Discrete element method (DEM) is useful for simulating the behavior of bulk solids and corresponding interaction with handling equipment. Although DEM is widely used for simulation of bulk solids, there are no applications involving biomass handling. This study presents the first published attempt at DEM modeling of wood chips in a feeding system. The DEM model of a wood chip feeding system was first validated with experimental data. Thereafter, the validated DEM model from this study was applied to study the effect of the mounting position as well as design aspects of a horizontal agitator within a wood chip feeding system. The validation outcome demonstrates that DEM is a suitable method to compute relevant values of a wood chip system and that it can be applied to predict trends with regard to more efficient operation of the system. Results show that a sensibly chosen agitator mounting position can decrease the mass-related energy consumption by as much as 30%. In terms of design aspects, the agitator's rotational speed and the blade design are the most influential factors governing the feeding system's mass-related energy consumption. Altering the number of agitator blades and blade design can also decrease energy use by 30%. In conclusion, even simple design changes can have considerable influence when feeding wood chips, while maintaining the system's mass flow. Besides, future studies could focus on more elaborate particle shape representation in the DEM model to enable to prediction of critical flow situations, such as blocking.

The infeed ofThe material in a blast furnace isThe composed of a mixtureThe of three different materials: sinter, iron ore pellets and coke. They are each very different in shape, size and mechanical properties and likely this promotes segregation, an unwanted effect. However up till now it is not clear to what extent the Particle Size Distribution (PSD) of each of the three components affects the homogeneity. This work aims to assess the influence of particle size distributions of the individual components on the homogeneity of the infeed material by Discrete Element Model (DEM) Simulations. It can be concluded that modelling the PSD of the individual components is not required to model the tendency to segregate of the mixture of iron ore pellets, sinter and coke. Representing each of the materials by its mean particle size d50 reduces the number of particles and simulation time drastically without compromising the simulation results of the used material models.