Fracture probability and fragment size distribution of fired Iron ore pellets by impact

Degradation that results from transportation and handling can have an important economic impact in steelmaking materials, given the lower value of the finer material that is generated. In spite of their higher strength when compared to lump iron ores, fired iron ore pellets also undergo some degradation, which increases with severity of the handling operations that occur from the pelletizing plant to the end user. Such degradation can occur in the form of fine debris lost from the surface of the pellet, in a mechanism of surface breakage, or as result of complete loss of integrity of the pellet (fracture), generating a wide range of fragments in size. The work deals with this second mechanism of breakage, describing the probability of fracture of pellets under impact conditions, the amenability of pellets to break under repeated impacts, besides the size distribution of the progeny for selected iron ore pellets, proposing appropriate experimental methods and models to describe them quantitatively. [Display omitted] •Body breakage probability of pellets well described by the Gamma distribution.•Median fracture energies of pellets higher than those of coal and iron ore.•Continuum damage model described successfully breakage by repeated impacts.•Fragmentation pattern properly described with a universal t10-tn relationship.•Model described well body breakage fragment distribution for a range of impact energies.