Calibration procedure of Discrete Element Method (DEM) parameters for cohesive bulk materials

The downtimes are often too late to prevent the downtime of the system. One of the newer methods which can associated with blockage events in the materials handling sector is prompting the iron ore industry to optimise their operations to maximise the profitability of fines and lump products. These blockage events are caused by materials with high clay and moisture contents typically referred to as Wet and Sticky Material (WSM). There are numerous methods which are commonly used to prevent such blockage events, however, for majority of cases they be used to predict and visualise bulk material flow is the Discrete Element Method (DEM). DEM is capable of replicating the flow of non-cohesive granular materials with reasonable accuracy, however, when cohesive materials are considered the mechanism becomes much more complex. With the advancement of computational power over the last few decades it is now more practical to simulate WSMs into DEM. This paper presents a calibration procedure for cohesive bulk materials where the parameters for the Hybrid contact model are discussed in detail. A series of calibration simulations with systematic parameter variation is undertaken to define a set of calibration matrices. The developed calibration matrices enabled the formation of a parameter database, which can be used for the simulation of on-site applications to optimise plant geometry and other operational parameters.