The performance of the µ ( I )-rheology model on flat bottom silos discharge

VENIER, CÉSAR; BINDA, LEONARDO; RAMAJO, DAMIÁN; MÁRQUEZ DAMIÁN, SANTIAGO; IPPOLITO, IRENE; NIGRO, NORBERTO

EPJ Web of Conferences

EDP Sciences

Año: 2021 vol. 249

The aim of this work is to explore the capability of the µ(I)-rheology model and its numerical implementation inaddressing a silo discharge problem by computational simulation. In order to do so, the model was implementedin the general structure of an Eulerian multiphase solver based on the Volume-Of-Fluid (VOF) method of theOpenFOAM(R) suite. First, the implementation is validated against the results of another Lagrangian andEulerian codes in a two-dimensional discharge problem. After that, the model is tested against the experimentalresults of a lab-scale and industrial-scale discharge problem. While the results of the first one were satisfactoryin terms of discharge rate, for the latter one, the model exhibits disagreements in the flow patterns inside thesilo. The study shows the limits of applicability of the standard formulation of the model for real scale silos andsets the ground for further discussion and improvements.