Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy

Transactions of the Institutions of Mining and Metallurgy: Section C

ISSN: 0371-9553 (Print) 1743-2855 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ympm20

Extending breakage characterisation to fine sizes

by impact on particle beds
G K P Barrios, R M de Carvalho & L M Tavares
To cite this article: G K P Barrios, R M de Carvalho & L M Tavares (2011) Extending breakage
characterisation to fine sizes by impact on particle beds, Mineral Processing and Extractive
Metallurgy, 120:1, 37-44, DOI: 10.1179/1743285510Y.0000000002
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1743285510Y.0000000002

Published online: 12 Nov 2013.

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Date: 16 November 2016, At: 21:05

Extending breakage characterisation to fine

sizes by impact on particle beds
G. K. P. Barrios, R. M. de Carvalho and L. M. Tavares*
Mathematical models used to describe size reduction processes have been undergoing
significant advances in recent years, demanding progressively more detailed information
characterising ore response to the mechanical environment. In most crushers and grinding
mills, the stressing rate is moderate to high, so it is relevant to understand the response of
particles to impact loading. Single particle breakage has been a very useful tool to characterise
material response for mathematical modelling and simulation of comminution machines. However,
finer sizes, which represent a significant proportion of the material contained in most grinding
mills, are not generally characterised by breaking single particles given the tediousness involved
in conducting the test. In the present work, a standard breakage test that aims at overcoming this
limitation has been proposed. It is based on carefully conducted bed breakage experiments and
a fitting routine, which allows predicting breakage of particles down to ,100 mm in size as a
function of stressing energy. The model has been calibrated with selected materials and
demonstrated to be capable of providing a reasonably good fit to experimental data, as well as to
predict breakage at finer particle sizes.
Keywords: Particle breakage, Impact, Fracture energy, Comminution

Introduction
Data from single particle impact breakage tests have
been used consistently for the last 25 years or so to
characterise materials for modelling crushers and
mills.1,2 These tests were proposed as a way to decouple
material specific properties from machine specific
properties, which are invariably combined in standard
laboratory crushing and grinding tests that became the
norm in the industry.3
However, standard single particle breakage testing
procedures have been generally fairly limited when
compared to the range of particle sizes that are crushed
and ground in the industry. For instance, in the original
device that was used to characterise breakage for
comminution modelling in the Julius Kruttschnitt
Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC), i.e. the twin
pendulum, pendulums of two sizes were used to cover
the particle size range from 31?5 to 4?75 mm in the
standard test.2,3 One limitation identified in extending
the test to finer sizes using this device was the labour
intensive operation of sticking individual particles onto
the face of the horizontally oriented rebound pendulum.
This test was later replaced by the JK drop weight
tester,3 in which particles contained in narrow size
fractions in the range from 63 to 13?2 mm were tested in
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro (COPPE/UFRJ), Cx. Postal 68505, CEP 21941972, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
*Corresponding author, email tavares@ufrj.br

2011 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and The AusIMM

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute and The AusIMM
Received 17 August 2010; accepted 4 November 2010
DOI 10.1179/1743285510Y.0000000002

a single device using different drop weights and heights.

Other authors4 recently demonstrated that breakage
characterisation over a wider range of particle sizes was
possible using three different drop weight testers, which
allowed covering a range from 90 to ,2?36 mm in size.
Extending the test to even finer sizes was not found to be
generally practical given the large number of particles
that must be tested individually in order to collect
enough fragments for size analyses.
Recognising the labour intensive task of testing single
particles in these devices, researchers at the JKMRC
recently modified a rotary breakage tester that was
originally developed by Klaus Schonert,5 i.e. the
JKRBT, as an alternative to the drop weight tester. In
the device, particles from 45 to 13?2 mm in size,
contained in narrow size ranges, can be rapidly and
conveniently tested in a single machine, which can
handle particles as fine as 2?36 mm.6 Vogel and Peukert7
demonstrated that a miniature version of the rotary
breakage tester, which operates under vacuum and at
high speeds, could be used to test particles as fine as
50 mm, although with a more limited control of the
specific impact energies of individual particles that are
projected by the rotor, given the effect of air drag.
When the sizes of particles ground in most media mills
and those that are routinely subjected to single particle
breakage tests are compared, an evident mismatch
exists, which is characterised by the lack of information
in fine particle breakage response. However, this was not
generally identified as a major limitation to particle
testing in the past,3 probably because single particle

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breakage data were only used to estimate the breakage

function in the fairly crude phenomenological models
available at the time. Only more recently this mismatch
between the range of particle sizes tested and those that
are actually ground in machines, such as ball mills, was
recognised as a greater limitation in the appropriate use
of mechanistic models of comminution devices. In these
models, which aim at describing details of the energy
transfer from the equipment to the particles, precise
breakage characterisation becomes of key importance.
Examples of models that could benefit from such data
are those in which particle breakage is simulated within
the discrete element model framework8,9 and those in
which the discrete element model framework solely
provides the stressing energy spectra, leaving the task of
predicting breakage to population balance models.10,11
In one of the approaches used in modelling crushers
and mills,1012 a need was identified for knowing not
only the relationship between energy and product
fineness (that is, the energy specific breakage function)
but also the particle breakage probability. In this
context, a device, called impact load cell, has been used
to determine the distribution of particle fracture
energies, which is equivalent to the particle breakage
probability.13 Although cement clinker particles of sizes
as fine as 0?25 mm have been tested with success in the
past using miniature versions of this device,14 it is worth
noting that it suffers from important limitations in
testing particles contained in such fine size ranges. These
limitations are associated both to the high resolution
demanded of the device15 and to the tedious task of
placing particles one by one on top of the anvil and
making sure that they get hit head-on by a falling striker.
The present paper proposes a standard particle bed
breakage test that uses a flat impactor as a means of
testing particles down to ,150 mm in size. It demonstrates that, when used along with single particle
breakage tests for particles coarser than ,2?36 mm,
the test allows extended particle breakage characterisation by impact over a range of sizes that cover a ratio of
over 1 : 500. Such data can then be used to describe the
impact breakage of particles in a variety of crushers and
grinding mills with the aid of mechanistic comminution
models.

Single particle breakage

characterisation
Characterisation of breakage of single particles in the
proposed approach begins with measuring the distribution of fracture energies of particles contained in sizes
typically above 2?36 mm using the impact load cell.
It has been widely demonstrated3,16 that particles
require a minimum amount of energy in order to break
catastrophically. This mode of breakage, called body

1 Distribution of particle fracture energies for different

sizes of copper ore

breakage, is characterised by the particle fracture

energy, which varies from particle to particle, depending
on their individual size, shape, flaw structure and
composition. In this context, breakage is here defined
as the event in which a particle loses at least 10% of its
original weight.13,16 A great deal of data exist that
demonstrates that the distribution of fracture energies of
particles of a given material contained in a narrow size
range can be well described using the lognormal
distribution given by13
2
0
13
16
Bln Em { ln Em50,j C7
Fj (Em )~ 41zerf @
A5

1=2
2
2 s2j

(1)

where Em50,j is the median particle fracture energy, and

s2j is the variance of the distribution. A comparison
between data from single particle impact breakage tests
in the impact load cell13 for a copper ore and
equation (1) is presented in Fig. 1.
These distributions often vary significantly with
particle size. The distributions of fracture energies are
normally determined by testing particles contained in
narrow size ranges (typically within a 21/4 series of
sieves) such that the upper sizes of the fractions analysed
follow a geometric progression of ratio equal to 2
(Table 1).
When the stressing or collision energy is higher than
the fracture energy of the particle, then the particle will
break, generating progeny fragments (Fig. 2). The
greater the stressing energy, the finer the distribution
of progeny fragments. This reduction in fineness of the
progeny with increasing applied energy has been
described very successfully using the t10 procedure,
which was originally proposed by Narayanan and
Whiten.17 The size distribution from impacts at a

Table 1 Size ranges and impact energies proposed in the standard single particle and particle bed drop weight testing
Mode

Size ranges/mm

Specific impact energies Em/kWh t21

Single particle

90.075.0
45.037.5/22.419.0/11.29.5
5.64.75/2.832.36
1.401.18/0.7000.590
0.3500.300
0.1800.150

0.1
0.25
1.0
1.0
2.5
5.0

Particle bed

38

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1.0
2.5
2.5
5.0
10

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breakage,16 and their inclusion in a future revision of the

model might be worthwhile.
Given that the influences of particle size and stressing
energy are reasonably accounted for in equation (2),
parameters A and b9 may be recognised as being
independent of material strength and particle size, being
essentially dependent only on fragmentation pattern and
microstructure and thus material functions.20
From the t10 value calculated using equation (2), it is
then possible to estimate the proportions passing (tn
values) different fractions of the original particle size for
each stressing energy and particle size investigated. This
is carried out with the aid of a model that is based on the
incomplete beta function given by19

2 Progeny size distributions from testing of single particles of copper ore

tn (t10 )~ 1

t10 =100

100
xan {1 (1{x)

xan {1 (1{x)bn {1 dx (3)

bn {1

dx

specific energy Em on particles contained in size class j is

calculated by first estimating the fraction of material
passing one-tenth of the original particle size, called t10,
using the expression18



Em
t10,j ~A 1{ exp {b0
(2)
Em50b,j
where A and b9 are model parameters, and Em50b,j is the
median mass specific particle fracture energy of the
particles that are broken as a result of the impact of
magnitude Em. When the collision energy is higher than
the fracture energy of the toughest particle contained in
size class j, then Em50b,j5Em50,j;, otherwise, it should be
calculated numerically.11 The validity of equation (2) in
describing single particle breakage data has been
demonstrated in other publications.16,19 Figure 3 compares experimental data to the model fit and shows a
significant scatter in the graph and the presence of some
bias in the model, since for the copper ore studied, it was
found to overestimate breakage (t10) of some particle
sizes contained in coarser ranges and underestimate
breakage of some particle sizes contained in finer ranges.
However, such bias may be attributed to effects that are
unaccounted in the model and that are inadvertently
varied in testing, such as impact velocity and particle
shape. These variables have been previously found to
have an important, although secondary, role in particle

3 Relationship between measured t10 values and tted

using equation (2) for copper ore

where each tn is the per cent passing in a dj/n size, in which

dj is the original size of the particle. an and bn are
parameters that must be fit to experimental data. The
agreement between equation (3) and single particle
breakage data for a copper ore is demonstrated in
Fig. 4. The size normalisable and energy specific breakage function is then obtained by interpolating the various
tns so that the elements of the breakage matrix are
0
calculated by Bij (Em )~interp(t10 ,tn ). For some materials,
this normalisable description with respect to size was not
found to be capable of describing the breakage data
appropriately.4 For these materials, it was identified that
below a given size d*, fragmentation patterns changed
owing to some influence of material microstructure. The
general form of the energy specific breakage function that
incorporates this effect is given by
8
0

>
< ~Bij (Em ) for di wd


l
Bij (Em )
(4)
> ~B0 (Em ) di for di d 
:
ij
d
where d* and l are material specific parameters that
must be fit to single particle breakage data. d* represents
the particle size below which the breakage function is no
longer normalisable, i.e. the minimum normalisation
size. Evidently, for materials whose size distributions are

4 Relationship between t10 and various tn values for copper ore

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5 Drop weight tester used in breakage of ne particles

normalisable with respect to size over the entire range of

0
particle sizes of interest, Bij (Em )~Bij (Em ). The breakage
function in density form may then be calculated by
bii (Em )~1{Bii (Em )

(5)

bij (Em )~Bi{1,j (Em ){Bij (Em )

In analogy to the distribution of particle fracture

energies, energy specific breakage functions are also
measured using data contained in narrow size ranges,
with upper ranges of each interval typically following a
geometric progression with ratio 2 (Table 1). In addition, the specific impact energies used in the tests are
typically chosen according to Table 1. These impact
energies should be high enough to guarantee breakage of
all particles contained in the sample, given that only
under these conditions the progeny size distribution
from the test is equivalent to the single particle breakage
function. Therefore, in the case of extremely tough
materials, it becomes usually necessary to raise the
impact energies in comparison to those suggested.
In analogy to A and b9 in equation (2), the parameters
in equations (3) and (4) are also understood to be
material functions that are likely to depend only on the
fragmentation pattern, so they should be valid for sizes
that are finer than those tested using single particles.19
One important exception is the case in which the parent
particle size dj is equal or smaller than the minimum

6 Effect of mass of sample contained in bed (and its original diameter under packed conditions) and size analysis of limestone particles spread in bed of diameter
35 mm impacted at 2?5 kWh t21

normalization size d*. In this case, it has been found to

be necessary to have a new set of parameters for the
breakage function (equations (4) and (5)) to describe
breakage of finer particles.
A summary of single particle breakage parameters for
the selected materials investigated in the present study is
shown in Table 2.

Fine particle breakage characterisation

Experimental
The experimental set-up used in characterising breakage
of particles from impacts on beds is essentially a drop
weight tester, which has an anvil, linear guides for the
flat ended cylindrical drop weight and a release system
that consists of an electromagnet (Fig. 5). Great care
was taken in choosing linear guides and rollers that do
not introduce measurable losses of kinetic energy in the
dropping weight. Measurements conducted with a
system consisting of a laser and a photo diode
demonstrated that impact velocities are in excess of
95% of free fall, provided that the drop heights are
greater than ,2 cm.

Table 2 Summary of single particle breakage model parameters

Specific gravity r/g cm23

Fracture energy distribution

Breakage function

40

E/kWh t21
do/mm
w
s
d9/mm
h
A
b9
d*
l
a1?2/b1?2
a1?5/b1?5
a2/b2
a4/b4
a25/b25
a50/b50
a75/b75

Granulite

Copper ore

Limestone

2.79
0.0363
1.143
1.994
0.902
0.173
1.652
47.52
0.0273
0.165
0.642
0.433/10.26
0.915/10.74
1.312/9.148
1.182/2.974
0.927/0.492
0.922/0.389
0.903/0.313

2.93
0.0593
8.073
1.219
0.608
0.837
0.618
67.71
0.0294
0.060
1.006
0.505/11.95
1.066/13.87
1.014/8.088
1.084/3.027
1.012/0.527
1.026/0.363
1.0343/0.295

2.73
0.0044
11.11
1.407
0.390
10.47
0.081
53.25
0.0328

0.155/6.219
0.397/5.468
0.770/5.538
1.106/3.076
1.165/0.540
1.481/0.413
1.776/0.365

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7 Comparisons between single particle breakage and bed breakage tests of two sizes of copper ore

Great care was also taken in choosing precision linear

guides that also ensure that the falling weight is properly
aligned with the anvil, so the flat ended impactor collides
against the anvil such that the pressure from the impact
is uniformly applied on it. The proper alignment of the
system was verified by dropping the weight from various
heights against carbon paper placed on top of the anvil
and then verifying the impression left by it on a piece of
paper. Whenever any evidence was found of uneven
coloration on the sheet of paper, additional efforts were
made to grind and polish the surfaces and verify the
alignment of the guiding system. Such verification was
found to be particularly critical before testing particles
contained in the finest size ranges examined.
The drop height h used in each test was calculated on
the basis of the drop weight mb and the specific impact
energy Em chosen so that
h~

Em M
mb g

(6)

where M is the sample bed weight, and g is the

acceleration due to gravity.
In the proposed test, it is important to optimise the
amount of material tested M so that particle interaction
is kept at a minimum, whereas a sufficient amount of
material is subjected to testing such that a large enough
sample becomes available for size analysis. Given the
diameter of the flat ended impactors used (50 mm) and
the results from their collisions directly against the anvil,
it was proposed that the sample to be tested should be
spread on the anvil as a disc measuring ,35 mm in
diameter.
The maximum amount of material that can be tested
in a bed was then determined by impacting narrow size
samples of different weights that were spread over a disc
measuring ,35 mm in diameter and comparing the
results. Figure 6 suggests that, as long as a maximum

amount of sample does not exceed the one contained in

a packed monolayer measuring 18 mm in diameter, then
acceptable results can be obtained.
From these results, the weight of the material
subjected to each testwork involving particles of
different sizes was then estimated on the basis of the
number of particles contained in a monolayer of packed
material in a bed of 18 mm of diameter, which would be
later spread in a disc of ,35 mm of diameter on top of
the anvil. Suggested values of the mass that should be
tested are given in Table 3 for materials with specific
gravities in the range of 2?52?8 g cm23 and contained
in different size ranges. In order to provide enough
material for a representative size analysis of the
fragments and also to guarantee that the precision in
the estimates of the amount of material retained in the
coarser ranges is acceptable, this test should be repeated
a number of times, as suggested in Table 3. Fragments
from the various batches are then collected and analysed
by sieving using small diameter sieves that allow
preventing losses of material during size analyses.
The validity of the procedure and equipment is
assessed by comparing single particle breakage to
particle bed breakage results in Fig. 7 for selected
specific impact energies and particle sizes. In spite of
every effort made to prevent particle interaction, Fig. 7
shows that, for a given particle size and impact energy,
greater fragmentation is produced by single particle
breakage than in bed breakage. Although this observation is in general agreement with the well known greater
efficiency in breakage of single particles than particle
beds, the differences found are within the scatter of the
data when fitting the model, as shown in Fig. 3.
Furthermore, differences between breakage of single
particles and monolayer particle beds were generally
found to be more significant at comparatively low
impact energies. This is illustrated in Fig. 8, which

Table 3 Estimation of sample weight used in particle bed breakage testing

Size range, mm

Suggested bed weight* M/g

Approximate number of particles in each bed

Number of repetitions

1.401.18
0.7000.590
0.3500.300
0.1800.150

0.4
0.2
0.1
0.05

147
589
2315
9000

8
10
12
16

*For materials with specific gravity in the range of 2?52?8 g cm23.

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8 Illustration of effect of different particle shapes on breakage of particles in bed

9 Comparison between measured size distributions and model t for copper ore for different sizes and impact energies

shows that, as particles have different shapes, the

stressing energy becomes unevenly distributed among
particles being impacted, leading to significant breakage
of some particles while others are preserved. Therefore,
the use of higher impact energies minimises, although it
does not eliminate, the differences between the two
stressing conditions. Although this was not used in the
present work, the difference between single particle and
particle bed breakage might suggest the need for a
correction factor when using data from the latter to
characterize particle breakage characteristics.

Parameter estimation
The approach that is proposed in the present work to
characterise breakage actually assumes that the fragmentation pattern remains the same for both the coarser
and the finer ranges of particles that are tested. As a
result, the parameters in equations (2)(4), which were
determined from testing individual particles contained in

coarser size ranges (Table 1), are assumed to remain

valid in breakage of fine particles (Table 3).
Assuming that all particles contained in the bed will
receive the same fraction of impact energy of the striker,
and considering that all particles impacted are contained
in size fraction 1, then the size distribution of the
progeny may be estimated by
^ 1 ~1{1{b11 (Em )F1 (Em )
w

(7)

and for i>2, it is given by

^ i ~bi1 (Em )F1 (Em )
w

(8)

where Em is the specific impact energy, and bi1(Em) is the

single particle energy specific breakage function in
density form, which is the fraction of particles contained
in size class i resulting from the impact on particles
contained in size class 1 (equation (7)). Fi represents the
probability of breakage of a particle contained in class i
when it receives energy of magnitude Em in the impact
event, which is equivalent to the distribution of particle
fracture energies (equation (1)).
Assuming that the single particle breakage functions
that are normalisable with respect to both size and
impact energy remain valid to describe breakage of finer
particles, the two parameters that should be estimated
from experimental data are Em50 and s for each size
fraction. From data collected using different specific
impact energies Em,k, progeny size distributions are
determined by sieving, giving wi(Em,k) for k different
specific impact energies. The optimal value of the fitting
parameters is determined by minimising the objective
function (sum of squares SS) so that for particles
contained in class i, it is given by
SS~

K X
N
X

h
i2
^ i (Em,k ){wi (Em,k )
vi w

(9)

k~1 i~1

10 Comparison between measured (lled symbols) and

estimated Em50 values (hollow symbols) and tting to
equation (10) (lines)

42

^ ik are the measured and estimated mass

where wik and w
fractions from the breakage of particles contained in the
original size class, and vi is a weight function.

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Median particle fracture energies Em50 vary according

to particle size. Typically, as particles become finer, they
also become tougher, and their specific fracture energies
increase (Fig. 1). This effect is observed when examining
both Em50 values estimated directly from the distribution
of particle fracture energies of single particle and values
estimated from size distributions from breakage of
particle beds (Fig. 10). An expression that can be used
to describe such variation is given by16
  Q 
do
(10)
Em50,i ~E? 1z
di

11 Comparison between measured (lled symbols) and

estimated s values (hollow symbols) and tting to
equation (11) (lines)

Fitting results and model validation

Typical experimental results for three size ranges of a
copper ore are presented in Fig. 9, along with the model
fit using the optimal Em50 and s values. It shows that the
model assumptions are generally valid given the good fit
of the model to the data.

where di is the representative size of particles contained

in the ith class, and E, do and w are model parameters
that should be fitted to experimental data.
In analogy to equation (10), the standard deviation of
the lognormal distribution of particle fracture energies
sometimes varies with size, often increasing as the
particle sizes decrease13,21 (Fig. 11). A relationship that
can be used to describe this variation is
"
 0 h #
d
(11)
si ~s? 1z
di
where d9 and h are fitting parameters.
Comparisons between measured and fitted values to
equations (10) and (11) are presented in Figs. 10 and 11,

12 Comparison of experimental results from particle bed tests and model predictions: model validation shown for copper
ore particles contained in 0?1060?090 mm size range (upper left graph)

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which show that the equations describe the data

reasonably well for the different materials investigated.
A summary of the parameters used to characterise the
material breakage characteristics is presented in Table 2.
The capacity of the model to interpolate the data is
demonstrated in Fig. 12 by comparing measured breakage results for the different materials at three distinct
size ranges to fitting results of the equations proposed in
the present work using parameters listed in Table 2. In
the case of one particular material (granulite), it was
found to be necessary to allow for a change in
fragmentation pattern for breakage of particles of
parent sizes smaller than d* (contained in size class
0?2120?150 mm) in order to achieve a reasonable model
fit. This required an additional fitting of parameters
from equation (4) for particles contained in this size.
Results are also presented in Fig. 12 for copper ore
particles contained in the size range of 10690 mm. Since
these data did not take part in the parameter fitting
work, it essentially demonstrates the potential of the
model not only to interpolate but also to extrapolate the
conditions (particle sizes) examined.

Conclusions
A procedure that allows extending single particle
breakage characterisation to sizes down to ,100 mm
from drop weight testing on particle beds has been
proposed. In spite of the lower efficiency of breakage of
particles in particle beds in comparison to single
particles, the proposed test offers a viable approach to
characterise breakage at such fine sizes.
These measurements, however, require the following.
1. Detailed breakage characterisation of coarse single
particles has been conducted.
2. Detailed models that describe fracture probability
and energy specific breakage functions have been
previously fit to single particle breakage data.
3. A very well aligned experimental setup has been
used and the experiments have been conducted with
great care using appropriately chosen specific impact
energies and sample weights.
Results show that the median fracture energies of
particles increase significantly, particularly for particle
size above ,1 mm, and, in some cases, the variability of
the data also increases with finer sizes.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the financial support
from the Brazilian research agencies CNPq and CAPES,
as well as from VALE and AMIRA, through the P9O
project.

44

References
1. S. E. A. Awachie: Development of crusher models using
laboratory breakage data, PhD thesis, University of Queensland
(JKMRC), Brisbane, Qld, Australia, 1983.
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