Experimental and Simulation Studies of Dilute Horizontal Pneumatic Conveying

Dilute horizontal pneumatic conveying has been the subject of this experimental and numerical study. Experiments were performed utilising a 6.5 m long, 0.075 m diameter horizontal pipe in conjunction with a laser-Doppler anemometry (LDA) system. Spherical glass beads with three different sizes 0.8–1 mm, 1.5 mm, and 2 mm were used. Simulations were carried out using the commercial discrete element method (DEM) software, EDEM, coupled with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package, FLUENT. Experimental results illustrated that, for mass solid loading ratios (SLRs) ranging from 2.3 to 3.5, the higher the particle diameter and solid loading ratio, the lower the particle velocity. From the simulation investigations it was concluded that the inclusion of the Magnus lift force had a crucial influence, with observed particle distributions in the upper part of the conveying line reproducible in the simulation only by implementing the Magnus lift force terms in the model equations.