Computationally efficient DEM simulation of a basket-type centrifugal filter using a novel switchable contact model

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2025-02-28

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

13

Series

Powder Technology, Volume 452

Abstract

The discrete element method (DEM) offers enormous potential to gain a better understanding of cake formation in centrifugal filtration. However, the necessity to represent the highly porous filter mesh in these simulations incurs a significant computational cost. We propose replacing the porous mesh boundary that is conventionally used with a ‘switchable contact model’ (SCM) in which the contact model between a particle and a continuous cylindrical shell is selectively enabled or disabled depending on the particle's location at the periphery of the centrifuge basket. SCM is disabled whenever a particle is deemed to be in contact with a pore location, thus allowing its egress from the basket. There was a ∼ 36 % reduction in computation time compared to the conventional mesh-based representation of a bounding filter mesh, with similar particle retention and bulk cake formation behavior. This concept could in principle be applied to model any repetitive porous structure in DEM.

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Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)

Keywords

Boundary representation, Centrifugal filtration, Contact detection, Discrete element method, High-performance computing, Porous media

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Citation

Serper, D, Hanley, K J & Oinas, P 2025, ' Computationally efficient DEM simulation of a basket-type centrifugal filter using a novel switchable contact model ', Powder Technology, vol. 452, 120467 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2024.120467