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Today, the flow properties of fibrous materials cannot be determined reliably by using the conventional equipment. The lack of characterisation methods require a high amount of experience in the handling of such particles. On the one hand, this can lead up to downtimes. On the other hand, defensive design of equipment can be uneconomical.
Figure 1: Elongated particles after conventional ring shear test
Within the framework of the research, a method shall be developed which allows the determination of the flow properties of fibrous materials needed for proper design of bins and silos. Furthermore, a categorisation by means of certain particle properties shall be established as a classification aid.
In addition, new testing devices will be created according to the special requirements of such anisotropic products in order to determine the flow properties in different directions (e.g. see. Figure 2). Subsequently, the methods will be optimised for the different categories and the limits of conventional shear tests will be evaluated.
Figure 2: left: Multi-directional-tester; right: possible failure directions in Multi-directional-tester
The claimed results will help not only to adapt and modify existing design methods but will also open up new approaches. Thereby, industrial users will be enabled to easily and reliably characterise their bulk solids for further process design.