Copyright 1999 by SME 1

SME Annual Meeting

March 1-3, 1999, Denver, Colorado
Preprint 99-115
THE DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION
OF THE HICOM HIGH INTENSITY GRINDING MILL
T. A. E. Breen
Hicom Intl. Pty. Ltd.
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ABSTRACT
A new high intensity grinding technology has been developed
and is now being commercialized by Hicom International of
Australia. This has led to the development and manufacture
of Hicom 120 grinding mills which are now being sold
internationally for a range of mining industry applications.
The first commercial process application has been for the
diamond sector, where the ability of the mill to remove host
kimberlite rock by attritioning, with no damage to the thereby
liberated diamonds, is seen to be a most beneficial attribute.
There are, however, many other mineral industry applications
for this mill.
The design of the Hicom mill is unique. Based on a high
speed centrifugal motion of the grinding chamber, very high
power intensity is delivered to the grinding process. Most
significantly, a high acceleration field, 50 times stronger than
gravity is produced, creating very high power input per unit
of mill volume, and exceptionally fast particle breakage rates,
typically 50 - 100 times greater than those in conventional
tumbling mills. A mill developing such forces has significant
implications to comminution technology and practice.
Hicom high intensity grinding mills are now available to the
mining industry for evaluation and purchase. After a number
of years of design and testing, two commercial mills are now
in operation. The first is in South Africa, and for over 2 years
this mill has been processing diamond bearing marine gravel.
The second mill is in the Northwest Territories of Canada, at
BHP's Ekati Diamond Mine. The mill was purchased by BHP
and commissioned in October, 1998. It selectively grinds
away the kimberlite in a DMS concentrate stream, thereby
reducing by some 50% - 60% of the mass of material
requiring treatment in downstream x-ray sorting plant. The
important quality that characterizes the Hicom mill in this
application is its ability to liberate any diamonds present in
the feed, without damage to them.
There are several other mineral process applications for
which the Hicom mill has been designed, including the fine
grinding of ores, mineral concentrates, and industrial
minerals. This paper will describe the technology and
construction of the mill, examine its commercial applications
and development to date, and provide details on the mobile
demonstration Hicom mills now available for on-site
performance trials by the mineral process industry.
INTRODUCTION
History & Current Status of Development
Charles Warman - Inventor of the Hicom Mill: The Hicom
mill was originally conceived and designed by Charles
Warman, the founder of the C H Warman Group, of which
Hicom International is a part. Dr. Warman is best known for
the invention and commercial development of the Warman
slurry pump while working as a young mining engineer on
the Kalgoorlie gold fields of Western Australia over 50 years
ago.
Charles Warman's aim was to create from centrifugal milling
theory a mill that was eminently practical and cost effective
and which solved the problems associated with previous (and
subsequently unsuccessful) attempts to design a mill utilizing
high speed centrifugal forces. The Hicom mill has been
developed as a progression from centrifugal or planetary
mills. These earlier mills, when used in a continuous mode of
operation, had to cope with unmanageable and awkward
feeding and discharge arrangements.
Over the past decade the original concepts of Charles
Warman grew into prototypes and then pilot plants, and in
Copyright 1999 by SME 2
the last few years have commercially matured into the Hicom
high intensity grinding mill (sometimes referred to as the
"nutating" mill). The mill is patented in 60 countries.
Recent Developments: The current model, the 110 kW Hicom
120 Mill, although at present of relatively small capacity,
with an output typically of between 5 and 15 tph, is the
precursor of a series of larger mills now at design stage.
These will have a power requirement of up to 1 megawatt,
(ten times that of the current model) and be capable of
production in the order of 100 tph - 150 tph.
The tradition of innovative design and engineering excellence
which characterized the design and development of the
Warman slurry pump, can also be seen in the design of the
Hicom high intensity grinding mill.
The development and manufacture of Hicom Mills are being
undertaken by Hicom International Pty. Limited, the C H
Warman Group's mill division, at the company's headquarters
in Sydney, Australia.
A significant amount of research and development and
application of Hicom technology has also emanated from the
Group's operation in South Africa, a geographic factor that
goes some way to explain the initial uptake of Hicom
technology by the diamond sector of the mining industry.
In 1995 the first commercial project that incorporated a
Hicom mill in its flow sheet came out of the consulting offices
of Bateman, the Johannesburg based minerals process
engineers. A Hicom 120 mill was to be incorporated in the
diamond recovery plant then being designed and built for
diamond producer Alexkor Limited, at Alexander Bay on
South Africa's west coast. This mill selectively removes and
mills to a slurry substantial amounts of shell and shale which
occurs in the marine gravel and dense medium separation
(DMS) diamond concentrates treated by Alexkor, prior to
x-ray separation of the diamonds. This Hicom mill was
commissioned the following year, and in the ensuing period
has been operating effectively and performing above its
design expectations.
Figure 1: Mill Drawing
Hicom 120 High Intensity Grinding Mill, Cut-away view
Copyright 1999 by SME 3
After an extensive assessment and test milling program by
BHP Minerals, the second Hicom 120 mill sold into the
diamond sector was commissioned by BHP in September
1998 at its newly developed Ekati diamond mine located just
south of the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories.
The function of the Hicom mill in BHP's state of the art
diamond recovery plant is to reduce the bulk of diamond
concentrate reporting to the x-ray recovery plant. This is
achieved by the selective grinding by the Hicom mill of the
kimberlite, a process which liberates additional diamonds
from the ore, without any diamond damage.
Hicom mills are presently being included in the flow sheets of
several planned diamond recovery plants, now at the
feasibility stage. These mills are scheduled for supply to
diamond projects being developed by leading mining
companies in Canada and in South Africa over the next few
years.
Having quickly established a successful bridgehead into the
diamond sector, Hicom International is now turning to more
mainstream applications for the mill in the precious and base
metals sectors, as well as for the milling of fine and ultra fine
industrial minerals.
R & D and New Model Development: Current research and
development by Hicom International is focussed on two main
areas. The first is for optimization of wet and dry milling
processes for fine and ultra-fine grinding. The second is to
finalize the design and to commence manufacture of
prototype 350 kW and 1,000 kW Hicom mills, with a target to
have commercial models of these mills available for sale in
2000.
DESIGN FEATURES
Configuration & Motion of the Grinding Chamber
Reference to Figure 1 shows that the grinding chamber of the
Hicom mill is a truncated cone with a roughly hemispherical
base, and a vertical axis of symmetry. It consists of two
corrosion-resistant stainless steel castings bolted to form a
thin-walled shell, which contains the replaceable wear-liners.
The chamber axis 'nutates' about a fixed nutation point
defined by the main bearing, the motion being similar to that
of a conical pendulum, in which the top is fixed and the
bottom describes a circle, as is shown in Figure 2. {"Nutate"
means to nod or oscillate in a manner akin to that of the
earth's axis). The motion of the chamber is akin to one
swirling a conical flask with one's wrist.
Figure 2: Nutation
Schematic Diagram of Grinding Chamber Motion
There is no critical speed of the tumbling charge in Hicom
mills -they can be operated at any speed, limited only by the
mechanical strength of the drive.
Power Density
The magnitude of the acceleration field in which the mill
contents tumbles varies with the square of the grinding
chamber speed, while the power input varies with the cube of
the speed. Typical design values of maximum acceleration
intensity for Hicom mills are in the range 40-50g, giving
power densities up to about 2,500 kW per m
3
of mill volume.
This compares with power densities of 300 kW per m
3
of mill
volume for stirred mills and 30 kW per m
3
of mill volume for
conventional ball mills. Put another way, this means that the
power density of the Hicom mill is around 8 times that of a
stirred mill and over 80 times that of a conventional ball mill.
Copyright 1999 by SME 4
As a first approximation, the load behavior in the grinding
chamber of the Hicom mill is similar to that in centrifugal
mills. However, there is a net downwards acceleration in the
Hicom milling chamber which has the effect of pumping the
slurry through the chamber in approximately plug flow. Short
mill residence times can be achieved, and in some
applications this can improve grinding efficiencies, by
limiting over-grinding.
The grinding action in Hicom mills is predominantly
achieved by attrition, rather than by impact.
Operation of the mill shows that the high intensity of the
grinding action results in very rapid particle breakage rates.
For example at a mill speed of 1960 rpm, quartz feed material
was reduced from d8O - 70 um to powder with a d80 5 m
in just 98 seconds in batch grinding tests.
Nutator & Drive Mechanism
The key to the high performance, mechanical efficiency,
compactness and durability of the Hicom drive mechanism is
a patented nutating bearing which suspends the grinding
chamber. This bearing, developed by Hicom International
specifically for the Hicom mill, provides long service life at
the loads and operating speeds required. The nutating bearing
is analogous to a disk which rolls between fixed upper and
lower surfaces. The nutating bearing has just a single moving
part, and is self-compensating for wear. The nutating drive is
backed by many years of research and development in design
optimization, materials selection and endurance testing.
Other Design Features of the Mill
The Hicom 120 Mill features modular construction
comprising the body, nutating assembly, transmission,
services unit, grinding chamber and control cabinet.
The body is a robust casting which serves both as a structural
element supporting the nutating assembly and as ballast to
counteract the inertial forces of the nutating assembly (Refer
Figure 1). The body fully encloses the grinding chamber and
is equipped with a door for maintenance access. The nutating
assembly is bolted rigidly on top of the body and the whole
assembly is isolated from the supporting structure by
vibration mounts. Process material is gravity fed from a
hopper or flexible feed-tube that can be bolted on top of the
nutator housing. In wet grinding, upon exiting the grinding
chamber, the product discharges as slurry via a chute through
the lower section of the mill body.
The mill is directly driven by an electric motor mounted
beneath it. A services pack which provides lubrication,
filtration and cooling, air and instrumentation is housed in a
freestanding enclosure directly beside the mill.
Operation of the mill is controlled by a programmable logic
controller (PLC) which sequences start-up and shutdown, and
monitors for possible fault conditions. The PLC indicates mill
status to the operator via a programmed message display.
Hicom mills can operate with a charge of steel balls or other
media, or alternatively, with an autogenous charge of ore.
Autogenous feed sizes up to 80 mm can be accepted. Thus the
mills are extremely versatile, and can be used for a wide
range of mineral processing and industrial grinding duties,
wet or dry, in open or closed circuit, as well as in batch mode
for smaller mills. Hicom mills are particularly suited to
energy-efficient fine grinding, in the 10 m product size
range, and finer.
The Hicom 120 mill is a very compact unit, a reflection of the
high power density and small mill volume inherent in its
design. (Refer Figure 3) Its footprint is a mere 1.26 m wide x
2.62 m long with a height of 2.28 m (including motor: of 3.53
m). The larger capacity units now being developed will also
reflect the same relative compactness a characteristic which
means that installation costs of Hicom mills and related civil
engineering costs are very low, compared to those of other
mill installations.
Liner replacement is a fast, simple procedure that can be
performed in minutes. Using the loading arm accessory, the
front half of the chamber shell detaches complete with the
worn liner and a replacement liner assembly is bolted in, with
minimal process downtime, typically less than 30 minutes per
liner change. Wear-liners have been designed with great
emphasis on maximizing wear-life. All parts of the mill
exposed to abrasion are protected with wear-resistant
materials.
Testing
During the design stage, all critical mechanical elements in
the mill have been subjected to extensive Finite Element
Analysis studies and subsequently verified by endurance and
load testing. Quality checking to fine tolerances and
non-destructive testing procedures are applied throughout
each stage of manufacture.
Model Sizes
The current operating model is the Hicom 120. This can be
supplied in two configurations:
(1) The Hicom 120/30 has a 30 liter grinding chamber
and is driven by a 55 kW motor
Copyright 1999 by SME 5
(2) The Hicom 120/60 has a 60 liter grinding chamber
and is driven b a 110 kW motor
Units can be supplied as wet or dry processors, with Variable
Speed Drive as an option.
APPLICATIONS
Hicom high intensity grinding technology is not designed to
replace standard ball or SAG milling for general mineral
process duties. The Hicom mill is specialized and highly
designed equipment focussed on applications that are outside
the day to day range of standard milling plant. In essence
these include:
Wet or dry grinding to product sizes below 45 m
Wet or dry fine and ultra-fine grinding to below 10 m
Diamond liberation
Special attritioning duties
Shipboard, mobile and underground installations
Special coarse particle reduction (from - 60 mm)
Fine Milling of Hard Ores to - 10 m
Conventional mills become progressively less efficient at
product sizes below about 75 m especially when grinding
hard ores such as quartzites and pyrite. Hicom mills remain
efficient at fine product sizes down to at least 10 m with
these ores. With the ability to vary the grinding intensity and
to make effective use of small grinding media, the Hicom mill
operation can be optimized for maximum grinding efficiency.
In recent batch mill performance tests for the fine grinding of
a West Australian telluride-pyritic gold ore, Hicom milling
produced a d90 10 micron product from a 60 micron feed
using 74 kW hours/tonne. This power draw compares
favorably with the results obtained for fine grinding the same
ore in tower mills and sand mills. Pilot plant tests in closed
circuit with a hydrocyclone classifier are planned and these
are expected to result in further improvements in grinding
efficiency.
Fine Milling of Industrial Minerals to -2 m
The milling of industrial minerals, wet or dry, to between 10
m and 2 m and finer in some instances, with economic
power usage, is an application for which Hicom mills are
designed. Special liners and grinding media are available to
suit iron-free and other specific end-product requirements.
Ongoing mill performance testing is being carried out and
assessed on a range of industrial minerals, milled to fine and
ultra-fine products.
Autogenous "critical size" pebble reduction
"Critical size" pebbles, typically 25 mm - 60 mm, often
accumulate in conventional autogenous mills and SAG mills,
reducing the efficiency of the milling circuit. This critical size
material may be removed from the primary mill, crushed to
coarse sand, and fed to the secondary ball mill circuit for
further grinding. As an alternative to crushing, the critical
size pebbles can be reduced to a fine product in a single step
by processing them in a Hicom mill operating autogenously
in open circuit (Hoyer, 1996). The result is an increase in
circuit capacity by relieving the load on the downstream
grinding mill.
Pilot plant performance tests comparing the power draw
required to remove critical size quartz (1) by using a cone
crusher and (2) by using a Hicom mill have shown that the
latter reduces power draw in this particular instance by 9.8%.
(Hoyer, 1996)
The pilot plant data was scaled up and extrapolated using
computer simulation to provide the following results.
In this exercise a SAG mill was producing 66 tph of milled
ore. This was screened over a 7.5 mm screen, and the re-
circulating load in the mill of the coarse oversize fraction
consisting of - 43 mm "critical size" pebbles, was fed to a 13
kW crusher at the rate of 13 tph. This reduced the pebbles,
directing the crushed product to a ball mill.
The ball mill was also being fed the screened undersize
material (-750 m) at 53 tph and drew 1160 kW of power to
produce the required -75 m product. Thus there was a total
power draw of 1173 kW for the crusher and the ball mill.
In the alternative scheme, a Hicom mill, replacing the
crusher, was installed after the ball mill. With the same
stream of oversize feed being fed directly to the Hicom mill,
and the undersize from the screen being fed to the ball mill,
as before. The ball mill drew 895 kW power, and the Hicom
mill used 173 kW, a total power draw of 1068 kW.
These tests indicate that in this particular application,
installation of a Hicom mill would remove the critical size
pebbles at a power saving of almost 10% compared to using a
crusher for this purpose.
Diamond liberation
Hicom mills have the now proven capability for the
autogenous size reduction of diamond bearing materials,
without causing damage to diamonds in the feed (Hoyer,
1996). Specific problems associated with diamondiferous
Copyright 1999 by SME 6
Figure 3: Hicom 120
Mill Dimensions
Copyright 1999 by SME 7
marine and alluvial gravels, such as seashells, are effectively
eliminated. Hicom mills selectively reduce the stream volume
of dense medium separation concentrates by up to 60%,
reducing capital outlays on costly downstream x-ray sorting
equipment, and also significantly reducing ferro-silicon losses
in DMS plants, by releasing it - and sometimes diamonds -
from entrapment in seashells.
In processing diamond ores, the Hicom mill can be run in
open circuit at high throughput, with specially configured
discharge ports in the grinding chamber. Residence time is
adequate for the complete attrition of the kimberlite, resulting
in total diamond liberation but with no measurable damage to
the diamonds. Minimal energy is expended on the grinding of
the harder barren material.
Current installations of Hicom mills in diamond liberation
plants place the mill after the DMS plant, where they
typically reduce -6mm diamond concentrates to finer than 1
mm material. This placement and application of the mill in
such flow sheet configurations is partly due to the relatively
small throughput of the Hicom mills at present, limiting them
to more concentrated and smaller product streams. When
Hicom mills of higher capacity are available, there is good
reason to believe they will be able to be installed further up
the flow sheet, immediately after the secondary crushers,
producing feed for DMS plants. In alluvial and marine
diamond operations, Hicom mills would be able to take
directly as raw feed the untreated alluvial or marine gravel,
and reduce it to -20 mm + 2 mm feed for DMS concentration.
Attritioning & Scrubbing
The high intensity grinding action of Hicom mills enables
fast and effective scrubbing and attritioning of the material
being milled. Thus deleterious coatings on mineral particles
can be effectively removed, as can other contaminants such as
clays. The Hicom 120 mill will accept up to 65 mm size feed,
when using grinding media.
An example of this property of Hicom mills includes the
removal during attritioning of DMS concentrate of a film that
often coats alluvial or marine diamonds, which if not
removed makes them considerably less able to fluoresce
during x-ray sorting, resulting in product losses.
The mill has also proven to be effective in removing an iron
enriched "ferrocrete" material, which in some mineral sand
deposits is cemented around potentially valuable heavy
mineral product, making it uneconomic to process. The high
speed attritioning of this material in a Hicom mill rapidly
converts the rock-like cement to slurry, thus liberating the
heavy minerals entrapped within.
The Hicom mill may also be able to utilize its selective
milling capability to separate by attritioning other deleterious
or unwanted minerals from certain mineral concentrates,
thereby upgrading the end product. Tests are in progress to
enable a better understanding of the mill's capabilities in this
regard.
Shipboard Plant Installations
Due to the compact design and the high intensity of grinding
forces deployed in their small mill volume, Hicom mills are
ideal for shipboard installations such as in the offshore
marine diamond industry in Southern Africa. It is anticipated
that within the next 2 years several Hicom mills will be
deployed on ocean going diamond marine mining vessels
working the diamond concessions off the Atlantic Ocean
coastline of South Africa and Namibia.
Underground Milling and Mine Backfill Production
The compact design and high intensity grinding properties of
Hicom mills provide them with significant potential for
underground installations, both for the milling of ores and the
production of backfill.
Hicom International has commenced test work in
collaboration with the Mining Technology Division of South
Africa's CSIR in examining the capability of Hicom mills to
cost effectively produce backfill. Initial results indicate the
mills have significant potential in this regard, with the
capacity to produce a material with the required particle size
distribution for a suitable paste backfill.
ORE TESTING FACILITIES
Hicom International operates a range of pilot plants and
laboratory mills at its R & D facilities in Sydney and
Johannesburg, as well as full size production units for test
work on clients' specific materials. Technical advice and
plant design recommendations are available to assist in
establishing process design requirements. Specially developed
process simulation tools enable reliable Hicom scale-up,
optimization analysis and flow sheet development.
Containerized Demonstration Plants
The Company has built one fully equipped, containerized,
mobile Hicom 120 plant for on-site testing at client locations.
Figure 4 provides a drawing of front and side elevations of
this plant. Other mobile plants are currently under
construction.
Copyright 1999 by SME 8
These mills can be deployed anywhere in the world for
demonstration, performance testing, and equipment selection
comparisons or for specific processing campaigns.
The Hicom 120 containerised plant comprises two x twenty
foot shipping containers. On the first are installed the Hicom
120 mill and drive motor, a sump pump and hopper, and a
fixed-speed feed conveyor and comprehensive
instrumentation to enable steady state operation of the
grinding process in open circuit mode. The second container
accommodates the Variable Speed Drives (VSD) for control
of mill and sump pump motors, and the mill operator control
panel. Two drawings showing separate elevations of the mill
container are provided in Figure 4.
Container Plant Description: The mill, 110 kW drive motor
and all process equipment and instrumentation are mounted
on one twenty foot open shipping container. Once installed on
site, the container sits on legs 1.5m above ground level to
allow room for the drive motor and sump pump and hopper
underneath the container. During transshipment, the support
legs, the conveyor and its stand and hopper, the sump pump
and hopper, and the access stairway are stored onboard the
container. The drive motor, mounted on a specially designed
bracket swings up and is secured in the container as well.
These arrangements facilitate rapid and convenient field
deployment.
The operator controls and the electrical supply equipment are
installed in an air-conditioned, insulated shipping container
that serves as a control room and site office for field
operations. Equipment in the control container includes a 110
kW Variable Speed Drive (VSD) for the mill, a 7.5 kW VSD
for the sump pump, three phase and single phase power
distribution boards, a Siemens OP27 control panel and a
Desktop Computer. A Siemens PLC that is part of the mill
services pack controls both the mill and process plant
operation. All instruments on the open container terminate in
locally mounted PLC modules, and communication between
the PLC on the mill container and the control station in the
control room is by Siemens Profibus protocol. The only
connections between the two containers are the two VSD
output cables to the mill and sump pump, a three-phase power
cable, a single-phase power cable for floodlights and a single
Profibus cable. This arrangement ensures simple on-site
electrical installation.
In open circuit operation, dry solids feed is supplied from the
host plant by a vibrating feeder or weigh conveyor and is
transported into the Hicom 120 mill by the feed conveyor that
is part of the containerized plant equipment. Water is added
into the mill feed hopper to control the pulp solids
concentration in the mill, and into the mill body or the sump
Figure 4: Hicom 120 Containerised Demonstration Plant, side and front elevations
Copyright 1999 by SME 9
pump to assist the transport of thick slurry out of the mill.
The milled product is returned to the host plant by the sump
pump.
Process Monitoring and Control: The Hicom 120 mill
operation is monitored and controlled from the OP27 panel
that interfaces with the PLC. A Siemens WinCC Supervisory
Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system on the
desktop computer monitor the process plant operation. This
facilitates data logging and also remote access from elsewhere
on the host plant, or even from offsite locations. By this
means, the Hicom 120 plant can be run as a stand-alone test
facility, or integrated into an existing plant operation for
long-term process trials.
Mill feed water addition is monitored on a magnetic flow
meter (FM01) and adjusted by a control valve (CV01) to
regulate the concentration of solids in the grinding chamber.
A similar control valve and flow meter combination (CV02,
FM02) is used to set the rate of water addition into the mill
body sprays or mill sump. The sump level is monitored by a
pressure transmitter (PT01) via a water-purged dip tube, and
controlled by adjusting the speed of the sump pump (PU01).
This measure prevents the pump operating in snoring duty,
thereby ensuring bubble-free flow. The accurate measurement
of product flow rate (FM03) and density is provided by the
nuclear density gauge (DG01) fitted onto the slurry discharge
pipe. Measurement of product flow rate and density enables
calculation of mass flow of solids through the mill and hence
the calculation of specific grinding energy.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Ongoing Mill Performance Test Work
One of the main areas of immediate focus for Hicom
International is to provide mining and minerals process
companies that are planning green-fields projects, plant
expansions or mill upgrades the opportunity to determine the
cost effectiveness of Hicom mills for their proposed milling
duties. In the first instance this can be achieved by the
minerals company sending approximately one kg samples of
feed material to the R & D division of Hicom International in
Sydney for pilot scale mill performance appraisal. In this way
the cost effectiveness of the Hicom mill can be assessed for
specific grinding duties in proposed projects and plant
upgrades.
Completion of additional containerised demonstration
mills
The completion of several additional containerized
demonstration Hicom mills later in 1999 will facilitate the
ease with which the mining industry can further assess the
performance of Hicom mills, especially in fine grinding
applications.
Fast-tracking the manufacture of higher throughput mills
Plans are well advanced for the final design, manufacture and
testing of 350 kW and 1,000 kW high intensity grinding
mills, with the aim to have them available during the year
2000 - 2001. The advent of these significantly higher
throughput models will provide the mineral process industry
the opportunity to apply Hicom comminution technology to a
greater number of projects, than is the case with the existing
55 kW and 110 kW models. It is expected that this will lead
to the sale of an increasing number of Hicom mills into the
gold, nickel, platinum, copper and industrial minerals process
sectors during the next few years.
Consolidation of international sales offices and
manufacturing expansion
At present Hicom International operates from sales bases in
Australia, Canada, France, South Africa, and the UK. An
office in the USA is planned for 1999. Mill manufacture at
present is in Sydney, and international manufacturing
expansion will take place as demand builds from the various
market sectors that have been discussed in this paper.
Summary Conclusion
Sufficient research and industry work has been undertaken by
Hicom International to demonstrate some of the benefits of
high intensity grinding in the Hicom mill. The development
of the mill so far indicates that there is potential for many of
the quite unique characteristics of the mill to be translated
into economic and technical benefits to many sectors of the
mining industry. The development of this potential will be the
Company's continuing focus in the years to come.
REFERENCES
For much of its technical focus and description, this paper
relies on a considerable body of work previously undertaken
and published by J. M. Boyes and D. I. Hoyer. The two main
published works from which such references are drawn are
listed below.
Hoyer D.I. and Boyes J.M., 1994, "High intensity fine and
ultrafine grinding in the Hicom mill" - Journal of the Xvth
CMMI Congress, Johannesburg, Vol. 2 pp 435-441.
Hoyer D.I., 1996, "High intensity size reduction in the Hicom
mill", Chemica '96, Comminution Workshop Forum, Centre
for Minerals Engineering, University of NSW, Sydney.