An efficient multiscale bi-directional PBM-DEM coupling framework to simulate one-dimensional aggregation mechanisms

Abstract

The mesoscale population balance modelling (PBM) technique is widely used in predicting aggregation processes. The accuracy and efficiency of PBM depend on the formulation of its kernels. A model of the volume- and time-dependent one-dimensional aggregation kernel is developed for predicting the temporal evolution of the considered particulate system. To make the developed model physically relevant, the PBM model needs three unknown parameters as input: volume-dependency in collisions, collision frequency per particle and aggregation probability. For this, the microscale discrete element model (DEM) is used. The system’s collision frequency is extracted periodically using a novel collision detection algorithm that detects and ignores duplicate collisions. Finally, a multiscale bi-directional PBM–DEM coupling framework is presented to simulate the aggregation mechanism. PBM and DEM simulations take place periodically to update the particle size distribution (PSD) and extract the collision-frequency, respectively. The coupling framework successfully explains the dependence between the PSD and the collision frequency. Additionally, computational cost of the algorithm is optimized while maintaining the accuracy of the results. Lastly, the accuracy and efficiency of the developed framework are verified using two different test cases. In one of the examples, a simple aggregation is simulated directly inside the DEM for the first time.