Ball mill critical speed and operating RPM

Grinding of solid particles in ball mill is effected by impact of grinding media ( balls) with the particles to be grounded. The balls rise along with rotation of ball mill and fall from height as gravitational force overcome the frictional force and centrifugal force The centrifugal force depends upon diameter and angular speed of ball mill Critical speed of the ball mill is that speed at which gravitational force acting on balls will be just equal to centrifugal force. This means that at critical speed balls will not fall instead they will rotate with shell as integral part of shell. In this case grinding action will stop. The Grinding of solid material is depedent on the velocity at which they will strike with solid particles. This velocity, is highest at 70 % to 75 % of critical speed and this percentage ratio mainly depends upon the diameter of ball mill. Following is the calculation for critical speed of ball mill centrifugal force

mg

Consider a ball at top position. At critical speed of ball mill the gravitational force and centrifugal force acting on this ball will balance each other Hence m*w2*D/2 = m*g where m = mass of ball w = angualr speed of ball mill in radian /second D = Inside diameter of ball mill shell g = acceleration due to gravity

hence w = sqrt(2*g/D) critical speed of ball mill in RPM N = w*(60/(2*3.14) critical speed in RPM N= sqrt(2*g/D)*(60/(2*3.14)) N= 42.31/sqrt(D)

For our ball mill in roaster D= 2 meter

critical speed our ball mill in RPM (N) =

29.92

Normal operating speed is kept at 70% of critical speed hence by this criteria our ball mill operating speed should be = 0.70 x 29.92 i.e 21 This isinfact the actual RPM of our roaster ball mill. From above discussion it is clear that speed of the ball mill is decided by diameter of ball mill We can not change the speed of ball mill without affecting grinding action. Hence ball mill is not amenable to energy saving using VFD drive