Is It Possible to Use Breakage Models to Predict Particle Deformation?

Most previous studies of size reduction processes have focused on the modeling of particle breakage, since most of them particularly dealt with brittle materials. However, either brittle or ductile materials pass through the deformation stage to some extent before their breakage. However, no models have been derived to correlate the particle deformation to grinding media size, particularly in stirred media milling. In this paper, the breakage models depend on grinding media kinetic energy, and a contact mechanic based on Hertz’s theory and collision frequency were tested to predict particle deformation. Unfortunately, the similarity in the stress exerted by all the grinding media sizes at a specific rotational speed indicates the limitation in describing the particle deformation using different grinding media sizes. Thus, the kinetic energy model fails to predict the deformation, even though the media collision frequency (stress frequency) was used to establish a fundamental model to correlate the milling conditions (i.e., rotational speed and the grinding media size) to particle deformation.