The consumption of steel in wet grinding is a major cost in milling ore. An estimated one-half billion pounds of steel in the United States and over a billion pounds of steel in the world are consumed each year in wet grinding. The cost of this metal loss is between 100 million and 200 million dollars. Much lower metal loss rates which are attributed to abrasion occur in dry grinding. Figure 1 compares the metal loss in dry and wet ball milling for ores of varying abrasion levels.(1) Metal loss in pounds of steel per ton of ore is plotted versus the Abrasion Index for both wet and dry grinding. It is difficult to explain the large increase in the rate of metal loss between dry and wet grinding at a constant abrasion index unless some mechanism other than abrasion is involved in the grinding process. The mechanism to account for the large increase in metal loss with wet grinding almost certainly must be corrosion. Recognized authorities attribute 40 to 90% of the steel consumption during wet grinding to corrosion.

Subject
Steel surfaces, Materials, Inhibitor performance, Abrasion, Corrosion currents, Corrosion rate, Grinding, Abrasives, Metal loss, Minerals, Corrosion inhibitors, Steel, Corrosion potential
© 1976 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1976
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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