Granular flow in a silo discharged with a conveyor belt

By means of an experimental analysis we study the granular flow in a two-dimensional silo discharged through a conveyor belt placed below the outlet. The results exhibit a saturation of the flow rate, W, with the belt velocity (vb). Moreover, we find a dependence of the flow rate and grains velocity...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Maza-Ozcoidi, D. (Diego)|||/items/039937b4-6e5c-4e2c-abd9-846d532683e0, Gella, D. (Diego)|||/items/1c14a056-42bf-4884-a05e-ee419b14849d, Zuriguel-Ballaz, Í. (Íker)|||/items/34630ddb-a186-4b1f-b297-956f7debf538
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Navarra
Repository:Dadun. Depósito Académico Digital de la Universidad de Navarra
Language:Spanish
OAI Identifier:oai:dadun.unav.edu:10171/68439
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10171/68439
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Silo
Flow
Conveyor belt
Granular matter
Description
Summary:By means of an experimental analysis we study the granular flow in a two-dimensional silo discharged through a conveyor belt placed below the outlet. The results exhibit a saturation of the flow rate, W, with the belt velocity (vb). Moreover, we find a dependence of the flow rate and grains velocity on the outlet size D which differs from the purely gravitational regime. To explain it, we propose an analysis based on mass conservation arguments that agrees with the experimental data when (vb) is sufficiently low. For large values of this variable, it seems to be a smooth transition between a free discharge regime (for small D) and a belt extraction regime (for large D) where the proposed model is also valid. Our analysis provides a useful connection between the flow rate and the exit geometry, a feature that may be very useful from a practical point of view.