A numerical study of the effect of loading profiles on mixing/segregation of particles in the truck mixer via DEM

Abstract

Discrete element method (DEM) was employed to study the mixing of two sizes of particles in a truck mixer. The effects of five different loading profiles on the mixing/segregation of particles were discussed. The contact ratio between particles was adopted to quantitatively analyze the particle mixing/segregation degree. The simulation results revealed that the motion of particles in the radial direction is more intense than in the axis one, which leads to the radial mixing/segregation faster and more obvious. It was also indicated that different initial states in the radial direction have little influence on the final mixing states, but the influence in the axial one cannot be ignored. The small particles are more likely to get into the big particle clusters, which can lead to the increase of the mixing/segregation in both axial and radial directions.