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Abstract
Hoppers are widely applied in process industries mainly because of their capacity to enhance the flow conditions for granular materials. They must be properly designed for reliable control. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic behavior of the granular flow in a hopper is essential. Compared with experimental studies, computer simulation is becoming more and more popular in the last few decades, and granular flow has been investigated for a long period of time, but most of the researchers only focus on the spherical particle. We should notice that spherical particle is a particularly special case that does not well represent real materials. This may cause the flow rate to make faulty estimates. In this work, ellipsoidal particles will take place of spheres in the traditional Discrete Element Method in the simulation to investigate the shape effect on granular flow in a cylindrical hopper. Discharge rates of various shapes and orifices are compared and modified with Beverloo Equation. In addition, the macroscopic variation of discharge rate of shape effect is analyzed microscopically to establish the spatial distributions of micro dynamic variables related to flow and force structures such as velocity, porosity coordination number, and interaction forces between particles.