What is the best SAG mill liner material?
There is no best sag mill liner material. Different working conditionals need different material to suit.The selection of the material of construction is a function of the application, abrasive of ore, size of mill, corrosion environment, size of balls, mill speed, etc. liner design and material of construction are integral and cannot be chosen in isolation. A list of the primary material of construction is given, with the particular uses and strengths of each.
Austenitic Manganese Steel SAG Mill Liner
This is used for grid liners and generally smaller mills. Its great advantage is that it work hardens under stress, yet the substrate remains tough and can withstand extreme impacting without fracture. Its primary disadvantage is that it spreads with impact, so solid liners begin to squeeze together and become extremely difficult to remove, and can damage a mill shell if the stress is allowed to build up to an extreme level.
Low Carbon Chrome Moly Steel SAG Mill Liner (300 to 370BHN)
This material is generally used for mill liners (AG, SAG, and Ball) prior to the movement to higher carbon content steels. It has excellent wear characteristics with some impact resistance, generally now used for discharge grates where slightly better impact resistance is required compared to the higher carbon chrome-moly steels or for thinner section liners.
High Carbon Chrome Moly Steel SAG Mill Liner(325 to 380BHN)
This steel is now considered the main material used for SAG mill liners. There are a number of variations with either different carbon or chrome contents. The variations tend to have a bearing on the size of the liner and
its section thickness. There is ongoing development within this area as the size of the liners are outstripping the properties provided by the standard high chrome-moly steels.
Ni-hard Iron SAG Mill Liner (550BHN)
The use of this type of material generally began with Rod Mills and Ball Mills, where impacts were considered low enough for this brittle yet highly abrasive resistant wear material to perform well. However, it is now considered obsolete in light of the use of high chrome irons and chrome moly white iron.
High Chrome Irons (+600BHN) Cr Iron SAG Mill Liner
It is considered to have superior wear abrasion characteristics and is generally used in rod and ball mills. It is more cost competitive but more brittle than chrome moly white irons.
Chrome Moly White Irons SAG Mill Liner (600 to 700BHN)
This cast material is considered to be the ultimate developed and used to date for abrasion resistance in Milling. It is commonly used in cement mills and some of the largest Ball Mills in the world and where performance has not been bettered to date.
