Monitoring and validation of life time prediction of cone crusher with respect to loading and feeding conditions

Paper in proceeding, 2016

The interest and need for compressive crushing in gyratory, cone and HPGR crushers are increasing since ores become more competent and more difficult to break. Compressive crushing is energy efficient as a consequence of the crushing principle and the imposed stress-state. The stress variations can be described by stress amplitudes and it is a known fact that many different materials, components and machines suffer from cyclic loading which shortens the service lifetime. This phenomena is explained by density variations of the particle beds in the equipment which in turn originates from particle segregation and feeding alignment. The phenomena is often called fatigue and the consequence is premature breakdowns and a relatively shorter lifetime than expected. In this paper, a previously developed theory for lifetime assessment of cone crushers will be used as a foundation for evaluation of full-scale operating cone crushers in minerals processing plants. Lifetime is calculated as a consequence of the load spectrum. The data shows that improper feeding conditions will substantially decrease the lifetime of the crusher equipment leading to excessive operating costs. An adequate control system should be able to recognise the hazardous lifetime decreasing overloads and to warn the operator. There are sometimes conflicting interests in the control strategies between production yield (process requirements) and crusher protection.