Experimental Study of Wet Cohesive Particles Discharging from a Rectangular Hopper

The present work investigates discharge phenomenon for wet cohesive particles from a rectangular hopper. Three specific characteristic of the hopper flow are investigated: discharge rate, angle of repose of the material, and size of clumps formed during the discharge. These characteristics are compared to predictions from previously published Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations. The primary objective of this work is simulation validation. The current experimental results agree well with previous simulation results. Generally, as cohesion increases, the discharge rate decreases, the angle of repose increases, and the size of the clumps increases.