Power draw estimations in experimental tumbling mills using PEPT

Positron Emission Particle Tracking (PEPT) was employed to reconstruct the motion of mono-sized glass beads in an experimental tumbling mill run in batch mode. In each case, the derived trajectory field of a representative tracer particle was used to determine the charge power draw at steady state operation. Two approaches for calculating power draw were considered: the torque of the centre of mass about the mill centre, and the time averaged torque contribution per discrete grid cell summed over the volume of the mill. Results were compared across different operating conditions and particle sizes to measured power.