Modelling and simulation of iron ore pellets

Transportation and storage are important parts in the process chain for producers of iron ore pellets. Knowledge and optimization of these processes are very important for further efficiency progress and increased product quality. The existence of a numerical simulation tool with accurate material characteristics will significantly increase the possibility to predict critical forces in developing new and existing transportation and storing systems and thereby decrease the amount of damaged, fractured or crushed pellets (fines). In this work modelling and simulation of iron ore pellets are carried out at different length scales. An elastic plastic granular continuum flow model for iron ore pellets using smoothed particle (SP) method is presented [1]. The model is used to model iron ore pellets silo flow. A finite element (FE) model of single iron ore pellets is also worked out with statistical data for an elastic plastic constitutive model with a fracture criterion [2]. The model is used to simulate loading and fracture on single iron ore pellets and is validated with a two point load test. In order to find the relation between the behaviour of iron ore pellets at different length scales, e.g. compare the stresses in a silo to the critical stress inside a single iron ore pellet, modelling of iron ore pellets on an intermediate length scale is established. A multi particle finite element model (MPFEM) consisting of individual discretized models of the iron ore pellets is here presented [3]. An instrumented confined compression tests is developed for measuring the global response on a limited amount of iron ore pellets [4]. The experiment is used to validate the MPFEM model in terms of the amount of broken pellets.Godkänd; 2013; 20131003 (gusgus