When a new or unusual application is encountered, samples of the material may be crushed to determine which crusher is most suitable. This is done in the Pennsylvania Crusher Test Laboratory.

By crushing samples of the material, significant facts can be learned for predicting the performance of full capacity machines with acceptable accuracy. Laboratory tests can prove or disprove the relative merits of various types of crushers. They also provide an opportunity to evaluate the effects of various crusher settings, speeds, feeding methods, and height of drop. In the lab, one element at a time can be changed while all others are held constant. Under such conditions, any changes in crushing results can be isolated and evaluated by our application engineers. You can contact us online to inquire about scheduling a test.

Testing Procedure
The normal procedure is to test crush a representative sample of the material and to then determine the product size gradation. From this data, a graph is plotted showing the cumulative percentage of material passing each screen size.

By comparing screen analyses and other criteria with those associated with familiar materials, an experienced crusher application engineer can estimate the overall crushing performance as well as power requirements. The engineer can also detect characteristics that require special design considerations or auxiliary equipment.

Deciding Factors
Tests may show that two or more types of crushers will perform equally well on a particular material. But other factors must still be considered such as headroom, desirability of fines, product shape, economics of maintenance and operations, and the adaptability of the crusher to future plant expansions.

How To Take Samples
To ensure meaningful results from the Pennsylvania Crusher Test Laboratory, it is important that a truly representative sample of material be provided. Care must be taken to ensure that the sample is collected from a true cross section of the material and that it is packed to retain its original characteristics (moisture, size, shape, etc.).

Measuring Crushing Resistance
A basic premise in equipment selection is that the crusher be stronger than the material that it must crush. How strong are rocks and ore? While there is no direct measurement of “resistance to crushing”, it is possible to measure compressive strength and the elastic properties of a material. The graph below shows a typical plot of test results for different materials, and it demonstrates the relationship between compressive load and resulting displacement. The material exhibiting twice as much displacement under compression will normally require twice as much power to be crushed.

Measuring Relative Abrasiveness
It is difficult to predict the abrasive action of rocks, minerals, and ores. Often, rocks belonging to the same geological classification will vary widely in abrasiveness from one locality to another. Therefore, in order to select the proper crusher, we must have some reliable measurement of the abrasiveness of the specific material. Abrasiveness can be determined either from prior experience or by testing in semi-production plants, but a simpler method has been developed by Pennsylvania Crusher Corporation.

Penn Crusher's test method is usually reliable in establishing relative abrasiveness by using four 400-gram samples of the material to be crushed. Each sample of material is rotated for 15 minutes in a drum with a steel paddle. After the four separate batches are run, the average milligrams of weight loss by the paddle is measured. This will serve as a relative index of abrasive action. The higher the index, the greater the abrasiveness.

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Pennsylvania Crusher Corporation
P.O. Box 100, Broomall, PA 19008  USA
Phone +1.610.544.7200   Fax +1.610.543.0190