Estimation of bulk density distribution in particle charging process using Discrete Element Method considering particle shape

Abstract

In order to analyze the segregation of coal particles in coke oven, it is necessity to consider the coal shape in Discrete Element Method (DEM). In this paper, the effect of particle shape on the granular flow and on bulk density distribution was investigated, and the novel method for considering particle shape on the void fraction in packed bed was proposed by changing contact distance between particles. The flowing behavior of tablet shaped polystyrene (PS) particles was analyzed and compared with simulation result which was calculated by spherical element or multi-sphere element. The results of flowing velocity and its angle using spherical element and multi-sphere one gave the similar tendency and they were correlated with experimental ones. Thus, the flowing behavior of non-spherical particle can be simulated by spherical element, as long as the suitable parameters were used. The bulk density distribution in horizontal direction in the simulated results using spherical element gave the different tendency of experimental one. On the other hand, those in multi-sphere element and new method showed the similar tendency to the experimental one. Thus, the bulk distribution cannot be simulated by using spherical element. The calculation speed of new method is 4.5 times faster than that of multi-sphere method. This method could be applied to coal packing simulation, and the bulk density distribution by using it had a good correlation with experimental one. Therefore, this method for considering the particle shape on the charged bed is very useful. © 2008 ISIJ.