The Impact of Key Operating Conditions on Grinding Media Consumption in the SAG Mill of Sungun Copper Complex

The industrial data gathered from the control room of the Phase 2 plant and the initial processing of the data were utilized in the SIMKA software which determined 13 parameters affecting the consumption of media in semi-autogenous grinding. Based on the results, it was found that in multivariate analysis methods, the amount of filling increases with increasing input tonnage. The filling is directly related to input tonnage and power and is associated with ball charge, which increases with increasing ball charge. By increasing the level of the grinding load, the amount of mineral-mineral collision decreases, and the ball-ball collision increases, causing the consumption of grinding media. The simulation results clearly showed that in the face of the problems created, instead of changing the size of the balls and enlarging them, which leads to the breaking of liners and nets, it is recommended to increase the percentage of ball accumulation to its maximum (%15), particularly in hard feed. This study clearly shows that the effect of particle size is even greater than the effect of particle hardness.