A DEM simulation system for equipment of powder processing and bulk materials transportation

Discrete Element Method (DEM) is applied to study the dynamics behavior of equipment of powder processing and bulk materials transportation. It is assumed that powder or bulk materials are divided into discrete elements. The kinetic equations for each element are conducted by means of the Newton's second law and the motion of all the elements is achieved by employing the Static Relaxation Method. In this paper, CAD software is applied to create a boundary into which certain number of particles is packed. The ObjectARX is used to read graphic data, and these data are input into a core-processor, while the core-processor makes calculation and supplies numerical results. Those numerical results are processed by the post-processor and the motion process of particles is presented graphically. Therefore, the core-processor, the pre-processor and the post-processor compose the DEM simulation system for equipment of powder processing and bulk materials transportation. By comparing the motion simulation of a single particle in a tumbling mill with those from the theoretical results, and the motion simulation of particle-assemblies with those from other DEM software, the simulation feasibility discussed in this paper is principally verified.