Diagnostics of cone crusher feed segregation using power draw measurements

In comminution processes, the equipment normally operates at non-optimal conditions and due to poor access to crushers and deficient monitoring of them, this information is not acquired. Cone crushers have a crushing chamber that is revolved around its centre axis and crushing does not occur all at once but in a circular motion. This property gives rise to a potential non-optimal crushing in the form of power draw fluctuations due to the variance in feed across the crushing chamber with respect to e.g. mass flow, particle size distribution and other material properties. Studies have shown that a high rate of the power draw measurement provides the ability to expose a feeding miss-alignment. This paper shows how changes in the operation of the crusher, due to differences in feed material properties as a segregation, can be diagnosed and determined for future comminution process improvements.