A coupled DEM and FEA analysis of bulk material flow on the bottom plate of excavator bucket

摘要

Excavators operate in hazardous mining environment are subjected to extreme load and complex wear mechanism. The main purpose of this work is to analyze the pressure and force distribution over the bottom plate of the excavator bucket, which basically experiences dry sliding wear due to flow of granular earth material. In this work a numerical model based on both discrete and finite element model has been proposed to analyze the pressure distribution, stress strain and deformation phenomenon in order to prevent/ reduce the equipment failure and maintenance cost.Another important aspect of this numerical analysis is to compare the change in the pressure and force distribution on bottom plate both in the presence and absence of wear reduction bars. The results exhibit that the bottom plate having wear bars offers better resistance to the complex loading conditions that occur in mining environment.