Wear-resistant liner for rotary grinding mills

A composite liner for the drum of a rotary grinding mill comprising a series of similar elongated elastomeric liner panels adapted to extend axially of a drum having a circular cross-section and rotatable in a predetermined rotary direction, whereby said panels have leading and trailing sides relative to said direction of rotation and also a drum-engageable surface, said leading and trailing sides being of substantially the same thickness with respect to the drum-engageable surface but the leading side terminating in a stepped-down thin flange adapted to extend into a complementary recess in the drum-engageable surface of the trailing side of a succeeding panel when connected to said drum and thereby present substantially smooth adjacent material-engageable surfaces at the joints of said connected panels, the opposite material-engaging surface of said panels having a smoothly curved wave configuration extending upwardly in a gradual concave curve from the leading side of the panel and cresting nearer the trailing side than the leading side and then descending toward the trailing side in a shorter concave curve than the side of the wave ascending from the leading side and blending with the gradual concave curve of the leading side of the next succeeding panel, the drum-engageable surface of each panel having a longitudinally extending recess provided with a central axis disposed substantially beneath the crest of the wave surface, and an elongated clamping member positioned in said recess and provided with a channel opening toward the drum-engageable surface of said panel to receive heads of clamping bolts to secure the panels to the drum, said clamping member having laterally extending ribs directed in opposite directions respectively toward said leading and trailing sides of the panels, said ribs being substantially parallel to said drum-engageable surface of said panels and offset different distances therefrom, the rib nearest the trailing side of the panel being spaced farther from said drum-engageable surface than the other rib and extending into the portion of the trailing side of said panel which overlies said recess in said trailing side to firmly clamp said stepped-down thin flange of the leading side of the succeeding panel against the inner surface of said drum.