Screening (Size Control)
Dr. A. K. Majumder
Department of Mining Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur - 721 302, India
Screening
❑ It is the mechanical separation of mineral
fragments by size, which to some extent is
influenced by the shape of the fragments.
❑The particles which are smaller than screen
opening pass through the screen while larger
particles either remain on the screen or fall off
at a designated place.
❑ Screening is a continuous process
performed on a large scale while sieving is
performed on sieves on a small batch Screen
laboratory scale.
Screening for Preliminary Sizing
Generally screening is the first operation in the plant flowsheet. In the coal preparation plant, screening may
be used for the following purposes:
1. Separation of coarse coal for hand picking and for breaking to smaller sizes
2. Removal of fine coal before a size reduction step
3. Separation of raw coal into two or more sizes for beneficiation in separate machines
4. By-passing fines or other sizes around the beneficiation operations or discarding them entirely
5. Recovering the separating medium used in coal beneficiation processes
6. Dewatering
7. Grading the coal into various trade sizes, each size to be beneficiated separately
Screening Applications
1. Raw coal screen: used to divide run-of-mine coal into two or more sizes for further
treatment or disposal; usually employed to remove the largest pieces for Crushing
2. Dewatering screen: used to separate water from solids
3. Desliming screen: used to remove slimes from coarse coal.
4. De-mediuming screen, De-pulping screen, medium-draining screen, Medium
recovery screen: used to drain the separating medium.
5. Sizing screen: used to divide the product i.e. washed coal into a range of sizes.
6. Check screen, Oversize control screen: used to prevent oversize coal to feed into next
operation.
7. Undersize control screen: used to remove undersize coal from a product.
Types of Coal Screens
The types of screens used for screening coal in industries are as
follows:
1. Fixed bar or Grizzlies
2. Revolving Trommel
3. Shaking or Jigging
4. Vibrating
5. Dutch State Mines (DSM)
Fixed Bar Grizzly
Fixed bar grizzlies are used for sizing coarse coal.
It consists of parallel bars set at an angle to the
horizontal so that the coal delivered to their higher
ends slides down over them by gravity.
They are simple and cheap to install and operate, have
large capacities, require no power and little attention,
and withstand rough service.
The disadvantage of fixed bar grizzly is that long, flat
pieces, pass through the bars, and with wet coal
manual raking may be required to screen the coal and
keep it moving.
Revolving Trommel
Revolving trommel screens consist of punched plates or wire
mesh, bend to form a cylinder, which is rotated about its axis. The
speed of rotation is 8–30 rpm.
The axis is set at a slight inclination to the horizontal so that when
coal is fed at the upper end, oversize material will traverse the
screen longitudinally whilst undersize passes through the holes.
Trommels can be made to deliver several sized products by
having smaller apertures at the feed end and coarser apertures at
the discharge end.
The main problem is that the fine screen wears quickly, as the
whole of the feed must be fed on to it.
Although trommels are cheap, vibration free and robust, they
have poor capacities since part of the screen surface only is in use
at any one time and they blind very easily.
Shaking or Jigging Screens
Shaking screens have a reciprocating movement mechanically
induced in the horizontal direction and are mounted either
horizontally or with a gentle slope.
The screen is mounted on flexible supports and is connected to
an eccentric, or other driving mechanism which moves the screen
backwards and forwards.
This motion together with the slope of the screen, causes the
particles to slide jerkily in contact with the screen.
Screens of this type are efficient for sizes down to about ¼ inch.
They are accessible, cheap to operate, and have a high capacity; in
consequence, they are widely used dry in modern colliery practice.
Vibrating Screens
Vibrating screens are flat screens made of wire mesh where
vibration is induced vertically either by the rotation of a
mechanical reciprocating device applied to the casing.
Vibrating screens are used principally in making separations of
3/8 inch coal or less.
By the use of screen with two or three decks, each with a
different mesh, several sizes of coal can be produced.
Forward motion at the feed end serves to move oversize
material rapidly out of the feed zone to keep the bed as thin
as possible. This action facilitates passage of fines which
should be completely removed in the first one-third of the Vibrating banana (multi-slope) screen used in
screen length. coal processing
DSM Sieve Bend
The sieve bend developed by the Dutch States Mines in the early
1950s, is a stationary curved screen composed of horizontal
wedge bars oriented at right angles to the line of flow.
In operation, the feed slurry is introduced through a feed
chamber mounted at the top of the screen and is distributed
over the top end of the screen surface.
Feed slurry enters tangentially to the upper surface in a
direction perpendicular to the openings between wedge bars.
This feed slurry action on the concave screen surface imparts
centrifugal action in addition to the gravitational force.
Sieve bends make a relatively sharp separation at ½ and 2/3
the slot width. This feature is particularly advantageous
because it practically eliminates blinding of the screen surface.
Selection of a Screen
Factors affecting the selection of a Screen are as below:
1. Size distribution of the coal to be screened
2. Density of the coal
3. Size at which the coal must be screened
4. Moisture content of the feed if dry screening must be done
5. The reasonable screening efficiency required
6. Nature of the coal, i.e. it is flaky or wedge-shaped, etc.
7. The screening duty i.e. sizing, dewatering, drain & rinse,
desliming, etc.
Screen efficiency
A screen is said to behave perfectly if, in a mixture of different sizes of materials, all
material of a particular size less than the screen aperture is separated from the mix.
In general, absolute separation of different sized particles using a screen is difficult
as it involves probabilities of movement of particles at different stages that may be
difficult to determine.
Hence it is necessary to express the efficiency of the process.
Screen efficiency (often called the effectiveness of a screen) is a measure of the
success of a screen in closely separating oversize and undersize materials.
There is no standard method for defining the screen efficiency.
Depending on whether one is interested in removing oversize or undersize material,
screening efficiencies may be defined in a number of ways.
Screen efficiency can be calculated based on the amount of material recovered at a
given size.
In an industrial screening operation, it is to be specified whether the required
material is oversize or undersize or both.
For the oversize material,
𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒃𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏
𝑺𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 = 𝜼 =
𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅
For the undersize material,
𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒃𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏
𝑺𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 = 𝜼 =
𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅
In an industrial screen, if there are no broken or deformed apertures and screen is
perfectly made, no single coarse particle coarser than the size of aperture pass
through.
Therefore, above definitions are applicable under such assumed conditions.
In reality, some coarse particles, may be less in quantity, will report to underflow
fraction.
Under such cases, equations for efficiency can be derived by writing mass balance
equations on the screen as follows:
Total mass balance of the material, 𝑭 = 𝑷 + 𝑼
Mass balance of oversize material, 𝑭𝒇 = 𝑷𝒑 + 𝑼𝒖
Mass balance of undersize material, 𝑭(𝟏 − 𝒇 ) = 𝑷(𝟏 − 𝒑) + 𝑼(𝟏 − 𝒖)
Where,
F = Amount of material in the feed
P = Amount of overflow material obtained from the screen
U = Amount of underflow material obtained from the screen
f = fraction of oversize material in the feed
p = fraction of oversize material in the overflow obtained from the screen
u = fraction of oversize material in the underflow obtained from the screen
𝑃 𝑓– 𝑢 𝑈 𝑝 − 𝑓
𝑂𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑢𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑤𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑡 = 𝑎𝑛𝑑 =
𝐹 𝑝 − 𝑢 𝐹 𝑝 − 𝑢
𝑃𝑝 𝑝 𝑓−𝑢
𝜼𝑝 = =
𝐹𝑓 𝑓 𝑝−𝑢
A Combined overall efficiency, or overall effectiveness, 𝜼, is then obtained by multiplying the above
two equations together
If there are no broken or deformed apertures and screen is perfectly made, no single coarse particle
will pass through the screen, i.e., u = 0. Then, the formula for fines recovery, 𝜼𝒖, and the formula for
overall efficiency, 𝜼 , both reduce to
𝒑 − 𝒇
𝜼𝒖 =
𝒑 𝟏−𝒇
This formula is widely used and implies that recovery of the coarse material in the overflow is 100%
These formulae do not give an absolute value of the efficiency, as no allowance
is made for the difficulty of the separation.
A feed composed mainly of particles of a size near to that of the screen aperture
– near mesh size material (near size material) – presents a more difficult
separation than a feed composed mainly of very coarse and very fine particles
with a screen aperture intermediate between them.
In such cases, it is proposed to define the efficiency as the ratio of the near mesh
size material taken out by the screen to the near mesh material present in the
feed.
Illustrative example: A sample is screened through a 1.5mm screen to obtain +1.5mm fraction. The
size analysis of the feed, overflow and underflow is given in the table below;
Size analysis of feed, overflow, and underflow
Weight percent retained
Screen Size, Feed Overflow Underflow
mm
3.3 3.5 7.0 -
2.3 13.5 36.0 -
1.5 33.0 37.0 15.0
1.0 22.7 13.0 43.0 Calculate the effectiveness of the screen.
0.8 16.0 4.0 25.0
0.6 5.4 3.0 8.0
0.4 2.1 - 3.0
0.2 1.8 - 2.0
Below 0.2 2.0 - 4.0
Solution:
Fraction of + 1.5 mm material in the feed = f = 3.5 + 13.5 + 33.0 = 50% = 0.5
Fraction of +1.5 mm material in the overflow product = p = 7.0 + 36.0 + 37.0 = 80% = 0.8
Fraction of +1.5 mm material in the underflow product = u = 15% = 0.15
Effectiveness of the screen =
𝒑 𝒇−𝒖 𝒑 − 𝒇 𝟏−𝒖 𝟎. 𝟖 𝟎. 𝟓 − 𝟎. 𝟏𝟓 𝟏 − 𝟎. 𝟏𝟓 𝟎. 𝟖 − 𝟎. 𝟓
𝜼= = = 𝟎. 𝟔𝟕𝟔 = 𝟔𝟕. 𝟔%
𝒇 𝒑 − 𝒖 𝟐 𝟏−𝒇 𝟎. 𝟓 𝟎. 𝟖 − 𝟎. 𝟏𝟓 𝟐 𝟏 − 𝟎. 𝟓
Illustrative example 2: Consider a screen with circular apertures of diameter 3 mm. A mixture of
crushed coal particles of different sizes is introduced upon this screen for a size-based separation. The
combined overall efficiency of this screening operation was determined to be 85.5%. The undersize
screening efficiency was found to be 90%. The overflow of the screening products weighed 10 kg and
the underflow weighed 15 kg. Determine the true total percentage (by weight) of coal particles in the
mixture which were smaller than 3 mm in size.
Solution:
(1)
(2)
Using (1)
Using (2)
Now, we use the fact that
The percentage of coal particles smaller than 3 mm is:
The true total percentage of particles smaller than 3 mm in the mixture is 64.71%.
Factors affecting Screen Performance
1. Particle Size 6. Vibration
2. Particle shape 7. Screen angle
3. Near Mesh Size Particles 8. Open area
4. Feed rate 9. Moistures
5. Capacity 10. Bed Depth
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