Wet Granular Flow in Hoppers by Discrete Element Method

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison numerical study of the dry and wet granular flows in a cylindrical hopper with flat bottom by means of the discrete element method. A cohesion model is used to examine the impact of moisture presence in hopper flow. It is found that with the increase of Bond number, the discharge rate decreases. The particle force structure inside the hopper is investigated to explain the reason of the lower discharge rate for the wet particle cases. Compared with the dry particle case, in the wet particle case there are more force chains in the transitional zone and near orifice, which causes the lower flowability of particles.