Soft-Sphere DEM Simulation of Coarse Particles Transported by a Fully Developed Turbulent Gas Vertical Channel Flow

The main focus of the present study is to evaluate the accuracy of the soft-sphere method to represent the particle-particle and the particle-wall collision effect in dilute rapid particulate flow. At this aim, 3D soft-sphere Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulation results are presented for frictionless elastic and inelastic particles, for different sizes and mean solid volume fractions, transported in a fully developed vertical channel flow. The effect on particle statistics of the friction during particle-wall collisions is analyzed. Profiles of time-averaged quantities are assessed and well agree with simulation results available from the literature, obtained by using the hard-sphere model.