Assessing a durability test for wood pellets by Discrete Element Simulation

Abstract

Dust generation is related to the durability of products, in other words the wear rate of particles subject to forces. During transport, storage and handling the wood pellets are undergoing different forces within different pieces of equipment. For example impact forces when particles fall down or impact geometries and compressive forces when in storage.
The objective of this paper is to assess the representativeness of the socalled
tumbling can test in relation to handling conditions in the supply chain for wood pellets. Therefore forces acting on particles in the tumbling can on the one side and during loading and discharging of a flat bottom silo on the other side were compared by Discrete Element Model simulations.
It can be concluded that in the presented cases the tumbling can underestimates the handling conditions of the material in reality.