Maintenance cost influence in a comminution layout design

摘要

Maintenance has a relevant weight in operational costs of a comminution process. This cost is mainly due to wear, always present in a comminution process. This study was applied to dry grinding process, habitual in the ceramic structural industry. The influence of power consumption and efficiency of comminution in process design were investigated. A genetic algorithm has been used to optimize machine selection and a discrete time simulation model has been developed to evaluate the comminution process. The underestimated impact of crusher maintenance has been proved. Solutions to maintain the efficiency of comminution process due to wear have been proposed.