Study on Characteristics of Pipeline Hydraulic Transportation of Coarse Particles Based on LBM-DEM Method

Abstract

Pipeline hydraulic transportation is an important method for transporting solid materials. An LBM–DEM-based simulation method is established in the Visual Studio platform using the Fortran language, which can model the hydraulic transportation process of coarse particles in a pipeline. To verify the feasibility of this numerical simulation method, we also conduct pipeline hydraulic transportation experiments and find that the simulation results are consistent with the experimental results. This method is used to investigate the motion characteristics of coarse particles in horizontal pipelines under different conditions because of its advantages of clear physical meaning, ability to deal with complex boundary conditions, and suitability for parallel computing. The results show that the bedload motion is the main motion mode of coarse particles in horizontal pipelines. Changes in the pipeline flow velocity and particle diameter can cause some particles to saltate, and the critical pipeline flow velocity of saltation particles has a linear relationship with the particle diameter. During the process of coarse particles changing from the static state to stable state, the velocity curve of coarse particles gradually changes from “C” type to “S” type with the increase of particle diameter. Moreover, there is a linear relationship between the pipeline flow velocity and the stable velocity of coarse particles, while the particle diameter has no significant influence on the stable velocity. This study provides guidance for the development of pipeline hydraulic transportation technology of coarse particles.