Roller crusher, also known as roll crusher, belongs to traditional crushing equipment. It is mainly used for fine processing of material particles. As the main working part, the two cylindrical rollers rotate oppositely to achieve the purpose of crushing.

The commonly seen roller crusher falls into three types: single roll crusher, double roll crusher and four roll crusher.

In the working process, material falls in between the two rollers, and will be crushed. Normally, the material will be discharged from the bottom. When encountering material with high hardness, the rollers will automatically concede by hydraulic cylinder or spring which will increase the space between the two rollers, resulting in the falling of material with high hardness and uncrushable material, to protect the machine from damage. Changing the space between the two rollers can definitely control the maximum particle size of discharged material.

 

Roll crushers have a theoretical MAXIMUM reduction ratio of 4:1. If a 2 inch particle is fed to the roll crusher the absolute smallest size one could expect from the crusher is 1/2 inch. Roll crushers will only crush material down to a minimum particle size of about 10 Mesh (2 mm). A roll crusher crushes using compression, with two rolls rotating about a shaft, towards the gap between the rolls. The gap between the rolls is set to the size of product desired, with the realization that the largest feed particle can only be 4 times the gap dimension. 

The particles are drawn into the gap between the rolls by their rotating motion and a friction angle formed between the rolls and the particle, called the nip angle. The two rolls force the particle between their rotating surface into the ever smaller gap area, and it fractures from the compressive forces presented by the rotating rolls. Some major advantages of roll crushers are they give a very fine product size distribution and they produce very little dust or fines. Rolls crushers are effectively used in minerals crushing where the ores are not too abrasive and they are also used in smaller scale production mining of more abrasive metal ores, such as gold. Coal is probably the largest user of roll crushers, currently, though. Coal plants will use roll crushers, either single roll or double roll, as primary crushers, reducing the ROM coal. Usually, these crushers will have teeth or raised forms on the face of the roll. (Roll crushers used for minerals and metal ores have smooth faced rolls.)