Dynamic modeling of powder delivery systems in gravity-fed powder feeders

This paper presents an approach for modeling powder delivery system dynamics in low flow rate applications. Discrete particle modeling (DPM) is utilized to analyze the motion of individual powder particles. In DPM, an irregular bouncing model is employed to represent the powder dispersion in the powder delivery system induced by non-spherical particle-wall collisions. A three-dimensional friction collision model is utilized to simulate the interactions between particles and the powder delivery system walls. The modeling approach is experimentally verified and simulation studies are conducted to explore the effect of powder delivery system mechanical design parameters (i.e., tube length, diameter, and angle, number of tubes and meshes, and mesh orientation and size) on the powder flow dynamics. The simulation studies demonstrate that the powder delivery system dynamics can be modeled by a pure transport delay coupled with a first order system. Copyright © 2006 by ASME.