Experimentally validated theory for the mixing of granular materials

该项目旨在开发更好的混合理论，以支持工业应用。有效地混合建筑工业中的骨料和选矿中的堆料等颗粒状材料对于生产均质产品非常重要，但工业搅拌机缺乏科学的设计和运行，没有对混合物质量进行控制。该项目旨在建立一种新的通用连续介质混合理论，该理论将通过对小型混合器内颗粒运动的X射线测量来验证。通过使用精确的计算方法描述理论，这些混合器的模拟将是可扩展的，并将有助于在更大的操作中提供粒子混合的预测。其他预期结果是控制混合物质量，减少行业对昂贵且耗时的反复试验的依赖。

The project aims to develop better mixing theories to support industrial applications. Effective mixing of granular materials such as aggregates in building industry and stockpiles in mineral processing is important for creating homogeneous products, yet industrial mixers lack scientific design and operate with no control of mixture quality. The project aims to establish a new general continuum mixing theory, which will be validated against X-ray measurements of grain motions within small mixers. By describing the theory using an accurate computational method, the simulations of these mixers will be scalable, and would help deliver predictions for particle mixing in much larger operations. Other expected outcomes are to control mixture quality and reduce industry reliance on costly and time-consuming trial-and-error experiments.