THE PFC^3D NUMERICAL SIMULATION ON DYNAMIC PRESSURES AND FLOW OF SIDEDRAW SILOS

A sidedraw silo with chutes is studied. This silo can effectively reduce the dynamic overpressure and can be able to make stored materials flow in separated layers from top to bottom, thus significant energy can be saved. PFC^3D is used to build a model, which is the same as the test model. The static and dynamic lateral pressures are simulated using this model. The range of the maximum overpressure coefficient is calculated and verified by the test. The results show that the dynamic lateral pressure is lager on the wall which is farthest away from the discharging port and the peak value is 1.4. It also happens in this wall at a 90-degree angle to discharging port. However, there are two peak values on the wall which is farthest away from the discharging port, one is on the upper part and another is on the lower part of the silo wall at a depth of 0.8m. Furthermore, the flow pattern of particles in the numerical simulation is basically identical to that observed in the test.