= 79.79 GPa), demonstrated strong anisotropy and cleavage-dominated fragmentation behavior during the process. Coal, characterized by weak bedding stiffness and extremely low moduli, is susceptible to brittle fracture. Broken resistance decreased in the order of quartz > kaolinite > calcite > coal. Excellent agreement existed between the elastic constant calculations and the mineral size distributions after grinding. This study innovatively correlates the mechanical properties of minerals with liberation behaviors during macroscopic grinding processes, providing significant insights into the selective liberation mechanisms of minerals in middling coking coal.
Chen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.