Investigation of modeling non-spherical particles by using spherical discrete element model with rolling friction

Abstract

Discrete elements method (DEM) is widely used to research the particulate systems in industry. When the particle systems involving large numbers of non-spherical particles, in order to achieve the goal of monitoring the main properties of particles motion and improving the computational efficiency at the same time, a method of replacing the non-spherical particles by spherical particles is proposed in this paper. Spherical particles with proper value of the rolling friction coefficient are used to compare with the cubical particles in several processes, including the formation of heap, the discharge of particles from a hopper, the mixing of particles in a rotating drum, the fluidization of particles in a fluidized bed, and the screening of particles in a vibrating screen. In each process, the applicability of this method under different operating conditions is investigated. The results show that if an appropriate value of rolling friction coefficient is applied to the spherical particles, the method works well when the non-spherical particles flow with a relatively high speed.