Simulation of Rod Mills in BMCS Environment

Nowadays, application of rod mill in new comminution circuit designs is almost absolute. Nevertheless, many installed rod mills are still in operation throughout the country and their performance optimization might be of interest to plant engineers. Simulators are specialized tools for circuit design and optimization. Due to the screening effect observed in rod mills, their mathematical modeling is totally different from that of ball mill units. In this study, rod mill was simulated as a new module in BMCS (BMCS-Based Modular Comminution Simulator) environment. Matrix modeling was considered as an established mathematical model of rod mills. Hence, the rod mill module of BMCS was mainly based on this type of rod mill model. The matrix model was constructed using the concept of consecutive stages of breakage. In each stage of breakage, the ore was subjected to selection, breakage and classification processes. The algorithm followed by the rod mill module of BMCS has been presented in this work. The close agreement between the predicted and measured product size distributions proves the validity of the predictions made by rod mill simulation module and the accuracy of model implementation in BMCS.