Challenge
The performance of a Grinding Mill depends heavily on the condition of the mill liners. The problem is that most operations do not know what state they are in unless the mill is stopped - which is a costly exercise.
How can you know what the state of your mill liners is without having to stop the mill?
Our Solution
IntelliSense.io's solution to this challenge is the Liner Wear Virtual Sensor.
The Grinding Application's Liner Wear Model tracks the state of the liners and lifters in the SAG or Ball Mill, by modelling the decrease in lifter height and angle across different liner sections in real-time. The model uses historical information/data about liner wear to relate the wear rate with mill throughput and operating regimes. It can predict the remaining life of the liner and advise operations well in advance on when to replace the liner.
This is provided to you as the Liner Wear Virtual Sensor, which outputs valuable variables such as:
The current state of the Mill Liner
The current wear rate
Early warning of when the liners will need to be replaced (per liner section)
Value
This much-needed transparency allows you to:
Improve the Mill's performance
Decrease the probability of unplanned Liner replacement/maintenance
Prevent unnecessary mill stoppages - thereby increasing throughput over time
Dashboard Example
This Virtual Sensor's outputs can be trended using a Dashboard. Below is an example of a Dashboard showing the Liner Wear Virtual Sensor with other Mill variables:
Navigate to SAG Mill Liners dashboard.
Select LIVE mode in the time picker.
View the main Liner Capacities on a Live Image widget, using a photo of the mill.
See the bar charts to see the live profiles of the Liner sections relative to each other.
See the time to liner replacement using Live text Widgets (in hours).
See a Mill Weight corrected for the actual Liner weight, in a Line Widget to see how it changes over time.
For more info, please do reach out to us via Intercom. We'd be happy to help!