Discrete Element Studies of Gravity-Driven Dense Granular Flows in Vertical Cylindrical Tubes

Abstract

The current paper focusses on the characterization of gravity-driven dry granular flows in cylindrical tubes. With a motive of using dense particulate media as heat transfer fluids (HTF), the main focus was to address the characteristics of flow regimes with a packing fraction of ∼60%. In a previous work [1], experimental and computational studies were conducted to understand the effects of different geometrical parameters on the flow physics. The current paper is an extension of that work to gain more insights into the granular flow physics. The three-dimensional computer simulations were conducted by implementing the Discrete Element Method (DEM) for the Lagrangian modelling of particles. Hertz-Mindilin models were used for the soft-particle formulations of inter-particulate contacts. Simulations were conducted to examine the particulate velocities and flow rates to understand the rheology in the dense flow regime. Past studies suggested the existence of a Gaussian mean velocity profile for dense gravity-driven granular flows. These observations were further analyzed by studying the influence of geometrical parameters on the same. The current work thus focusses on studying the rheology of dense granular flows and obtaining a better understanding of the velocity profiles, the wall friction characteristics, and the particle-wall contact behavior.