The wear of tumbling mill liners influences the load behaviour and consequently the performance and efficiency of tumbling mills. The ability to accurately predict the evolving mill liner profile due to wear is therefore of great economic significance since it can be used to determine the optimal initial lifter design for a particular operation. In this paper, we use the discrete element method (DEM) to simulate the load behaviour and predict the wear of two different liners used in industrial mills for the grinding of coal in dry conditions. Our simulated results are compared to industrial measurements in both cases. A good agreement is found between those measurements. Moreover a quick empirical equation is derived for a particular lifter in order to predict the wear without using the DEM. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.