Open AccessPrediction of Particles-Air Movement in Silo during Filling Operation
Author(s) -
Siti Ilyani Rani,
Jolius Gimbun,
Badhrulhisham Abdul Aziz
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
open journal of inorganic non-metallic materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2164-6805
pISSN - 2164-6791
DOI - 10.4236/ojinm.2014.43004
Subject(s) - silo , computational fluid dynamics , fluent , airflow , flow (mathematics) , mechanics , enclosure , environmental science , root mean square , engineering , geotechnical engineering , simulation , meteorology , marine engineering , structural engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , telecommunications , electrical engineering
Awareness of dust explosion hazards during silo filling operation is important for safety measures. Thus, information on particles-air flow field is required to assess the likelihood of the hazard. Flow field visualization via experimental investigation associated with difficulties and risks. Hence, in the present study, a modeling formulation using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT software was employed to predict an insight of flow field distribution, in terms of mean and root mean square (RMS) velocities vectors in cylindrical silo during axial filling. According to the simulation results, predicted flow field has a great influence to the silo height and distance to the silo wall due to gravitational force and movement of fugitive dust and re-circulation of air. The results showed that the predicted data were in very good agreement with experimental data obtained from the literature. The maximum error was around 10%. The study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of the particles-air behavior inside industrial equipments during filling operation