A Review of Computational Models for the Flow of Milled Biomass Part II: Continuum-Mechanics Models

Jin, Wencheng; Stickel, Jonathan J.; Xia, Yidong; Klinger, Jordan

doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c00412

Cited by 27 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 125 publications

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“…11−14 In theory, the classical constitutive models (e.g., Mohr−Coulomb, Drucker−Prager), proven to be able to capture the flow behavior of conventional granular materials, fail to represent the mechanical behavior of granular biomass materials. 15,16 Yet, the design of biomass material handling equipment still uses incompetent experimental methods and theoretical models, which results in material processing upsets in biorefineries. Take the most used material handling equipment, hopper/silo, as an example, its design is still guided by Jenike and colleagues' early work in the 1960s.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flow and Arching of Biomass Particles in Wedge-Shaped Hoppers

Jin

Klinger

et al. 2021

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.

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Poor understanding of the flow behavior of granular biomass material poses great challenges for the bioenergy industry, as the equipment functioning time is significantly reduced by handling issues like screw feeder clogging and hopper arching. In this work, the flow behavior of loblolly pine chips, including the mass flow rate and the critical outlet width, in a wedge-shaped hopper is investigated by combining physical experiments and numerical simulations. Comprehensive characterization of the flow response affected by the two material attributes (initial packing, particle density) and the three operational parameters (hopper outlet width, hopper inclination, and surcharge) is conducted. The results show that the hopper outlet width linearly controls the mass flow rate, while the hopper inclination angle controls the critical outlet size. The packing determines whether the flow is smooth or surging, and the surcharge-induced compaction creates flow impedance. The magnitude of these influences varies from a slender hopper with a low inclination angle to a flat-bottom silo. These findings provide guidance for hopper operation in the material handling industry and shed light on the construction of a novel design method for material handling equipment in biorefineries.

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Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flow and Arching of Biomass Particles in Wedge-Shaped Hoppers

Jin

Klinger

et al. 2021

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.

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“…The above governing equations can be solved by many numerical methods, such as the mesh-based finite-element method (FEM) and finite-volume method (FVM), and the meshless smoothed-particle hydrodynamic (Jin et al, 2020b). We adopt the FEM with the coupled Lagrangian-Eulerian (CEL) approach as the resolution algorithm in this paper.…”

Section: Solution Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All these issues result from the poor flowability of the granular biomass feedstocks. Both experimental characterization (Hernandez et al, 2017;Salehi et al, 2019;Stasiak et al, 2019) and numerical modeling (Jin et al, 2020b;Xia et al, 2020) have been used to address the flowability issue with the objectives of optimizing equipment geometry/operation and optimizing the granular feedstock characteristics. However, experiments cannot measure all the critical state parameters constraint by sensors (e.g., shear testers only quantify two stress components of a full stress tensor), which are crucial to elucidate the flow physics.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The variation of biomass species, particle size, and particle morphology are realized by using different constitutive laws or different values of the constitutive material parameters. For example, the authors previously applied the modified Drucker-Prager/Cap model (Jin et al, 2020a), the NorSand model (Jin et al, 2020b), and the hypoplastic model (Lu et al, 2021a,b) to predict the flow behavior of the milled loblolly pine with different particle size distributions. Yi et al (2020a,b) used the modified Cam-Clay model and the Drucker-Prager/Cap model to simulate the milled corn stover and Douglas fir.…”

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confidence: 99%

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On the Fidelity of Computational Models for the Flow of Milled Loblolly Pine: A Benchmark Study on Continuum-Mechanics Models and Discrete-Particle Models

Jin

Chen

et al. 2022

Front. Energy Res.

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The upstream of bioenergy industry has suffered from unreliable operations of granular biomass feedstocks in handling equipment. Computational modeling, including continuum-mechanics models and discrete-particle models, offers insightful understandings and predictive capabilities on the flow of milled biomass and can assist equipment design and optimization. This paper presents a benchmark study on the fidelity of the continuum and discrete modeling approaches for predicting granular biomass flow. We first introduce the constitutive law of the continuum-mechanics model and the contact law of the coarse-grained discrete-particle model, with model parameters calibrated against laboratory characterization tests of the milled loblolly pine. Three classical granular material flow systems (i.e., a lab-scale rotating drum, a pilot-scale hopper, and a full-scale inclined plane) are then simulated using the two models with the same initial and boundary conditions as the physical experiments. The close agreement of the numerical predictions with the experimental measurements on the hopper mass flow rate, the hopper critical outlet width, the material stopping thickness on the inclined plane, and the dynamic angle of repose, clearly indicates that the two methods can capture the critical flow behavior of granular biomass. The qualitative comparison shows that the continuum-mechanics model outperforms in parameterization of materials and wall friction, and large-scale systems, while the discrete-particle model is more preferred for discontinuous flow systems at smaller scales. Industry stakeholders can use these findings as guidance for choosing appropriate numerical tools to model biomass material flow in part of the optimization of material handling equipment in biorefineries.

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“…Notably, the majority of past researches into hopper wall pressures have focused on concentric shaped hoppers. Both filling [1,3,17,18] and discharge [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] phases of circular cross-sectional hoppers have been addressed in these researches. A number of studies have also been conducted on pressures developed in silos with eccentric hoppers [27][28][29][30][31][32][33], but none of them have considered the aspects investigated in this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Normal Pressures during Filling in Steel Hoppers with Eccentric Outlet

Mehretehran¹,

Maleki²

2020

J. Civ. Eng. Constr.

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Filling pressures are a necessary starting point in the design of silos and hoppers. The hoppers with complicated geometries are common in industrial applications due to physical space constraints and the need to interface with other processing equipment. The current paper deals with the effect of outlet eccentricity on normal pressures formed in steel hoppers during distributed filling process. Using finite element method, progressive filling process in hoppers was simulated and by changing the percentage of outlet eccentricity, the variation of pressure distribution was fully studied. The results showed an increase in the normal pressures of shallow side compared with the steep side of eccentric hopper. To quantify the pressure asymmetry, two parameters were introduced and they were evaluated for practical range of material parameters and steel hoppers dimensions. The results obtained are of interest since they facilitate the design of silos and hoppers with eccentric outlet.

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A Review of Computational Models for the Flow of Milled Biomass Part II: Continuum-Mechanics Models

Cited by 27 publications

References 125 publications

Flow and Arching of Biomass Particles in Wedge-Shaped Hoppers

Flow and Arching of Biomass Particles in Wedge-Shaped Hoppers

On the Fidelity of Computational Models for the Flow of Milled Loblolly Pine: A Benchmark Study on Continuum-Mechanics Models and Discrete-Particle Models

Evaluation of Normal Pressures during Filling in Steel Hoppers with Eccentric Outlet

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