a SAG mill but has low repeatability. The ME Drop test involves individually dropping balls from 10 meters to consistently simulate severe mill impacts and has better repeatability, though it is more time consuming. The presentation concludes with details on the ME Drop test procedure and reporting standards.

Uploaded by

Martin.c.figueroa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Drop Ball Testing

Background and Standard Procedure

30/06/2022
Drop Ball Testing Overview
 Grinding media is designed to balance hardness and toughness for optimal results
 Too hard → Excessive breakage → High Media Consumption
 Too tough → Excessive wear → High Media Consumption
 Customers may desire higher toughness or hardness depending on operation applicability

 DBT is a standardized testing method for QA/QC purposes


 Performed to ensure quality and suitability for typical mill conditions
 Not a reliable predictor of media consumption
 Not able to simulate all mill conditions
 Extreme mill conditions may cause breakage

 This presentation includes


 Explanation of J-Tube test
 Details on ME Drop ball test and procedure
 Example of ME Drop test reporting
J-Tube
 Developed in 1985 by U.S. Bureau of Mines
 Designed to simulate typical SAG mill ball-on-ball impacts
 Multiple balls resting in bottom of J-Tube; Impact from top ball knocks bottom ball into conveyor

 Advantages
 Produces many impacts quickly
 Impacts are of variable intensity simulating mill conditions
 More balls per test

 Disadvantages
 More ball for test = less individual impacts per ball
 No distinction between high and low energy impacts
 Highly variable – low repeatability
 Does not simulate the most severe impacts that typically cause ball breakage in SAG milling
 Impact intensity diminishes as ball gets further down the line
ME Drop Test
 Free-fall type drop test
 Steel balls are dropped approximately from 10 metre
height onto a steel plate base (made of same material
than a mill liner)
 The testers are used for quality assurance and are not for
mill condition simulations involving thousands of balls
interacting

 Advantages
 Every ball drops between 2,000 to 3,000 times
 Every impact counted is consistently maximum intensity
and represents severe SAG milling conditions
 ensures that standard production balls will perform in
most applications with occasional mill upsets
 Lower variability → better repeatability

 Disadvantages
 Time consuming
ME Drop Test - Procedure
 Pass/Fail test for each production batch
 6-12 balls from each production batch randomly selected
 SAG balls dropped from height of 10 meters
 Standards for passing:
 After the Test ball shows no breaking or spalling

Photo shows a typical result after drop testing 


Thank You

Visit us at www.me-elecmetal.com

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