Influence of aspect ratio of ellipsoidal particles on mixing in vibrated packed bed using DEM

Abstract

The uniform mixing of particles is crucial in many industrial applications. In industries, most granular materials are nonspherical, with ellipsoids being a common deviation from the sphere. The study employs the DEM model to investigate the mixing of a binary mixture in a vibrated packed bed with fixed amplitude and frequency. The study explores the behavior of the binary mixture of coarse and fine particles, with one particle being ellipsoid of aspect ratios (0.25-3.0) and the other being a sphere. The subdomain mixing index quantifies the mixing. The mixing of binary mixtures is determined by the aspect ratio of coarse and fine particles. The mixing efficiency is indicated by the average velocity of reference spherical particles, reflecting the convection strength within the bed. The results show higher average velocity in an ellipsoidal-sphere mixture than in a sphere-sphere mixture. The DEM results are validated with an identical experimental system.