SBIR Phase II: Computational Laboratory for the Simulation of Flowing Granular Materials

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Proposal #9401918 Staroselsky The goal of this work is to develop mature computational simulation tools to allow scaling up the designs of laboratory size or semi-industrial granular flow system to full scale industrial dimensions. Practical applications range from the design of chutes to hoppers to bins and other systems for transporting bulk solids. The specific goal of Phase II is to develop user friendly, general geometry and highly efficient computer codes for the simulation of the dynamics of these flows. This work involves combined analytical and numerical of the increasingly dense and complex granular material with real-particle effects. The theoretical work will be based on state-of-the-art statistical-mechanical methods, an effort which will culminate in the development of reliable macroscopic equations for the pertinent macrofields. The numerical studies will be concerned with the development of improved computational and diagnostic means. Particle dynamics molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with a few million particles will be issued to test the macroscopic equations and to improve the results obtained regarding the single-particle and two-particle distribution functions. The results studies will be used to develop both a finite-volume continuum mechanical code and a complementary, highly efficient MD code. The finite-volume code for bulk solid transport analysis will facilitate the scaling-up of small and medium-scale designs of chutes, hoppers, and bins to full-scale industrial applications.