SAG mill operators adjust speed, ball charge, and feed rate using experience and shift-to-shift handover notes because the relationship between feed ore hardness, mill load, cyclone overflow P80, and specific energy consumption is never modeled across a full shift sequence. Bond Work Index measurements from the lab arrive hours after the ore has already been processed. Energy bills for comminution can exceed 50% of total site power consumption, but the operating envelope that maximizes tonnes per kWh is never formally defined - it is approximated and re-approximated each shift.
Built For
Process Metallurgist optimizing SAG and ball mill circuits across a 45,000 tpd concentrator with variable ore hardness and mineralogy
Don't build from scratch. Deploy a pre-trained specialist agent instantly.
Process / Plant Engineer
Optimizes SAG and ball mill operating parameters to maximize throughput per kWh across variable ore hardness conditions.
Mine Geologist / Grade Control
Provides ore hardness domain predictions from the geological model to enable proactive comminution parameter adjustments before hard ore reaches the mill.
Mine Planner / Operations
Adjusts ore blend sequencing from stockpile and ROM to manage feed hardness variability and maintain mill throughput targets.
Lumina correlates SAG mill feed hardness indices, ball charge level, motor draw, bearing pressure, cyclone overflow particle size, and downstream recovery against energy consumption to identify the operating conditions that maximize throughput per kWh without sacrificing flotation feed quality.
Drag and drop your CSVs. No complex pipelines required.
Ask questions in plain English, get instant answers.
When feed Bond Work Index sits below 14 kWh/t, holding ball charge at 12% and feed rate near 1,950 t/h delivered 5.6 kWh/t specific energy, but the same settings on harder 17 kWh/t ore pushed specific energy to 7.9 kWh/t while throughput fell 8%. The data shows a clear envelope: for hard-ore shifts, lifting ball charge to 14% and trimming feed to 1,820 t/h recovers about 90 t/h at no extra energy cost. Recommend a hardness-indexed setpoint table and advance notice from grade control when hard domains enter the blend.