Discrete element method simulation of segregation pattern in a sinter cooler charging chute system

DEM Modelling of Segregation in Granular Materials: A Review

“…Parameter calibration/ measurement. Several past studies have established DEM parameters through either direct measurements or bulk calibration (Alizadeh et al, 2017;Barik et al, 2023;Bhattacharya and McCarthy, 2014;Combarros et al, 2014;Combarros Garcia et al, 2016;Izard et al, 2021;Kim et al, 2020;Li et al, 2019Li et al, , 2017Mio et al, 2010Mio et al, , 2009Mio et al, , 2008aMio et al, , 2012Nakano et al, 2012;Qiu and Pabst, 2022;Shimosaka et al, 2013;Terui et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2023;. Each of these approaches comes with a set of advantages and disadvantages as summarized in Calibration of DEM models against experimental data ensures that the model captures the material behaviour and therefore provides credibility (Coetzee, 2017).…”

“…In several studies, only a portion of the parameters has been calibrated (Nakano et al, 2012;Shimosaka et al, 2013). Also, in several cases, a single experiment is used to determine the values of more than one parameter (Izard et al, 2021;Li et al, 2017). As shown by Wensrich and Katterfeld (2012), this approach leads to ambiguity since an infinite combination of parameter values might lead to the same bulk behaviour.…”

“…For example, Li et al (2017) calibrated the friction coefficients of iron ore pellets using a repose angle test and verified that the calibrated model could reproduce the experimentally observed size segregation in simulations. Similarly, Izard et al (2021) modelled the size segregation of sinter particles after determining the model parameters through bulk calibration. However, it has not yet been addressed to what extent the DEM parameters obtained through bulk calibration (e.g., dynamic and static angle of repose) can be employed to accurately replicate the segregation of multi-component mixtures, which is essentially a local occurrence.…”

“…Sampling spaces composed of 24 cuboid-shaped cells inside the hopper (Combarros Garcia et al, 2016) The discontinuous start-stop sampling method (Standish and Kilic, 1985) has been mostly adopted (Ketterhagen et al, 2007;Yu and Saxén, 2010; Including a number of sampling boxes at the bottom to capture the trajectory segregation of materials (Bhattacharya and McCarthy, 2014;Mio et al, 2008bMio et al, , 2009Mio et al, , 2010Mio et al, , 2012Yu and Saxén, 2012) Heaps are divided into a number of sub-regions in the horizontal and/ or vertical direction (Li et al, 2017;Mio et al, 2020;Qiu and Pabst, 2022;Terui et al, 2017;You et al, 2016) Using rotating sampling table with pie slicing configuration (Cliff et al, 2021) Measuring mass flow rate of fine particles using Copley flowability tester BEP2 model (Barik et al, 2023) Sampling in the horizontal and vertical direction of the sinter cooler (Izard et al, 2021) Sampling box in QPM segregation tester (Combarros et al, 2014) Non-invasive Taking pictures and counting the number of different components (Yu et al, 2018) Colouring equal-sized components and using image analysis to analyse segregation (Combarros et al, 2014) Taking pictures and using image processing to measure the fraction of components (Alizadeh et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2018) for "flow behaviour" on the bulk level, it cannot necessarily prove the validity of the model for segregation. In other words, to validate the models for segregation, component fractions are required to obtain local information and assess segregation.…”

“…With respect to chute-related operational parameters, several studies have investigated the effect of chute angle (θ) (Jing et al, 2015;Kou et al, 2019Kou et al, , 2018Kou et al, , 2013Mio et al, 2009;Nakano et al, 2012;Tripathi and Khakhar, 2011;Xu et al, 2018b;You et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2014), tilting direction (Terui et al, 2017), rotating speed (ω) (Kou et al, 2019(Kou et al, , 2013You et al, 2016), fill level (Izard et al, 2021;Panda and Tan, 2020a), the number of chute rotations (Zhang et al, 2021). Copyright 2021, Elsevier.…”