One of the giants of comminution is undoubtedly Prof. Alban Lynch, who I had the honour of interviewing a year ago (posting of 11 August 2014). Amongst his many honours, last year he was inaugurated into International Mining's Hall of Fame.
I last saw him in Brisbane in 2010 where he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the IMPC (posting of 8th September 2010) and where his latest book, The History of Flotation, co-authored with Greg Harbort and Mike Nelson was launched (posting of 7th September 2010).
Great to hear therefore that a new work, set to become a seminal volume, is to be launched at Metplant '15 in Perth on September 7th. The Comminution Handbook, edited by Alban Lynch, is a new publication from The AusIMM with chapters from experts in all fields of comminution.
Most mineral processors think of grinding as wet grinding of mineral ores. On the first page Alban gently reminds us that more than twice this tonnage of cement and coal is subjected to fine dry grinding. So this text includes contributions on the whole array of crushing, grinding and classification equipment used to comminute the wide range of materials demanded by our communities. Of course, the discussion would not be complete without the explanations of sizing techniques, classification, testing and scale-up methods, mineral liberation, circuit design, process control, circuit practice and recent technology developments. It should haunt us that more efficient devices such as high-pressure grinding rolls and tower mills were common in dry grinding at least 25 years before they were discovered for ore grinding. This book may help ensure that we don’t let that happen again.
The handbook begins with mineralogy, and reviews mineral liberation theory and quantitative analytical tools before addressing machines and circuits. Chapters 4 – 10 address types of comminution and classification machines including tumbling mills, crushers, stirred mills and HPGR, then chapters 11 – 16 cover circuit design, process control and modelling. Unlike classic mineral processing texts, this handbook gives substantial attention to comminution in the coal and cement industries as well as hard rock mining. The purpose of the book is to present comminution as it is today to those with the responsibility of improving the technology in the future.
The volume should appeal to professionals who are involved in, or have an interest in, comminution, metallurgy and related fields.
I last saw him in Brisbane in 2010 where he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the IMPC (posting of 8th September 2010) and where his latest book, The History of Flotation, co-authored with Greg Harbort and Mike Nelson was launched (posting of 7th September 2010).
Most mineral processors think of grinding as wet grinding of mineral ores. On the first page Alban gently reminds us that more than twice this tonnage of cement and coal is subjected to fine dry grinding. So this text includes contributions on the whole array of crushing, grinding and classification equipment used to comminute the wide range of materials demanded by our communities. Of course, the discussion would not be complete without the explanations of sizing techniques, classification, testing and scale-up methods, mineral liberation, circuit design, process control, circuit practice and recent technology developments. It should haunt us that more efficient devices such as high-pressure grinding rolls and tower mills were common in dry grinding at least 25 years before they were discovered for ore grinding. This book may help ensure that we don’t let that happen again.
The handbook begins with mineralogy, and reviews mineral liberation theory and quantitative analytical tools before addressing machines and circuits. Chapters 4 – 10 address types of comminution and classification machines including tumbling mills, crushers, stirred mills and HPGR, then chapters 11 – 16 cover circuit design, process control and modelling. Unlike classic mineral processing texts, this handbook gives substantial attention to comminution in the coal and cement industries as well as hard rock mining. The purpose of the book is to present comminution as it is today to those with the responsibility of improving the technology in the future.
The volume should appeal to professionals who are involved in, or have an interest in, comminution, metallurgy and related fields.
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I am glad to read a preview of another land mark book from Dr.Lynch; I am sure practicing engineers would have a fresh look at comminution and as you rightly pointed out, we should look around at other industries and see how we can adopt/modify to suit our needs.
ReplyDeleteRao,T.C.
Sounds like the definitive work, can't wait to get my hands on a copy.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Alban Lynch and the contributors.