Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
A
cage mill is a versatile machine that applies high-
speed impact forces to crush, grind, or pulverize a Multirow cage mill components. A typical multirow cage
broad array of abrasive and nonabrasive friable mill consists of a fabricated steel housing that encloses
materials — both dry and wet — to a specified fineness. two, four, or six wheel-shaped cages. Each cage includes
The mill can achieve a size-reduction ratio (the ratio of a steel plate fitted with equally spaced pins (bars) arranged
feed particle size to final product particle size) as high as in a row around the cage perimeter. Pins can be configured
40-to-1 in one processing pass. in a close, medium, or wide spacing arrangement. The
pins’ opposite ends are attached to a one-piece steel ring
(or band) for rigidity. The cage assembly consists of one,
The cage mill’s high size-reduction ratio results from its two, or three outer cages and one, two, or three
shafts in opposite directions. The cage mill housing is center. As adjacent cages rotate in opposite directions,
fitted with liners to handle various operating conditions centrifugal force propels the particles from the innermost
and prevent abrasion. An intake hopper is located at the to the outermost cages. The farther away the particles
housing side and is linked to a chute that ends at the cage travel from the mill center, the higher their impact velocity
center. The cage mill doesn’t use screens or grates to as they repeatedly hit each successive cage’s pins, other
achieve desired product gradations, so material is particles, and the housing liners, and finally drop through
discharged out of the open housing bottom. the bottom outlet. Figure 2 shows a cutaway view of a cage
mill in action.
How it works. In operation, feed flows through the cage
mill’s intake hopper and chute, into the innermost cage’s The cage mill speed can range from as slow as 5,000 fpm
up to as high as 12,000 fpm, depending on the cage mill
Figure 1 size, the cage configuration diameter, and the mill design
and construction. This relationship is simple: the higher
the cages’ speed, the more energy is transferred to the
Cages for four-row mill material for size reduction, thus yielding a finer product
a. Outer cages gradation.
Steel plate
Figure 2
Steel ring
Four-row cage mill in operation
Feed entering the Intake
b. Inner cages hopper hopper
Housing
lining
Chute
Shaft
Bearing
Inner cage
Outer cage
Particles exiting
bottom outlet
Copyright CSC Publishing
mill’s speed, the feed’s bulk density, and the desired fertilizer, for crushing wet, sticky shale and clay in brick-
product size. Generally, larger cage mills have lower making, and for making manufactured sand for
operational cost per ton of output. construction. The four-row unit is commonly used for
pregrinding agricultural limestone and for pregrinding
Applications
coal in superfine grinding operations for transfer and
gasification processes. The six-row unit, while less
Multirow cage mills can handle heavy-duty applications commonly used, is still popular for grinding corn, malt,
involving hard, highly abrasive materials, as well as and rye for the distilling industry.
lighter-duty applications for reducing both abrasive and
nonabrasive materials. The mill also handles wet, sticky Carefully selecting and operating your cage mill will help
materials, such as clay and shale. it efficiently meet your size-reduction specs. The cage mill
supplier should test the cage mill’s performance with your
PBE
feed material and use the results to make process
adjustments to achieve the desired output.
Multirow cage mills can handle heavy-duty