COMMINUTION STUDIES OF DIFFICULT GRINDABLE IRON ORES OF SOUTH INDIA—A case study on low-grade iron ores of Sandur, Karnataka, India.

The present study aims to study the communition characteristics of two difficult grindable low-grade iron ores of Sandur, Karnataka, South India. The two iron ore samples (Ore 1, Ore 2) were collected from different mines of the Sandur region of South India. The vast availability of low-grade ores and rising global consumption of iron and steel create the demand to process the low-grade ores of this area to meet the margins of steel industries, which in turn increases the attention on comminution studies as they are difficult to grind due to their fine liberation size and high energy consumption rate. Thus, it is important to optimize the grinding circuit with accurate models; predicting industrial mill performance models requires experimentally determined breakage parameters, with these values being established by laboratory tests.

An attempt is made to study the comminution characteristics of two ores by evaluating the energy consumption using the Standard Bonds Work index test followed by comparative studies of the jaw and roll crusher performance. The results revealed that the experimental and predicted values aligned well overall, suggesting the CEP model used for predicting crushing efficiency is reasonably accurate. Also, an attempt is made to Develop T-family curves using a single-particle breakage test with the standard Drop Weight Test to evaluate the relationship between the impact energy and particle size distribution.

The findings provide valuable insights for optimizing crushing and grinding operations across different ore types.