The correlations between the mean particle size in grinding and physico-mechanical properties of igneous rocks

Abstract

Igneous rocks are ground for different purposes. Mean particle size (d50) can be a quantitative measure of grindability at the same grinding conditions. The prediction of d50 is useful for the mining engineers. For this reason, to investigate the relations between the d50 and physico-mechanical properties of igneous rocks, five different rocks including granite, basalt and andesite were tested in the laboratory. d50 values obtained from the size distribution plots were correlated with the corresponding physico-mechanical properties. Good correlations between the d50 and physico-mechanical properties could not be found using the simple regression analysis. However, the prediction equations having strong correlation coefficients were developed for the d50 using the multiple regression analysis. It was concluded that the d50 of igneous rocks can be predicted from the equations developed from the multiple regression analysis especially for preliminary investigations. The derived equations including index test values are also important for the practical consideration. Further research is necessary to check the validity of the derived equations for the other rock types.