Partitioned Distinct Element Method Simulation of Granular Flow within Industrial Silos

Abstract

A method for performing discrete element simulations of granular flow and pressures within industrial silos is presented. Special attention is devoted to complex problems involving large numbers of particles and sophisticated boundary conditions due to the presence of inserts. The proposed method consists of partitioning the silo into layers that are analyzed sequentially, and in determining stresses and velocities at the virtual interlayer boundaries. The method is first validated by simulating the discharge of a single insert hopper containing 20,000 particles, performing both a simulation of the whole silo and a multilayer partition. The results show a small discrepancy in the displacement fields produced by the two simulations. Then the discharge of an industrial silo containing 170,000 particles with several inserts of different size and shape is simulated. The relevance of the stress and velocity fields obtained confirms the feasibility and the efficiency of the procedure. The method allows for managing huge numbers of particles with a limited memory capacity and a gain of computational time that may be significant depending on each particular case.