Numerical Analysis of the Relationship between Friction Coefficient and Repose Angle of Blast Furnace Raw Materials by Discrete Element Method.

Henrik Saxen,Yaowei Yu,Shiyu Wei,Han Wei

doi:10.3390/ma15030903

Abstract

In recent years, the discrete element method (DEM) has been widely used to study the factors affecting the repose angle and calibrate particle parameters for simulations. In this paper, DEM is used to study the effects of the coefficient of rolling and static friction of pellet, sinter and coke particles on the repose angle. By comparison of the results of simulations and physical experiments, the coefficients of rolling and static friction suitable for simulation work are determined. The results demonstrate that repose angle increases with the coefficient of rolling and static friction, but the rate of increase gradually decays, when the coefficient of rolling friction exceeds 0.4 or the coefficient of static friction exceeds 0.35. The coefficient of static friction has a greater impact on the repose angle than the coefficient of rolling friction. The rougher of the base surface, the larger the repose angle of the formed particle piled. It can be concluded that appropriate coefficient of rolling and static friction for simulations can be obtained by the outlined procedure.

Highlights

Granular material, such as soil, sugar, grain and gravel, widely exists in nature, daily life and engineering applications
The results showed that in simple cases, using the coefficient of rolling friction (CORF) as a “tunable parameter” to spherical particles can implicitly consider the effect of shape
It can be seen from the graphs that with the increase of CORF and coefficients of static friction (COSF), the repose angle increases

Summary

Introduction

Granular material, such as soil, sugar, grain and gravel, widely exists in nature, daily life and engineering applications. Because of such common occurrence, people are curious about the accumulation form and law of particles, such as the exploration of avalanche [1], use of hourglass timing and study of “granary effect” [2]. In the flow of granular material, after a large number of irregularly moving single particles gather together, the particle flow establishes a regular motion. Further analyses reveal that granular material exhibit properties similar to but not completely consistent with traditional solids and fluids. The particles are solid, but when the particle pile collapses, a large number of particles could flow like a fluid. Traditional solid and fluid theory cannot explain this phenomenon [3]

Methods

Results

Conclusion