Particle shape has important effects on bulk materials as sandpiles and mixtures; temporal changes of the shape (e.g. due to surface abrasion) also have severe consequences in many industrial sectors. To represent irregular particles, a compact “irregularity function” can be stored for each particle which describes how the shape deviates from a bounding sphere. Abrasion can be studied by adopting irregularity functions which can change with time depending on contact force.
This project aims to create a generally applicable framework for transferring academic innovations in the modelling of particulate materials into industrial practice in the UK. The process of twin-screw granulation has been selected as an exemplar industrial process which is simulated across multiple scales using the coupled methods of population balance modelling and the discrete element method.
