Industrial Vertical Stirred Mills Screw Liner Wear Profile Compared to Discrete Element Method Simulations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments

In general this is a good paper and the authors has carried out a novel work on the gravity induced stirred mill liner wear prediction.

Below are the specific comments

Line 57: How liner wear increase media consumption and electrical power consumption?

Line 89 – 91 – the contents are repeated

Line 216: Rocky (2018) – no reference

Line 395 – 397: “Based on the idea that collisions of greater specific energies can lead to an inefficient use of energy, it can be suggested that wear scenarios can be related to a better energy use behaviour.” – This explanation not clear. The authors need to explain in detail and relate to the wear context in the gravity induced stirred mill.

Line 397 – 399 – “However, it is important to emphasize that the collision frequency and energy reduction will probably generate a coarser product and thus the better energy use behaviour will be mainly caused by the overall power consumption reduction.” – The main objective of is to liberate the valuable minerals. In this case it is essential to achieve the targeted grind size for liberation. OPEX vs. revenue losses in recovery due to coarse grind size is required before coming into the conclusion for power consumption reduction.

Figure 21: base liner – why the 130 rpm has lower wear rate compared to 87 rpm?

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please consider the following comments to improve their paper.

1) In the abstract, the authors should be more precise about the agreement between the industrial and simulation results. Figure 21 shows that the results do not quite agree.
2) I suggest moving sections 3 and 4 to the introduction.
3) In section 5, add a subsection with the operational conditions such as particle size distribution, ore characteristics, mill filling,...
4) The results in figure 12 and 16 show a regression analysis with three points. This analysis is meaningless since a quadratic function will interpolate the three points exactly. I suggest to run more simulations or use linear models
5) For the evolution of the Wear Volume is better to use an exponential model.
6) An analysis of the particle size distribution could be also of interest.
7) A thorough analysis of the disagreements between the simulation and industrial results should be included.
9) In the conclusion section, Figure 21 does not support the claim "that wear profile obtained using DEM presents a strong similarity to the wear design observed in the full-scale equipment."

Minor comments
L. 35 change "very low energy efficient" by "energy inefficient"
L. 38 eliminate "pointed as"
L. 52 change "encountered" by "found"
L. 369 eliminate "media"
L. 371 change "This indicate" by "This indicates"

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my comments/suggestions.