Modelling and simulation of iron ore pellets
Gustaf Gustafsson*, Hans-Åke Häggblad† and Pär Jonsén†
*†Luleå University of Technology
Mechanics of Solid Materials, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden e-mail: gustaf.gustafsson@ltu.se, web page: http://www.ltu.se
ABSTRACT
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.
REFERENCES
[1] G. Gustafsson, H.-Å. Häggblad, M. Oldenburg, “Smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulation of iron ore pellets flow”, Materials Processing and Design: Modeling, Simulation and Applications: NUMIFORM 2007, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Numerical Methods in Industrial Forming Processes. César de Sá, J. M. A. & Santos, A. D.
(red.). Melville, NY: American Institute of Physics, 1483-1488 (2007).
[2] G. Gustafsson, H.-Å. Häggblad, P. Jonsén, “Characterization modelling and validation of a two- point loaded iron ore pellet”, Powder Technology, 235, 126-135 (2013).
[3] G. Gustafsson, H.-Å. Häggblad, P. Jonsén, “Multi-particle finite element modelling of the compression of iron ore pellets with statistically distributed geometric and material data”, Powder Technology, 239, 231-238 (2013).
[4] G. Gustafsson, H.-Å. Häggblad, P. Jonsén, P. Marklund, “Determination of bulk properties and fracture data for iron ore pellets using instrumented confined compression experiments”, Powder Technology, 241, 19-27 (2013).
