Is LIGGGHTS capable of simulating blockage in screw conveyor ?

Submitted by davidf on Sun, 01/12/2014 - 10:16

Greetings friends,

I was wondering if it's possible to simulate the effect of jamming (blockage) in a screw conveyor due to non-compatible particle size distributions, too high feeding rate, too high friction among particles, etc...

Specifically, do the particles interact with the rotating impeller and can influence its rotation speed ? Or cause the rotational operation to stop ?

richti83's picture

richti83 | Sun, 01/12/2014 - 16:07

Hi David,

This is normaly not possible bc. the mesh rotates with a constant velocity so the motor has unlimented power.
BUT we have developed an interface between LIGGGHTS and OpenModelica (a language to model multi body systems), so we can make a simple motor with a realistic power-curve and than couple it with mesh/surface/stress to get the torque at the motor-shaft.

For an example look at this video:
http://cfdem.dcs-computing.com/media/DEM/featured/wheelloader_DEM_MBD_LI...
The Wheelloader is stopped by the particles while the tires are rotating (bc. of less friction between tire and ground in the MKS Model)

Best,
Christian.

I'm not an associate of DCS GmbH and not a core developer of LIGGGHTS®
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