The objective of this paper is to investigate the scale-up method of the planetary ball mill by the computational simulation based on Discrete Element Method. Firstly, the dry grinding of a gibbsite powder by using four different scales of planetary mill was developed to compare the grinding rate with the specific impact energy of balls calculated from computational simulation. The grinding rate is well correlated with the specific impact energy in all mills; and its relationship is expressed by a linear correlation. It points out that the specific impact energy is very useful for estimation of the grinding rate and optimization for the operational conditions. Secondly, the scale-up method for the planetary mill was established by evaluating the impact energy. The impact energy is proportional to the cube of the diameter of the pot, the depth of the pot and the revolution radius of the disk, respectively. When the planetary mill is scaled-up in geometrical similarity, the impact energy of the balls is proportional to 4.87 power of the scale-up ratio. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.