Experimental investigation on a grinding rate constant of solid materials by a ball mill—effect of ball diameter and feed size

In the present work, a grinding rate constant, i.e., a selection function was measured for five solid materials using a tumbling ball mill, and effects of a grinding ball diameter and a feed particle size on the grinding rate constant of the materials were investigated. The tendency in the variation of the grinding rate constant with the feed size was similar in the all materials used, but was independent of the ball diameter. These relations for all materials can be expressed by modifying Snow's equation. In addition, we examined the descriptions of the grinding rate constant using two kinds of selection functions derived theoretically by Tanaka.