Measuring segregation characteristics of industrially relevant granular mixtures: Part II - Experimental application and validation

To apply an existing transport model to industrially relevant granular mixtures and flows, we demonstrate an approach to experimentally measure the segregation coefficient, S, and the flowing layer thickness, delta, using a modified quasi-2D bounded heap. During heap formation, the flowing layer velocity is characterized using particle image velocimetry, which determines delta and other kinematics. After formation, the heap is sampled to determine the concentration of each species along its length. The difference between measured and model-predicted concentration profiles is minimized by varying S, which gives the experimental estimate of S for the mixture of interest. The methodology is tested for bidisperse combinations of Cellets - industrially relevant and roughly spherical microcrystalline-cellulose particles. Variation of S with particle-size-ratio matches previous DEM results for glass particles. Further validation of the approach is provided by tests with different flow rates and mixtures, including glass particles and Cellets, and a tridisperse Cellets mixture. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.