CALCULATION OF STRESS DISTRUTIONS IN POWDER BED BY THE INCREMENTAL FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD AND VERIFICATION BY EXPERIMENT (PLANE-STRAIN FIELD)

It is important to predict the stress distribution in a powder bed for the design of storage vessels and unit operations with the powder. We calculated the stress distributions in the storage vessel by using the constitutive equation of powder based on the plastic potential and Coulomb-Mohr criteria, and the incremental finite element method. We also calculated the wall stress distributions and compared them with our experimental results. They are in fairly good agreement with each other in the horizontal stress distribution of the side wall as well as in the vertical stress of the bottom. These results show that the constitutive equation and our simulation are reasonable and would be useful for the design of powder storage vessels. When the frictional force becomes equal to the weight of the powder at the side wall, a foot of arch forms at the point. The calculated results show the location and the formation mechanism of the foot of arch in the powder storage vessel. © 1990, The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan. All rights reserved.