Effect of horizontal vibrations on mass flow rate and segregation during hopper discharge: discrete element method approach

Vibration is often utilized as a means of initiating and/or controlling flow from hopper in industries dealing with powder/granular materials such as packing, conveying, etc. The effect of horizontal vibration on gravity flow of granular material from conical hopper is modeled using the discrete element method. Material considered in this study includes glass beads of diameter ranging between 0.7 mm and 2.0 mm. The flow dynamics and segregation of material are analyzed for different mixtures characterized based on mass percentage of smaller particles (fines) and multi-component mixtures (binary and ternary) at different vibration parameters. The study includes the influence of vibration frequency, acceleration amplitude, fines percentage, diameter ratio and mixture components on segregation and mass flow rate during vibratory hopper discharge. The extent of segregation is calculated by means of mass fraction of fines inside hopper for different operating conditions. The numerical results indicate that the increase in vibration acceleration at a fixed frequency results into increased mass flow rate and there exists acceleration amplitude beyond which segregation is predominant. Mixture components play significant role in segregation behaviour and binary mixture suffers more segregation as compared to ternary mixture. The spatial distribution of the velocity profile indicates that different mixtures behave differently at a particular vibration conditions. The phenomena like sieving or percolation are also observed based on the analysis of top view simulation snap shots.