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This paper deals with the experimental investigation and the numerical simulation of silo discharge processes, including dynamic
interactions between the silo filling and the elastic silo walls. The discharge process is described by a system of nonlinear
differential equations. Via the Finite Element Method (FEM) based on an EULERian reference frame, the deformation rate,
the velocity field, the porosity, and the stress distribution can be calculated without the need of re-meshing the FE-grid. To
compare simulation results with measured data, the numerical simulation examples are chosen to be similar to an experimental
test-silo of the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Optical measurement
techniques are applied to investigate the flow profile, and load cells on the silo walls register the stress evolution, e.g., a stress
peak (switch) moving from the outlet to the transition from hopper to shaft.
Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200401913 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 71
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The following definition of the JAUMANN tensor T was the filling state, the parameter l0 and the exponent w are
introduced by Gudehus and Wolffersdorff 1996: calibrated with experimental data. With decreasing density
during the discharge, a decrease in viscosity near to the orifice
1
T fb fe occurs.
^ T
tr T ^
The dynamic material coefficient cdyn = 2l* (trD2)
h i
^ tr T
F 2 D a2 T ^ D fd aF T^ T^0 kDk H : D (3) [N/m2] describes the influence of the shear deformation on the
viscous damping: with an increase of the deviatoric stretching
where D = 1/2 (v+v), i.e., the deformation rate, (the rate D, the influence of the viscous term increases.
symmetrical part of the velocity gradient) L = gradv. T = T/trT
and T = T 1/3 tr(T)I are the so-called stress ratio tensor and
its deviator, respectively. The barotropy factor fb and the 2.3 Numerical Solution Methodology
pycnotropy factors fe and fd depend on the void ratio e = (V/
R(msi/rsi)) 1. The void ratio at isotropic compression, ei, the When solving the system of differential equations, the Finite
void ratio at maximum compaction, ed, and the void ratio at Element Method is used [21] where the variation of the
critical state, ec (see Fig. 1) are determined with shake tests. velocity dv is taken as a weighting function. An implicit
The granular stiffness hs is determined with compaction tests EULER integration schema is applied.
and depends on the hydrostatic pressure ps = tr(T). For The calculation of the stress rate T requires small time steps
detailed descriptions of the model parameters, see [15,16]. in dimension of 106 s. The hypoplastic formulation ensures a
physical valid stress state [15].
For the 2-D simulation of the bulk solids and the wall,
isoparametric 8-node elements are used with a 9-GAUSS
point integration for the bulk solid elements and a 16-GAUSS
point integration for the wall elements. The coupling between
the bulk elements and the wall elements is realized by a special
6-node contact element with the assumption of a COULOMB
friction law.
For the simulation, the material parameters in Tab. 1 were
used (d50: median diameter, jb: bulk density, jc: internal
friction angle, jw: wall friction angle, k: horonzal stress-ratio).
At the orifice, as kinematic boundary condition, a maximum
outflow velocity of ty = 1 cm/s is prescribed, i.e., starting from
zero, the maximum velocity is reached after an opening period
Figure 1. Void ratio: dependence on volumetric (hydrostatic) stress: ei upper of 0.2 s.
limit, ed lower limit, ec critical void ratio, and ep SOM-region (swept out of
memory').
72 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http:www.cet-journal.de Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1
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Figure 2. Experimental setup and FE-grid: positions of the load cells and strain
gauges for the measurement of the wall stresses, the wall deformations, and the
silo mass. The FE-grid represents the symmetric part of the silo.
B3). Thus, the amount of bulk solids in the silo is known. All
data are collected with a PC with a scan rate of 5,000 data
points per second.
In addition to the stress measurements, the bulk solids are
observed optically with a CCD-camera. With these data, the
velocities of the bulk solids are detected using Particle Image
Velocimetry (PIV) (see [13,14,23,24]). PIV is a common tool
for non invasive investigation of velocimetry profiles, see [14]
for a detailed description. Figure 4. Velocity profiles at different heights: comparison between the
Three different bulk solids PET (je = 30, jc = 44), PP (je = calculated and the experimental data.
29, jc = 39), and PS (je = 29, jc= 42) were used for the
discharge experiments.
Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 http://www.cet-journal.de 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 73
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at the axis. The change starts from the bottom of the silo Fig. 6 demonstrates how the switch is initiated. The simulated
moving upwards to the transition of hopper and shaft. This rate of deformation D, normal to the silo walls at different
change of the stress state is called the switch. In Fig. 5 the heights, is depicted versus time. The rate of deformation D is
mechanism of movement for the switch is illustrated. The calculated directly by the FEM. The stress of an elastic body
filling state of the bulk solids in the hopper for the ideal case is is given by T or the stress rate T. The simulated positions are
shown in Fig. 5a. In this case the stress state is called the active similar to those of the load cells shown in Fig. 7.
stress state. Fig. 7 shows the measured normal wall stresses versus time
for the load cells R2, R3, R4 (hopper), and R7 (shaft) (for
positions see Fig. 2). The switch moving upwards can be
Figure 5. Principle stress trajectories and maximum normal wall stress: changing
from active to passive stress state in the hopper and upward movement of the
stress peak at the beginning of discharge.
whereas the layers above are still not moving. Due to the
dilation, the bulk solids density, the strength, and, hence, the determined. In the shaft (R7, Fig. 2), a slight decrease of
supporting stresses for the layers above are decreasing the normal wall stress is visible. The simulation gives a precise
(Fig. 5b). As a result, the normal and the shear stresses on increase of the rate of deformation at position R7 in Fig. 6
the wall must increase to fulfill the equilibrium of forces in the (please note: positive rate of deformation D results in a stress
layer above. The dilation front moves upwards. The change of decrease and negative D results in a stress increase).
the stress state and therefore the switch are moving upwards While moving upwards, the stress peak is increasing. This
from the orifice and cease at the transition from hopper to behaviour can clearly be verified by the experiment shown in
shaft because the stress state in the shaft of the silo remains Fig. 7 but is not visible in Fig. 6. The time scale of the
active (Figs. 5b and c). simulation is smaller than that of the experiment. This is
because, due to the necessary small time step size
of 106 s, the possible calculation time allows a
simulation of only a few seconds.
In Fig. 8 the stress profiles at five different
points of time measured in the test silo are
displayed. The used material was PET. Until a
time of t = 3 s the silo is in filling state. This is
because after starting the measurements the start
of discharge is delayed. After a period of t = 5.3 s
the discharge state in the silo is fully developed.
In the first and last diagram (t = 3.3 s and t = 5.3 s,
respectively) the theoretical values for the filling
and discharge states are displayed as lines.
The values were calculated with the stres-
stool program published by Schulze [25]. This
program calculates the stresses according to the
theory of Janssen [26] for the shaft. In the hopper
Figure 6. Simulation: wall normal rate of deformation at different load cell positions R in hopper region the program distinguishes between filling
and shaft (see Fig. 2). and discharge state. The filling state is calculated
74 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http:www.cet-journal.de Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1
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Figure 8. Wall normal stress in experimental silo at different time steps: Figure 9. Measured stress distribution: alternating stress fluctuation in the
measured results at load cellpositions R (bars) and analytical results of filling hopper.
state and discharge state (lines) [25].
according to Motzkus, the discharge state is calculated via a Furthermore, the FE-Method with the continuum mechanical
proposal of Arnold and McLean, where the theory of Jenike is approach is not yet able to consider moving shear bands.
applied. It can be seen that the stresses measured in the hopper
are higher than the theoretical values whereas in the shaft the
measured stresses are less then the calculated values. One 6 Conclusions
possible reason for this result may be that the method of filling
the silo did not lead to an active stress state. Another reason The hypoplastic model, taking into account the void ratio
for this behaviour could be that the bulk solids properties are and the stress dependencies, is a convergent and rather
not measured precisely. For the used material, this is possible effective approach for the simulation of bulk solids silo
because the particle size is rather large. For bulk solids with discharge. The new density-dependent viscosity formulation
large particle sizes the exact determination of the properties is improves the behaviour modelling of the bulk solids and is a
difficult. Nevertheless, the maximal stresses near the transi- suitable extension for the hypoplastic equation. This approach
tion of hopper and shaft are the same in theory and characterizes the dilatant behaviour of bulk solids, so that
experiment. shear bands can be localised [21]. The moving switch can be
detected and the velocity distribution shows a satisfactory
agreement with the experimental data.
Stress measurements in a large scale silo have shown that at
5 Discussion the beginning of discharge the switch is moving upwards from
the bottom to the transition from hopper to shaft. During
When the discharge state is reached, the flow of the bulk discharge, stress fluctuations were detected with several
solids is called steady state flow because the stresses and the frequencies.
bulk solids density do not change any further. This statement is In further investigations the dynamic effects will be resolved
valid for time averaged data. When looking at the instanta- by measuring stresses and deformations at the silo walls. It is
neous flow, the situation is different. In Fig. 9, a closer look at planned to perform velocity measurements using the PIV-
the stresses at the transition of hopper and shaft is done for the method at the same time as the stress measurements. Thus, we
wall normal stress near the transition at positions L4 and R4 will be able to correlate the velocity and stress fluctuations
(see Fig. 2). giving us a better understanding of the observed dynamic
It can be seen that although the discharge state is reached, effects.
the stresses at the transition are not constant but alternating
on the left and right sides of the silo. A frequency with a period
time of approximately 5 s was determined for these fluctua- Acknowledgement
tions. Similar results have been published [27] and moving
shear bands are probably responsible for this effect, the Jens-Uwe Bhrnsen and Michael Ostendorf gratefully
occurrence of shear bands has already been described [28]. acknowledge the finalcial support of the Deutsche For-
The simulation cannot describe an alternating state because of schungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
the applied symmetric approach and the uniform filling. Received: August 22, 2003 [CET 1913]
Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 http://www.cet-journal.de 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 75
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76 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http:www.cet-journal.de Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1