RESUMEN

The problem of the consolidation of an aerated fine powder under gravity is considered. The industrial relevance of the problem is discussed and a mathematical model is introduced. The mathematical structure is that of a coupled system for three unknowns, pressure, stress, and height of the powder in the (axisymmetric) bunker containing it. The system itself consists of a parabolic PDE, an ODE, and an integral equation determining a free boundary corresponding to the height of the powder. Existence and uniqueness of a solution is established. A numerical method based on a formulation of the semidiscretized problem as an index 1 DAE is proposed and implemented. The feasibility of the approach is illustrated by computational results.

Jenike's radial solution, widely used in the design of materials-handling equipment, is a similarity solution of steady-state continuum equations for the flow under gravity of granular material through an infinite, right-circular cone. In this paper we study how the geometry of the hopper influences this solution. Using perturbation theory, we compute a first-order correction to the (steady-state) velocity resulting from a small change in hopper geometry, either distortion of the cross section or tilting away from vertical. Unlike for the Jenike solution, all three components of the correction velocity are nonzero; i.e., there is secondary circulation in the perturbed flow.