706 Modelling and Computational Challenges in Granular Flows

Rudy Valette, MINES ParisTech PSL Research University
Ken Kamrin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thomas Weinhart, University of Twente
 
Key words: Granular flows, Computational Methods, Fluid Dynamics.

ABSTRACT
Granular flows are ubiquitous in many fields such as industrial processing, mining, energy production, food powders, biology, geoscience, or mechanical and civil engineering. The analysis and prediction of these flows is challenging as they often occur in complex geometries and their rheology can be influenced by many microscopic and macroscopic parameters. Different computational approaches exist:
Discrete particle methods (DPMs) are a very powerful computational tool that allows the simulation of individual particles with complex interactions, arbitrary shapes, in arbitrary geometries, by solving Newton's laws for each particle. This means elaborate interactions of sintering, breaking and agglomeration of particles can be captured by the contact model. However, this method is computationally expensive and is not able to deal with the vast number of particles involved in full-scale industrial or environmental situations.
On the other hand, continuum methods can simulate the volume of real industrial flows, but have to make averaging approximations and require physical modelling, sometimes inspired by DPM results. Once these averaged parameters have been tuned via experimental data, these models can be surprisingly accurate but their general applicability is still to demonstrate.
An accurate prediction of granular flow is very important for the efficiency and safety of the design of many engineering and industrial applications. This mini-symposium aims to provide an opportunity for physicists, engineers, applied mathematicians and computational scientists to discuss the current progress and latest advancements in the field of advanced modelling and numerical methods for predicting granular flows. The focus will be on new rheological models, computational methods, improved algorithms and the modeling of interesting industrial and academic applications. Submissions can include, but are not limited to the following aspects: capturing shape and surface properties of grains; erosion and deposition; segregation; sintering; fluid-particle interaction; cohesive grains; non-local continuum theories; applications; and, description of benchmark problems for the community.