MONSAG: A new monitoring system for measuring the load filling of a SAG mill

The utilization and availability of large SAG mills depends strongly on the stability of the controlled load filling. A too large or too small load filling conducts to unproductive operating conditions or to an aggressive operation for the liners, respectively. monitoring system (MONSAG) intended for indirect measurement of the load filling of a SAG mill is presented. The operating principle is based on the processing of electrical variables of the motor vector-control and process variables, complementing the typical bearing pressure measurement and contributing to the process control quality. The method can be applied for any kind of synchronous mill motor. s of an actual application are presented, namely for a 15 000 Hp SAG mill showing a good correlation with the filling measured by visual inspections. Using this new system, production average was improved by about 3.2% and specific energy consumption (kWh/Ton) was improved by 3.8%.