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Simulation of wear and dust emission at a transfer chute

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 16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011
„Anlagen - Bauteile - Computersimulationen“

Simulation of Wear and Dust Emission at a Transfer

Chute

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Goniva

(CD-Lab. on particulate flow modelling, Linz)

Jun. Prof. Dr.-Ing. André Katterfeld

(ILM, Otto-von-Guericke-Unversität Magdeburg)
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Kloss
(CD-Lab. on particulate flow modelling, Linz)

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Kloss (Referent)

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Goniva (Referent)
CD-Lab. on particulate flow modelling
Altenbergerstr. 69

4020 Linz, Austria

16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011 Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

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Christoph Goniva, Andre Katterfeld, Christoph Kloss CFD-DEM Simulation of a Transfer Chute

Simulation of Wear and Dust Emission at a Transfer

Chute
In this paper the dust emission and wear at a transfer chute is investigated by means of
numerical simulations using a coupled Discrete Element Method (DEM) and
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This flexible and detailed modelling approach helps
to get insight to dust generation and propagation as well as wear in industrial plants. The
first part of this work deals with the optimization of a transfer chute in terms of dust
emission and the second part deals with local wear prediction.

1 Dust Emission at a Transfer Chute

A key topic of transfer chutes is dust emission. Fine particles are propagated by air flow
which is often induced by the bulk motion and can cause health and environmental risk,
especially in closed buildings, or even explosion hazard (Katterfeld et al. 2009).

Currently reduction of dust emission is achieved by additional equipment which either

change the bulk properties (e.g. wetting of the bulk) or air extraction or devices like
electrostatic precipitators. All those measures lead to additional construction and
operational costs. Some of the measures even affect the bulk/product properties and thus
negatively affect product quality and production costs. The approach of modifying a
transfer chute in order to reduce dust generation is rarely found.

Coupled CFD-DEM simulations can help to design and modify the bulk motion in a
transfer chute to reduce dust generation an emission. Generally dust is generated where
the bulk motion is abruptly changed or the bulk porosity is reduced and interstitial air,
carrying fine dust exits. Thus, a design criterion for transfer chutes is on one hand a
smooth change of bulk velocity and on the other hand a compact material stream in order
to reduce the contact area to surrounding air (Katterfeld et al, 2009).

With those two design criteria many transfer chute designs can be evaluated easily. In
Fig.1 the steady state a conventional transfer chute design as well as an optimised design
are depicted. The bulk colour denotes its velocity and allows a rough classification of
above mentioned criteria. Those two designs are now further investigated in terms of dust
generation an emission.
 16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011 Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

Dilatation of Smooth
Abrupt material stream redirection compact
changing of of material material stream
particle flow
direction and
velocity

front view side view front view side view

Original Version Optimised Version
Figure 1: DEM-simulation of two different designs of a transfer chute. Particle colour: particle
velocity: 0 >7m/s, from (Katterfeld et al, 2009).

1.1 Coupled CFD-DEM Simulations

Often simulations of transfer chutes neglect induced or external air flow. If dust emission
is a critical point and exhaust systems are used it is necessary to account of air flow which
is induced by the bulk motion, as it can significantly affect its performance. The induced
air flow is important to design the exhaust system in an efficient way and avoid any
recirculation regions or leakage.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is perfectly suited to numerically predict this air flow.
The need to account for the bulk motion leads to a coupling of Discrete Element Method
(DEM) and CFD.
We can distinguish between two different approaches for such a coupling of CFD and
DEM. A real coupling approach (e.g. Goniva et al. 2011) and a separated coupling
approach (e.g. Donohue et al., 2009). Within this study four-way coupled CFD-DEM
simulations using the “CFDEM” framework (CFDEM, 2011) are conducted. This open
source framework provides the functionality for CFD-DEM coupling of the open source
codes OpenFOAM® (OpenCFD, 2009) and LIGGGHTS (LIGGGHTS, 2011). It includes
particle-particle, particle-wall, particle-fluid and fluid-particle interaction. Further the dust
generation and propagation is considered.
The motion of the incompressible gas phase in presence of a secondary particle phase is
described by the volum-averaged Navier Stokes Equations which can be written as
follows (Goniva et al, 2011):

 f
    f uf   0 (1)
t ,
  f uf 
    f uf uf    f 
p (2)
 R pf    
t . f
Here,  f denotes the volume fraction of the fluid,  f denotes the fluid density, uf
denotes the fluid velocity, and    f uf the fluid phase stress tensor. R pf represents the
Christoph Goniva, Andre Katterfeld, Christoph Kloss CFD-DEM Simulation of a Transfer Chute

momentum transfer with the particle phase which is calculated from the particles drag
forces within an computational cell. For the calculation of the particle drag force, the
correlation proposed by Di Felice is used, which includes a volume fraction based
correction and thus takes into account the drag reduction of a swarm of particles
compared to single particles (Goniva et. al. 2011). For solving above equations a pressure
based solver with the PISO algorithm for pressure-velocity coupling is applied.

1.1.1 CFD-DEM Coupling

Die Coupling composes of the following steps (Goniva et al, 2011):

1) The DEM solver calculates the particles positions and velocities.

2) The particles positions and velocities are passed to the CFD solver.
3) For each particle, the corresponding cell in the CFD mesh is determined.
4) For each cell, the particle volume fraction as well as a mean particle velocity is
determined.
5) Based on the particle volume fraction, the fluid forces acting on each particle are
calculated.

6) Particle-fluid momentum exchange terms are assembled from particle based forces by
ensemble averaging over all particles in a CFD cell.
7) The fluid forces acting on each particle are calculated and sent to the DEM solver and
used within the next time step.
8) The CFD solver calculates the fluid velocity taking into account local volume fraction
and momentum exchange.
9) Additional equations such as species concentration can optionally be evaluated.
10) The routine is repeated from (1).

1.1.2 Calculation of the Dust Propagation

For the dust phase a passive scalar transport equation is solved. It is assumed, that the
dust loading is very low and thus an influence of the dust on the gas phase can be
neglected. This assumption is perfectly suited for the dust sized considered in this
investigation. The transport equation consists of a transient, convective, diffusive and
source term and can be written as follows:

T
   ufT     DT T   ST (3)
t ,
where T is the dust concentration, DT the dust diffusion and ST is a source term of the
dust phase.

As described by Goniva et. al. (2010), dust diffusion is strongly affected by the local
Trubulence. Following Crowe (1985) the reciprocal Schmidt-number, which is the ratio of
16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011 Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

diffusivity and effective viscosity, is a function of the ratio  P, relax  G ,turb ,

DT  f   P ,relax 
 F  (4)
f  
 f ,turb  ,
where  P,relax is the particle relaxation time and  f ,turb the characteristic time scale of the
fluid turbulence, which can be calculated from the turbulence parameters k und  :

k
 G ,turb  0.15 . (5)

If the dust particle diameter is in a size range where the settling velocity is not negligibly
small, an additional drift velocity has to be introduced (see Goniva et al. 2010). For the
dust particles considered here this can be neglected.

Bagnold (1941) found that, dust emission from the surface of a granular bed is a function
shear velocity at the surface and can be described by F  u 3 . Within this investigation we
assumed, following Hilton und Cleary (2011), that a dust source can be modelled as
follows:
C rp uf
3

ST  (6)
Vcell ,
where C is a model parameter, Vcell the cell volume and rp the particle radius.

1.2 Results on the Dust Emission Calculations

Using the model approach described in the previous chapters two different transfer chute
geometries are investigated in terms of dust generation and emission. For both
simulations a bulk mass flux of 1440 t/h is assumed. Further a cross flow of 1 m/s
perpendicular to the conveyor belt is assumed.
Due to the particle-fluid momentum transfer an air flow along the conveyor belt and
through the transfer chute is induced. The air therefore is sucked into the transfer chute as
depicted in Fig. 2. It can be seen that for the optimised geometry a large amount of
surrounding air is sucked into the transfer chute and thus a propagation of the dust is
prevented.

original geometry optimised geometry

Figure 2: Pathlines at two transfer chutes from coupled CFD-DEM simulations.
Christoph Goniva, Andre Katterfeld, Christoph Kloss CFD-DEM Simulation of a Transfer Chute

If we further consider the dust propagation significance in the difference of the air flow for
the two designs becomes obvious, especially at the end of the conveyor belt. In Figure 3
an iso-surface of the dust concentration is depicted. It can clearly be seen that the
optimised geometry leads to lower dust emissions.
It should be mentioned that only the upper part of the transfer chute was considered for
the dust transport simulations. The CFD mesh (~340000 cells) covers the upper conveyor
belt and the upper part of the chute.
The bulk material stream in the original design of the transfer chute is hitting the receiving
belt almost vertically and with high speed as it can be seen in Figure 1. A spoon chute is
used in the lower part of the optimised design to prevent the abrupt redirection of the
stream and hence to reduce the dust emission.

original geometry optimised geometry

Figure 3: Dust emission of two transfer chute geometries calculated by coupled CFD-DEM
simulations.

2 Wear at Transfer Chutes

The optimised geometry is now investigated in terms of wear and possible design
optimisation. Wear in industrial applications is usually expressed by a material loss over
time. But the simulation itself covers only a small time frame. Hence, analytical models
has to be used which enable a wear prediction based on the forces and relative velocities
measured in the simulation.
Wear in transfer stations do not only cover the chute plates itself but also the wear on the
receiving belt. Due to the fact that the belt is the most expensive part of an belt conveyor
and its repair or change is time and cost intensive, a transfer chute design should be
focused on minimizing the belt wear.

The spoon chute is reducing the dust emission as described earlier but also protects the
belt from a direct impact of bulk material with high velocity and accelerates the material
stream in conveying direction. This reduces the belt wear significantly.
Although the analysis of the belt wear is from special importance, the following wear
analysis of the optimised transfer chute design is focussed on the chute wear.
16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011 Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

1.2 Wear Modelling

To model wear at the transfer chute the Finnie model (Finnie, 1972) is adapted. This
model calculates the erosion rate from the kinetic energy of the particle stream. It can be
written as:
2
E  kf up f (  i ) (6)
.
Here E denotes the non-dimensional mass, kf a material dependent model-parameter and
f() mimics the dependency of the erosion rate on the collision angle of the particle
stream, which can be written as:

f (  i )  1 / 3 cos 2 (  i ) , tan(  i )  1 / 3, (7)

f (  i )  sin( 2  i )  3 sin 2 (  i ) , tan(  i )  1 / 3. (8)

It can be shown (Kloss, 2011), that the mass eroded from the wall EM by particle-wall-
contact (duration from tc,0 to tc,1) can be written in the form:

tc ,1
EM  2 kf  hs( u
tc ,0
p c n ) sin( 2  i )up fp-w f (  i ) dt . (8)

Hereby hs is the Heaviside-Function, cn the vector from the particle centre to the contact
point at the wall, and fp-w contact force between the particle and the wall.
In the described model the consideration of specific material properties is realized by the
factor kf only. This parameter must be determined for each material in special
experimental tests. For the shown draft of the optimised transfer chute a kf value for mild
steal was assumed.

1.2 Results on Wear calculation

The wear calculated by means of DEM is depicted in Fig. 4. In the Figure “wear” denotes
the relative erosion of material and should be tuned for distinct material combinations to
get absolute values (e.g. mm/week).
The simulation predicts very high erosion at the lower part of the chute where the bulk
material is forced to change its direction at very high relative velocities between particles
and the wall (> 8m/s). In that region a special wear liner materials (e.g. ceramic tiles)
should be used for the chute wall to prevent the chute from major damage.
Christoph Goniva, Andre Katterfeld, Christoph Kloss CFD-DEM Simulation of a Transfer Chute

Figutre 4: Wear calculation at the optimised geometry using the Finnie-model

The wear analysis shows clearly that at the spoon – although reducing dust emissions
and belt wear – high wear rates can be expected. For the industrial application all
advantages and disadvantages of the design have to be taken into account. A balanced
compromise considering the bulk material and the real application conditions has to be
found.

Conclusion

In the frame of this work we could demonstrate that numerical simulations of industrial
plants, especially conveyor belts, using CFD-DEM gives very detailed insight into the dust
generation, the bulk motion and the wear.
Dealing with such problems at an industrial scale is very challenging in terms of
computational effort and was conducted with an MPI parallelised, free-of-charge, open
source software (CFDEM, 2011) on a cluster.
Although an experimental validation and tuning of the sub-models applied in this work will
dramatically improve the results, the current model can give excellent evaluation of the
process and the design.
We could show that a reduction of dust emission can be achieved by a modified design of
the transfer chute. Further we could point out regions of the design with high amount of
wear which will therefore need additional measures to prevent serious damage of the
chute.
 16. Fachtagung Schüttgutfördertechnik 2011 Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

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Particulate Science and Technology, Vol. 3, pp.149–158.
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