Affiliation:
1. Department of Manufacturing Systems, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, AGH University of Krakow, A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
2. Department of Design Machine and Automotive Engineering, Lviv Polytechnic National University, 79013 Lviv, Ukraine
Abstract
Almost every branch of industry, at a certain point, utilizes omnifarous materials in their granular form. A key constituent in many bulk material logistic systems is the hopper, which usually acts as a buffering component. In order to achieve the desired throughput, the geometry of the particular hopper must be carefully determined. Considering the geometric properties of the given hopper, the inclination of the walls and the outlet orifice characteristics are the pivotal determinants of hopper functionality. In this paper, the authors have developed an analytical model of the conical hopper’s mass efficiency and compared the model with the experimental results for two distinctive granular materials. The model inputs were: the density of the bulk material, critical angle of material repose, generatrix inclination angle of the cone, and diameter of the circular outlet. The experiment was conducted according to a 32 full factorial design. The repeatability of the results was examined according to Cochran’s theorem and the adequacy of the data was evaluated via Fisher’s criterion, which confirmed the quality of the mathematical model. The error of the developed model does not exceed 4.5%.
Reference38 articles.
1. Chou, C.S., Tzeng, C.Y., Smid, J., Kuo, J.T., and Hsiau, S.S. (2000, January 21–24). Experimental study of moving granular bed: Wall stress measurement. Proceedings of the 14th ASCE Engineering Mechanics Division Conference, Austin, TX, USA.
2. Large force fluctuations in a flowing granular medium;Longhi;Phys. Rev. Lett.,2002
3. Correlation between flow pattern and wall pressures in a full scale silo;Chen;Eng. Struct.,2006
4. Three dimensional discrete element models for simulating the filling and emptying of silos: Analysis of numerical results;Gallego;Comput. Chem. Eng.,2012
5. Analysis of the velocity field of granular hopper flow;Atman;Granul. Matter,2016