Mechanical characteristics of materials affecting shape of comminution products

Comminution products characterisation is actually carried out adopting different analytical procedures each oriented to determine specific products characteristics. Such an approach is strongly conditioned by the size class distribution of the products, by their morphological characteristics and by their mechanical characteristics. The results when correctly achieved permit a high degree of characterisation and knowledge of the products. The highest is the characterisation the highest is the time and the costs required to carry out the analyses. In this perspective a series of combined “optical-digital” techniques have been developed and are under study in order to establish a correlation between the mechanical characteristics of the material and the resulting size class distribution and morphological characteristics of the products after a comminution procedure. The tests have been carried out analysing single particles morphological attributes and particles in bulk looking at the heap profile when fed to a conveyor belt. The investigated and proposed procedure it is quite simple to use and handle, it is “scale independent” and can be profitably applied to a large series of dry products resulting from comminution processes. In this work such a technique is extensively discussed with reference to basalt rock products, destined to civil uses, resulting from the comminution of basalt rocks presenting different mechanical and textural characteristics.