Home Tools Training Contact About Subscribe Logout

Ball Charge Recommendation and Make-Up Profile

Combines crash‑stop height, current media inventory, liner condition and grinding-duty data to calculate a transparent starting profile and size-by-size make-up quantities for both chambers. Confirm the result against charge history and inspection before ordering steel.

Why this matters now

Clinker reduction, high electricity prices and tighter cement specifications put the grinding circuit under pressure. The fastest gains usually come from finding the real constraint before changing equipment or operation.

What this tool helps decide

Move from total filling tonnes to a transparent starting profile: see which sizes to add or remove in each chamber, then confirm it against charge history and inspection.

What subscription adds

Build a connected grinding audit: save every mill separately, reload previous measurements, compare changes over time and issue an editable report for the plant team.

Connected to the industry conversation around clinker-factor reduction, grinding energy, blended cement and quality control reported in World Cement, CemNet and Global Cement.See process-tool plans

Your mill and process data

Mill geometry & speed

Mill inside diameter Inside the lining, in metres.

Mill speed Revolutions per minute of the shell.

Mill power draw (kW) — validation only Actual motor power while running under load. This is checked for plausibility; it does not by itself identify media wear.

Chamber 1

Chamber 1 length (m)

Free height H1 from crash stop (m) Tape reading from the top of the liner to the surface reached during the stop.

Chamber 1 measurement condition

Material layer above the media (m) Add the depth of powder or clinker between the tape and the balls. Use 0 when measured on clean media.

Liner step height (mm) For lifting liner. 80 mm is new, 30 mm is very worn.

Fine powder layer on top of charge?

Unbroken coarse clinker at toe?

Chamber 2

Chamber 2 length (m)

Free height H2 from crash stop (m) Tape reading from the top of the liner to the surface reached during the stop.

Chamber 2 measurement condition

Material layer above the media (m) Depth between the tape reading and the actual media surface.

Liner step height (mm)

Fine powder layer on top of charge?

Unbroken coarse clinker at toe?

Feed & product

Feed size — 80% passing (mm)

Bond work index (kWh/t)

Material specific gravity (g/cc)

Target Blaine (cm²/g)

Target residue on 45 µm (%)

Bulk density of media (t/m³)

Current media inventory

Enter whatever media sizes your plant actually has. The rows are not fixed to standard sizes; add or remove rows as needed. Blank rows mean the current inventory is unknown, not zero.

Chamber 1 current media

Chamber 2 current media

RECOMMENDED BALL SIZES BY CHAMBER

CURRENT STATE (BACK-CALCULATED)

TRIPLE-CHECK RESULTS

Chamber 1 top size

—

Chamber 2 top size

—

Chamber 1 current load (t)

—

Chamber 2 current load (t)

—

Chamber 1 state indicator

—

Chamber 2 state indicator

—

Lifter check Ch1

—

Lifter check Ch2

—

How the recommendation is built

1. Crash-stop correction

The tape reading is corrected for any material between the tape and the media before current load is calculated.

2. Current versus target profile

Current media inventory is compared with the starting profile for each chamber. Entering zero means inventory is unknown, not empty.

currenttargetaddremove

3. Liner lift check

The recommended top ball is checked against liner step height. A worn step can limit the usable top size.

Recommended make-up charge

Now verify with a full audit

This gives the starting tonnes per size. For a complete process check, run the Tromp curve and separator efficiency tools.

Volume loading tool

How the triple-check works

Model 1 — Void and state check. Uses the corrected crash-stop height to calculate current load. Powder and coarse-toe observations are shown as diagnostic state checks; they are not a calibrated media-wear measurement.

Model 2 — Bond physics & surface area. Chamber 1 uses Bond's ball-size formula to find the top size needed for the feed. Chamber 2 uses a target specific surface area derived from the desired Blaine and residue to select the right fine media.

Model 3 — Liner lift check. Verifies that the liner step height is sufficient to lift the recommended top ball to the required trajectory. If not, the model automatically reduces the ball size and warns about the mechanical condition.

Recommendation status. The output is a measured engineering starting profile. Confirm it against charge history, media inspection and the next controlled operating check before ordering steel.