Particulate Science and Technology, Vol.14, No.3, 213-219, 1996
A computer simulation of dilute pneumatic conveying of granular materials in pipe branches
Controlling the transport of particulate material in pipe networks requires knowledge of the mass flow rate distribution at pipe bifurcations. A computational study is made to simulate a turbulent flow of dilute pneumatic transport of solid particles in a single bifurcation. The KIVA-3 code developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is used for this simulation. The size of the particles and the cross-sectional ratio of the pipe branches at the bifurcation are varied. It is found that the ratio of the mass flow rate of the particulate material is not proportional to the area ratio of the pipe branches. The difference between the mass flow rate ratio and the area ratio increases as the particle size decreases.