Breakage of fractal agglomerates

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-6-2017

Abstract

Breakage behavior of fractal agglomerates as a function of impact velocity and surface energy was investigated using discrete element method (DEM). Agglomerates with fractal dimensions (Df) ranging from about 2.0 to 2.8 were produced by letting primary particles having random initial velocities agglomerate under a centripetal force. The simulation results show that the damage ratio (Dm), defined as the ratio of broken interparticle contacts to the initial total contacts, decreases with increasing fractal dimension in the range between 2.0 and 2.6, which can be explained by the increased mechanical strength with increasing fractal dimension. Previously introduced Weber number (We) based correlation for damage ratio is generalized by incorporating the fractal dimension: Dm=BWeDf2α, where B and α depend exponentially and linearly on Weber number, respectively. Visualization of impact process illustrates the feature of ductile fracture of fractal agglomerates irrespective of fractal dimensions.

Identifier

85006826074 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Chemical Engineering Science

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2016.12.018

ISSN

00092509

First Page

117

Last Page

126

Volume

161

Grant

EEC-0540855

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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