Crusher
Machine that reduces large rocks into smaller pieces for industry.
A crusher is a machine that breaks large rocks into smaller pieces, such as gravel, sand, or rock dust. These machines can also be used to alter the size or shape of waste materials, making them easier to dispose of or recycle, or to break apart a mixture of raw materials so that different components can be separated. The crushing process works by holding the material between two solid surfaces—either parallel or tangent to each other—and applying enough force to bring those surfaces together. This force generates energy inside the material, causing its molecules to either fracture apart or shift their alignment, which deforms the material. The earliest crushers were simple hand-held stones, where the weight of the stone added to human muscle power, used against a stone anvil. Querns and mortars are examples of these early crushing devices.
For most of industrial history, crushing relied on muscle power, with force concentrated at the tip of a miner’s pick or a sledgehammer-driven drill bit. Before explosives became common in bulk mining, initial ore crushing was done by hand with hammers or by water-powered trip hammers in small smithies and iron works. The advent of explosives and later steam shovels produced large chunks of material that had previously been reduced by hammering in the mine, leading to the need for post-mine face crushing. The earliest such machines appeared in foundries, but as coal use grew, larger operations became coal breakers that fueled industrial growth from the early 1600s until the 1970s. The shift from cottage industries was accelerated by the demand for wrought and cast iron, the scarcity of wood for charcoal, and the need to produce glass and metals like brass, bronze, and pig iron. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the English developed economical iron cannons and later, through patents and royal proclamations, restricted wood use for glassmaking, favoring coal. A century later, Abraham Darby’s apprentice John Thomas succeeded in casting iron, a key development that helped transform mining and crushing, as mines had previously produced ore already hammered small by miners for transport by pack animals.
- field
- Industrial machinery
- known_for
- Reducing large rocks into smaller fragments for mining, recycling, and material processing
- earliest_form
- Hand-held stones used against a stone anvil
- common_types
- Primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary crushers
Lore & Background
The earliest crushers were hand-held stones, where the weight of the stone provided a boost to muscle power, used against a stone anvil. Querns and mortars are types of these crushing devices. Throughout most of industrial history, the greater part of crushing and mining occurred under muscle power as the application of force concentrated in the tip of the miner's pick or sledge hammer driven drill bit. Before explosives came into widespread use in bulk mining in the mid-nineteenth century, most initial ore crushing and sizing was by hand and hammers at the mine or by water powered trip hammers in small charcoal fired smithies and iron works.
Reader's Guide
Crushers became widely necessary after explosives and early powerful steam shovels produced large chunks of materials that required post-mine face crushing. In the coal industry, crushing and preparation was performed for over a hundred years in coal breakers, massive noisy buildings full of conveyors, belt-powered trip-hammer crushing stages and giant metal grading/sorting grates. Mining operations use crushers commonly classified by the degree to which they fragment the starting material, with primary and secondary crushers handling coarse materials, and tertiary and quaternary crushers reducing ore particles to finer gradations. Each crusher is designed to work with a certain maximum size of raw material, and often delivers its output to a screening machine. Typically, crushing stages are followed by milling stages if the materials need to be further reduced. Crushers are used to reduce particle size enough so that the material can be processed into finer particles in a grinder.
Did You Know?
- The earliest crushers were hand-held stones used against a stone anvil.
- Crushers may be used to reduce the size of waste materials for easier disposal or recycling.
- In mining, crushers are commonly classified as primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary based on the degree of fragmentation.
- A typical processing line at a mine might consist of a crusher followed by a SAG mill followed by a ball mill.
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