Three-dimensional measurement method of binary particle collisions under dry and wet conditions

Abstract

The description, calculation and design of solids processes, such as fluidization, pneumatic conveying or mixing, require knowledge of collision dynamics between particles and apparatus walls or interparticle collisions without, but often also with the presence of an additional liquid. For the study of such dry and wet interparticle collisions, an experimental setup is presented that allows the performance of dry or wet free binary collisions of spherical particles down to a minimum diameter of 1 mm. The recording of the particle motions in all three spatial directions is provided by two synchronized highspeed cameras. Methods and algorithms are presented for analyzing the translational and rotational motion in three-dimensional space, as well as for measuring the amount of liquid on the particles in the case of wet collisions. Motion data from dry collisions between equal sized and unequal sized spherical particles are compared with a three-parameter collision model. In addition, a first series of measurements of wetted collisions is used to compare the collision dynamics with dry collisions.