Behaviour of granular materials in the field of vibration

Vibration has been widely used in various industrial operations dealing with granular materials. Classification, conveying and packing provide typical examples of the vibration technique. In spite of these actual uses, the behaviour of granular materials is poorly understood. Most of the knowledge related to handling of particulates is empirical and no generalized approach for the analysis of the response of granular materials to external forces exists. This paper presents an investigation into the development of a numerical method for size segregation, which is the typical behavior of granular materials in the field of vibration. This numerical method is modified on the basis of the discrete element method proposed by Cundall. In order to consider the shape anisotropy of particles, they are first treated as elliptic models. Then mechanical units such as spring, dashpots and friction sliders are used to express the contact forces. The effect of the size ratio and the shape of each particle on the response of granular materials is considered.