Modification of Design of Feed Chute in A Tertiary Cone Crusher at the Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex

Comminution is the most energy intensive operation which constitutes the major portion of operating and capital costs of the mineral processing plants.  Working at the maximum operating capacity of comminution equipment plays a significant role in the efficiency of the circuit.  Also, due to the effect of crusher efficiency on the downstream circuit performance, optimization of the crushing circuits has received considerable attention.  In this research, the effect of feed chute design on tertiary cone crusher performance at the Sarcheshmeh copper complex was studied.  A close monitoring of the performance crusher revealed that main problems were high fluctuations of power draw and uneven and high-rate wear of crusher liners.  Such pitfalls were clear evidences of an improper feeding arrangement into the crusher.  Accordingly, various feed chute designs were employed in the simulations by an in-house developed DEM software called KMPCDEM© to find more uniform feed distribution on the distribution plate of the crusher.  Results showed that by changing the shape of feed chute from cubic to cylindrical, decreasing its surface area from 0.34 to 0.24 m2 and increasing the cylinder length above and below the feed chute plate from 0 to 45 cm and from 53 to 95 cm, respectively, uniform feed distribution was obtained.  After installing the new feed chute design in the plant, a detail monitoring over a period of 15 months showed a reduction of the standard deviation of crusher power draw from 13 to 3 kW.  A better crusher control caused choke feeding.  Therefore, 36% increase in the crusher throughput and finer and narrower product size distribution occurred.  Furthermore, the life of crusher liners increased from 8 months to 15 months on account of more uniform and lower rate of wear on mantle and liners.