Abstract:
In view of the importance of the crushing process in the mineral industry, it was studied from an experiment with quartz samples. Initially, two 3 kg samples were crushed in a jaw crusher, adjusted with a 1 '' opening. The fragmented portions were and the fraction retained was taken back to the crusher. This second crushing occurred with an opening of 0.5 ''. Again, the sieve was made in the same sieve. The third crushing cycle was carried out in a smooth roller crusher. After passing through the smooth rollers, the retained portion in the sieve was weighed. The obtained mass was then joined with one of the other samples from the previous stream. This process was repeated until 16 cycles were performed. In the 5th cycle, it was observed that the equilibrium condition was reached. In addition, the difference between the total retained mass and the passing mass could provide the circulating load of the system in each cycle, which can be used as a parameter to evaluate the process as a whole. On average, 46% of the circulating load was obtained in the cycles.