Numerical modeling of adhesive particle mixing

The discrete element method is used to investigate adhesive particle mixing in a system that includes large carrier particles and fine particle agglomerates in a Couette mixer. The simulation starts with 200 carriers and 10 agglomerates with 1000 fine particles each. During mixing, the agglomerates are broken, fractions adhere to the carriers, and there is continuous redistribution of fines between carriers. The focus is to obtain information on the quantity and quality of fine particles adhered to carriers by postprocessing the simulation data. Variation in the structure of agglomerates due to shearing is studied over mixing time. Findings indicate that major fraction of fine particles are dispersed evenly onto the surface of carriers and the rest are in form of free debris. A time-dependent index is introduced to predict the degree of mixing. Finally, the adhesion force between carriers and coated layers is observed to have a peak at 1 nN