Predicting Bulk Flow and Behaviour for Design and Operation of Handling and Processing Plants

The reliable design and operation of bulk materials handling and processing plants can be difficult when dealing with complex geometries and difficult-to-handle materials, such as wet and sticky ore. Often a lack of detailed analysis of bulk material flow and process boundary interactions can lead to costly mistakes which can typically be identified easily once in operation. These problems can occur due to inaccurate characterisation during design, miscalculation of particle trajectories and velocities, and a lack of engineering tools to thoroughly visualise and analyse material flow through complex dynamic designs. This paper investigates the application of DE (Discrete Element) simulation to bulk material plant design by identifying current issues and presenting new methods of calibration and length-scale/dynamic validation. Examples and a case study are presented to demonstrate the key issues of this paper.