Project discription
This project is project 3 of 4 projects on CFD-DEM modeling, the other PhD projects are hosted at Delft and Eindhoven. in this project simulations will be performed to study powder filling and mixing in complex industrial systems like the stirred bed reactors. This systems have complex particle-particle interactions in the regime below fluidization, where jamming and thus solid-like behavior has to be considered as well as the slow elasto-plastic flows during operation, with intermittent bursts of rapid fluid-like flow
For efficient mixing it is first-of-all important to avoid segregation and to understand the different mechanisms, like size- or density-segregation vs. diffusive mixing, and the effect of material and contact parameters on those.
The simulation results will rely on the proper calibration of the model parameters before validation, both using the experimental data from the other projects, e.g. the particle trajectories from project 1, where mechanical agitation by impellers is applied. Of specific interest is also the effect of cohesive/wet powder properties and the dependence on moisture conditions of particle-particle and particle-wall interactions (project 2) in process equipment, such as down-flow reactors, blast-furnaces (project 4), or silos, where the continuum fields can be readily extracted from the CFD-DEM model.
The eventual goal is to model the regime maps for particle-particle and particle-wall interactions developed in project 1, as basis to study the mixing processes and dynamics in terms of the quality of powder mixing as well as efficiency/power consumption (via the torque on the impellers). Ultimately, this will allow to link, on basis of CFD-DEM simulations, powder properties with the process conditions so that equipment can be optimized or even newly designed for better performance and quality.
People involved
Dr. T. Weinhart (Thomas)
Prof.Dr. A.R. Thornton (Anthony)
Image provide by Mitchel Post utilising Oomph-lib and MercuryDPM