Challenge

The wear on conventional rotary grinding drum liners and media is very high. This is wear is due to the large number of forceful impacts caused by dropping of the material and media inside the drum during the course of processing.

Approach

General Kinematics design team set out to create a better grinding solution that would increase the performance of the grind while reducing wear to the mechanical components involved in the process.

Solution

General Kinematics designed a vibratory grinding mill that uses 10-20 times as many medium energy impacts to grind material. The material motion of the VIBRA-DRUM tumbles both the media and the product all while rapidly impacting the product to fracture it into smaller particles.

Results

In one installation, General Kinematics Vibra-Drum is grinding Zirconium Oxide using alumina media in combination with a ceramic brick liner. The original 1″ thick liner is still in use after 8 years of constant running. In the second installation, a Vibra-Drum is grinding Tungsten Carbide with Tungsten carbide media with an AR 400 Steel liner. The original 1″ thick liner is still in use after 12 years. Both applications significantly reduced operating costs while improving productivity and product quality.