APPLICATION OF DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD IN GRINDING MILLS AND COMPOSITE PARTICLE BREAKAGE

摘要

In particle industries, Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) is one of the frequently used numerical tools to analyze free flow, processing, fracture and fragmentation behavior of particles and to get insight into the mechanism involved in processing of them. DEM also has wide spread application in various engineering disciplines and communities to understand the failure behavior of heterogeneous structures. DEM treats the specimen as constituents of different individual primary particles which are governed by laws of motion and material constitutive behavior. Compared to continuum models, the DEM needs to specify micromechanical properties and contact parameters such as stiffness and bond strength. The paper discusses the applications of DEM in particle processing in various milling operations and shows linkage between micro-dynamic properties obtained from DEM and grinding performances. Further, the paper also deals with the application of DEM simulation to investigate fracture and fragmentation mechanism of composite heterogeneous particles under various loading conditions.