CFD-DEM Simulation of Fluidization of Polyhedral Particles in a Fluidized Bed

Fluidization of non-spherical particles is a common process in energy industries and chemical engineering. Understanding the fluidization of non-spherical particles is important to guide relevant processes. There already have been numerous studies which investigate the behaviors of different non-spherical particles during fluidization, but the investigations of the fluidization of polyhedral particles do not receive much attention. In this study, the investigation of the fluidization of polyhedral particles described by the polyhedron approach is conducted with a numerical CFD-DEM method. Experiments of the fluidization of three kinds of polyhedral particles are conducted under the same condition with corresponding simulations to validate the accuracy of our CFD-DEM model. The results indicate that our CFD-DEM model with the polyhedron approach can predict the behaviors of polyhedral particles with reasonable accuracy. Fluidization behaviors of different polyhedral particles are also investigated in this study. Compared to spherical particles, the motion of polyhedral particles is stronger, and mixing degree is higher under the same fluidization gas velocity.

Multisphere Representation of Convex Polyhedral Particles for DEM Simulation

The representation of particles of complex shapes is one of the key challenges of numerical simulations based on the discrete element method (DEM). A novel algorithm has been developed by the authors to accurately represent 2D arbitrary particles for DEM modelling. In this paper, the algorithm is extended from 2D to 3D to model convex polyhedral particles based on multisphere methods, which includes three steps: the placement of spheres at the corners, along the edges, and on the facets in sequence. To give a good representation of a polyhedral particle, the spheres are placed tangent to the particle surface in each step. All spheres placed in the three steps are clumped together into a clump in DEM. In addition, the mass properties of the clump are determined based on the corresponding polyhedral particle to obtain accurate simulation results. Finally, an example is used to validate the robust and automatic performance of the algorithm in generating a sphere clump model for an assembly of polyhedral particles. A current FORTRAN version of the algorithm is available by contacting the authors.

LMGC90: a Contact Dynamics open source code for the simulation of granular asteroid with realistic regolith shapes. Application to the accretion process

Granular asteroids are naturally occurring gravitational aggregates (rubble piles) bound together by gravitational forces. For this reason, it is reasonable to use the theoretical concepts and numerical tools developed for granular media to study them. In this paper, we extend the field of applicability of the Contact Dynamic (CD) method, a class of non smooth discrete element approach, for the simulation of three dimensional granular asteroids. The CD method is particularly relevant to address the study of dense granular assemblies of a large number of particles of complex shape and broad particles size distribution, since it does not introduces numerical artefacts due to contact stiffness. We describe how the open source software LMGC90, interfaced with an external library for the calculation of self-gravity, is used to model the accretion process of spherical and irregular polyhedral particles.

Contact Dynamics modeling of viscoelastic granular materials using irregular polyhedral particles

Viscoelastic granular materials are present in several disciplines. One example is asphalt mixture employed in road construction. In the last three decades, discrete element modeling has been positioned as a valid tool for the analysis of this multiphase material at the grain-scale. All this despite the simplification of the shape of the particles used in these studies. In this work, it is proposed a simplified procedure for the generation of viscoelastic granular samples composed of irregular polyhedra. The numerical aggregates were generated by a Poisson-Voronoi tessellation based on the particle size distribution (PSD) and statistic data of aggregates, without using complex imaging technics. This procedure set the porosity of the packing, while controlling the PSD. Using this procedure implies a significant computational-time reduction by skipping several preparation stages for polyhedral samples, such as deposition by gravity and compaction. This approach can be used for the study granular materials as inclusion in a solid matrix as concrete or asphalt mixtures, particle breaking, and fatigue damage of viscoelastic materials.