The correlation between the physico-mechanical properties of rocks and the grinding characteristics in a ball mill is an important aspect in mineral processing and geotechnical engineering. Here are some key points on how these properties are related:

Understanding these correlations helps in optimizing the grinding process, selecting appropriate grinding media, and improving overall efficiency in mineral processing operations.

All physical-chemical characteristics, excluding rock color, e.g., hardness of the minerals and their texture and structure play a part. The ultimate stage when grinding is executed is paramorphism, simply explained when a minerals changes is X structure without any cheimical change. This might happen frequently with sulfides such as a change in the X lattice of pyrrhotite and wurtzite/sphalerite. Wurtzite which is a common ZnS in Andenian volcanc- and subvolcanic-related base metal deposits is metastable and grinding it for XRD powder diffraction in a mortar already triggers its conversion into sphalerite. I made this unexpected process during my Ph.D. studying wurtzite in Pb-Zn-Cu deposits in SW Tuscany, where wurtzite forms the so-called "blenda fibrosa" (German: Strahlenblende) DILL, H.G. (1979) Die Strahlenblende von Accesa (SW-Toskana, Italien). - Mineralogy and Petrology, 26: 271-278.

The only way out this dilema is a single-X-XRD investigation (Weißenberg Method). More than 90 % of the wurtzite was "paramorphosed" due to my handling it in a porcellain mortar. It leads to misleading interpretations of the physical regime. Please, check-out this phenomenon in those cases where different minerals or different X structure occur with the same chemical composition, especially in the class of sulfides and arsenides

HGD