Advances in comminution

Advances in Comminution comes at a critical time. It focuses on the dilemma of needing to grind materials to ever-finer sizes while maintaining reasonable energy costs. The selection and sizing of stirred mills for regrinding and ultrafine grinding applications do not lend themselves to conventional methodologies; therefore, new approaches are being developed. There is a great deal of activity directed toward improving ore characterization to predict AG/SAG mill energy requirements, as well as developing improved models and instrumentation for optimization and control of comminution circuits. Instrumentation, modeling, and control functions in particular have benefited from rapidly advancing computer technology, with calculations that were formerly extremely time-consuming becoming rapid and routine. These advances will keep energy waste to a minimum and will provide the increased energy efficiency needed to maintain ongoing industry success. The 36 chapters are based on the 2006 SME symposium. Topics and contributors were carefully selected to provide a balance between academic and industrial practice so that the reader can readily find information on current best practices and evaluate future industry trends.