Grinding of Fe-B₄C powder charge in an inertial cone mill

Abstract

The use of an inertial cone mill to grind iron and boron carbide powder mixtures is examined. The dependence of the particle-size distribution in the mixture after grinding on the maximum particle size is analyzed. It is established that the content of coarse-grained fractions (larger than 100 µ m) substantially decreases as compared with the initial powder even after three grinding cycles. If the number of grinding cycles is increased to 20, the content of finer fractions (smaller than 63 µ m) is only 6 to 8% higher than in powders subjected to 3–12 grinding cycles in the inertial cone mill. Therefore, more than 3 or 6 cycles to produce Fe-B₄C powder with the optimal content of the ≤100≤63 µ m fraction are unreasonable.