Quality Improvement in the Production Process of Grinding Balls

The paper outlines how experiments were carried out to determine the optimum chromium/carbon (Cr/C) ratio that brings the required hardness of 65HRC and to establish a quenching technique for the grinding balls. Matlab was also used to develop a mathematical model for the ball wear rate and its cost effectiveness basing on surface theory and volume theory. From the experimental results, the Cr/C ratio in the chemical composition 18:2 gave the required hardness. Also water quenched grinding balls gave the required hardness. The mathematical model was validated for both volume and surface theories using correlations of coefficients. The correlations of coefficients for both volume and surface theorems were 0.9994 and 0.9985 respectively and are all close to unity, which shows that both theories provide good descriptions of the way in which the masses of the balls decrease as a function of the amount of material milled.