A New Granular Column Collapse Device to Characterise Flowability of Bulk Materials

Torres-Serra, Joel; Romero, Enrique; Ferran, Antonio Rodríguez

doi:10.3390/icem18-05389

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Other moving objects in view throughout the recording, such as the lifting gate frame, are masked out by adapting the pattern matching scheme in the PIV to the object detection of reference images containing distinctive features. Granular materials able to produce particle texture above the pixel scale are properly tracked, whereas mixing the material with marker particles at low mass fraction may be required in the case of materials with insufficient inherent texture or with finer monochrome particles [53].…”

Section: Parallelogram Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have developed a new fully-instrumented granular column collapse apparatus [52,53] that provides for a direct observation of granular flow regimes generated in actual handling conditions [54], and suitable for a wide range of powders and grains with particle sizes from the scale of µm to mm. The apparatus allows us to characterise the effect of their varying physical and mechanical properties at the grain and bulk scales on their flowability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A new column collapse apparatus for the characterisation of the flowability of granular materials

2020

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Section: Parallelogram Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new column collapse apparatus for the characterisation of the flowability of granular materials

2020

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“…Future work will continue to explore the effect of particle shape nonsphericity using superquadrics [76], and the use of micro-macro transition methods [77] to calibrate and validate our DEM simulations against the experimental flow kinematics results from the PIV analyses. scale properties as model parameters, for instance the particle size polydispersity [78]. We present new results from our investigations in [74] on the effect of hygroscopicity on the mass mobilisation of granular columns using the open-source software MercuryDPM [79].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Granular flow characterisation towards an enhanced bulk feeder selection

Serra¹

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In the packaging industry, a wide range of powders and bulk solids are handled in bagging equipment using different bulk feeding techniques. Quality of the packaging is critically affected by feeder performance, which is conditioned by the flowability of granular materials. Therefore, selecting the adequate feeder for every application is still a challenging industrial issue, commonly approached using a combination of conventional material tests and engineering know-how. The main goal of this thesis is to develop a testing protocol suited to better assess the flowability of industrial granular materials and to inform a methodology to objectify the decision-making process of feeder selection. The new TMI granular flow tester (GFT) is presented, consisting of a quasi-two-dimensional granular column collapse set-up, which is fully-instrumented to observe granular flow phenomena. The GFT covers the aeration and deaeration of the granular columns by packing state pre-conditioning, surface morphology of the initial granular columns and the final deposit configurations at run-out, basal load profiles of material deposition for the flow stages after collapse, and the flow front propagation and near-wall kinematics by particle image velocimetry analysis. This protocol is used to define new relevant flow parameters for industrial granular materials with sizes typically ranging from the order of micrometres to a few millimetres. A data analysis methodology is proposed to verify the feeder-type classification of granular materials in industrial practice by cluster analysis on data sets of material properties describing their flowability. Using conventional properties, granular materials are clustered into as many groups as main bulk feeder classes but a significant mismatch is noted, attributed to common industrial practice and incomplete flow characterisation. For this reason, the relevant flow parameters are included in an extended property data set, notably improving detection of similarly flowing materials. Furthermore, granular flow problems are modelled by the discrete element method to include the effects of material properties at the particle level (grain shape and size, segregation, and hygroscopicity issues) in the flow behaviour observed at the bulk level. Simulation results for the GFT set-up and an industrial case study of hopper filling are incorporated into this thesis. En la industria del envasado, una amplia gama de materiales pulverulentos y sólidos a granel se maneja mediante maquinaria de ensacado usando distintas técnicas de alimentación de sólidos. La calidad de los envases resulta críticamente afectada por el comportamiento de la alimentación, condicionado este por la fluidez de los materiales granulares. Por consiguiente, la selección de la técnica de alimentación adecuada para cada aplicación supone todavía un reto industrial, comúnmente abordado con una combinación de pruebas convencionales y experiencia práctica. El principal objetivo de esta tesis es el desarrollo de un protocolo de ensayo para una mejor estimación de la fluidez de materiales granulares de producción industrial y para el establecimiento de una metodología a fin de objetivar la toma de decisiones en la selección de técnicas de alimentación. Se presenta el nuevo equipo de ensayo del flujo granular TMI (GFT), el cual consta de un canal cuasibidimensional para el estudio del colapso de columnas de materiales granulares, completamente equipado para la observación de fenómenos propios del flujo granular. El GFT abarca la inyección y extracción de aire de las columnas granulares como precondicionamiento de su empaquetamiento, la morfología de la superficie de las columnas granulares al inicio y los depósitos al final del flujo, los perfiles de las cargas en la base del canal por depósito de material en las etapas del flujo después del colapso, y la propagación del frente del flujo y la cinemática cerca de las paredes por análisis de velocimetría por imágenes de partículas. Este protocolo se usa en la definición de nuevos parámetros del flujo relevantes para materiales de producción industrial típicamente con tamaños de partícula del orden de micrómetros a pocos milímetros. Se propone una metodología de análisis de datos para verificar la clasificación de los materiales granulares por el tipo de alimentador empleado en la práctica industrial, mediante análisis de conglomerados en conjuntos de datos de propiedades de los materiales descriptoras de su fluidez. A partir de sus propiedades convencionales, los materiales granulares se agrupan en tantos conglomerados como clases de alimentadores, si bien con un apareamiento significativamente desigual, atribuido a la práctica industrial común y a una caracterización incompleta de la fluidez. Por esta razón, los parámetros de flujo relevantes se incluyen en un conjunto de datos ampliado, mejorando notablemente la detección de materiales de fluidez similar. Además, en cuanto a la modelización de problemas de flujo granular, se utiliza el método de elementos discretos con tal de incluir los efectos de las propiedades de los materiales a escala de las partículas (cuestiones como el tamaño y forma de los granos, su segregación e higroscopicidad) en el comportamiento del flujo observado a escala macro. Los resultados obtenidos por simulación de experimentos con el GFT y un caso industrial de estudio del proceso de llenado de una tolva se incorporan a esta tesis

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Classification of granular materials via flowability-based clustering with application to bulk feeding

2021

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A New Granular Column Collapse Device to Characterise Flowability of Bulk Materials

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

A new column collapse apparatus for the characterisation of the flowability of granular materials

A new column collapse apparatus for the characterisation of the flowability of granular materials

Granular flow characterisation towards an enhanced bulk feeder selection

Classification of granular materials via flowability-based clustering with application to bulk feeding

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