Accuracy control in Monte Carlo simulations of particle breakage

Abstract

Monte Carlo (MC) methods are an important tool for the numerical solution of the population balance equation, allowing the optimisation and control of particulate processes on laboratory or plant scales. We investigate in this work a family of MC methods for particle breakage proposed by Kotalczyk et al. (2017, pp.417-429). The authors reported that specific breakage schemes (defined by a combination factor R) allow rendering the full particle size distribution. They also showed that specific ranges of the combination factor R might lead to severe systematic errors, but did not investigate measures of control or prevention. In this paper, a strategy which allows estimating the magnitude of the systematic error from the simulation data is presented. It is also shown how the simulation parameters can be set in order to keep the systematic error at an acceptable level.