Seminar - Jin Ooi - Silos and particulate solids: phenomena, measurement and modelling

Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 1.10 - 1.50 pm
Civil Engineering Lecture Theatre 3

Jin Y. Ooi
Professor of Particulate Solid Mechanics
Institute for Infrastructure & Environment
School of Engineering & Electronics
University of Edinburgh
The King's Buildings
Edinburgh EH9 3JN, U.K.

About the presenter
Jin Ooi did his first degree at the University of Auckland and completed his PhD degree at the University of Sydney in 1990. He then took up a lectureship at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and has been there ever since. His principal research interests lie in the mechanics and dynamics of granular or particulate solids, with special reference to stored solids in silos. His research covers both computational and experimental studies in pursuit of new insights into the behaviour of particulate systems, and attempts to exploit these insights to address unsolved industrial problems. He is currently the Professor of Particulate Solid Mechanics, one of two professors leading the Silos and Granular Solids Research Group at the University of Edinburgh. Jin Ooi's homepage


Abstract
Particulate solids are everywhere. These include salt, sugar, breakfast cereals, soils, mineral ores, agricultural grains and a very wide range of industrial solids. The behaviour of particulate solids and the issues relating to handling and processing are thus of interest to engineers and scientists working in many fields.

This presentation first describes some of the phenomena associated with the storage and handling of particulate solids. The recent studies conducted at Edinburgh to investigate two of these phenomena, namely silo honking and silo arching, are then briefly described. Silo honking is a phenomenon in which the silo emits a loud intermittent “honk” similar to a truck horn when it is discharging. Silo arching is when the flow of stored solid is arrested due to cohesive bridging across the outlet. The last part of the presentation will touch on the use of EDEM discrete element modelling software to model granular mechanics problems involving non-spherical particles contacting static and moving boundary surfaces of complex geometry. EDEM has also been coupled with FLUENT computational fluid dynamics software to model processes involving interstitial fluid flow.