Monitoring of solids behaviour during gravitional flow in rectangular silo

Abstract

This paper is focused on the application of Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) to gravitational flow of bulk solid in rectangular silo investigation. In order to measure the materials distribution inside a vessel, a dedicated, spatial 16 electrode sensor is designed. Reconstructed images are presented in 3D domain space. The investigated silo model consists of rectangular bin and a cone-like hopper section. The flow behaviour of material (friable sand) is studied for two silo model configurations having different lower section slopes. The slope angle is a silo geometrical parameter affecting the type of the flow regime - mass or funnel type.