Abstract
Modern industrial technologies require ultrafine materials with particle sizes below several micrometers. However, conventional grinding mills have largely reached their grinding limit and are often unable to achieve the required fineness without excessive processing time and energy consumption. This limitation is mainly caused by the low intensity and insufficient energy of grinding media interactions with the processed material. Therefore, developing more efficient grinding equipment remains an important engineering challenge. This study proposes new approaches to grinding process organization and novel ball drum mill designs incorporating additional excitation elements to increase the velocity, frequency, and energy of grinding media impacts. Comparative experiments were conducted using a conventional ball drum mill and the proposed grinding devices under identical operating conditions. Grinding performance was evaluated in terms of limiting particle size, grinding time, and energy consumption. The proposed grinding devices produced particle sizes 20–30 times smaller, reduced grinding time by six to seven times, and decreased energy consumption by approximately 40% compared with a conventional ball drum mill. These results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed designs and demonstrate their potential for ultrafine grinding applications. Future work will focus on DEM-based process modeling, optimization of operating parameters, and energy efficiency.