Influence of Combination of Ball Diameters and Rotation Speed on Grinding Performance of Alumina by Ball Milling

Abstract

Ball milling is an important technique in powder processing of ceramics. Although small balls as grinding medium in ball milling give fine powder, the grinding performance depends on many other milling conditions, such as combination of ball size, rotation speed and packing volume of balls. In this paper, particlesize reduction rate of alumina was studied with respect to the combination of TZP (Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals) ball size and rotation speed. The TZP balls with a geometrical standard deviation of 1.7 in log-normal ball size distribution gave the highest relative density and the highest particle-size reduction rate. The particle-size reduction rate increased with increasing rotation speed under the conditions studied.