An Experimental Study of the Wear at Hopper Walls

In this paper we describe experiments in which the equivalent of 100 tonnes of abrasive sand have been passed through a pilot-scale wedge-shaped hopper of half angle 10° and outlet width 1 cm. The walls were then cut up and the change in wall...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Glen David Corder, Rex Barry Thorpe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hosokawa Powder Technology Foundation 2014-05-01
Series:KONA Powder and Particle Journal
Online Access:https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/kona/13/0/13_1995015/_pdf/-char/en
Description
Summary:In this paper we describe experiments in which the equivalent of 100 tonnes of abrasive sand have been passed through a pilot-scale wedge-shaped hopper of half angle 10° and outlet width 1 cm. The walls were then cut up and the change in wall thickness accurately measured. The rate of wear was found to be greatest at the outlet. In interpreting these results, we used the simple abrasive model for wear recommended by Johanson and Royal1). In this model, the rate of wear is simply proportional to both the force on a particle pressing on the wall and the speed with which it scrapes down that wall. In order to calculate these parameters, we used a measurement of the velocity in a granular material at the wall of the hopper and a prediction for the stress which is a modification of the well-known method of Janssen. The constant of proportionality (the wear coefficient) for the model was measured in a pin-on-disc experiment. A prediction for the wear profile was thus obtained which shows reasonable (within a factor of two) agreement with experiment. The apparent success of the pin-on-disc method of measuring the wear coefficient suggests that it can be used instead of the more expensive methods advocated by others.
ISSN:0288-4534
2187-5537