Numerical simulation of motion of rigid spherical particles in a rotating tumbler with an inner wavelike surface

The present work is a numerical simulation of motion of rigid spherical particles within a 2-D tumbler with an inner wavelike surface. The rotation of the tumbler is simulated as a traveling sine wave around a circle. The discrete element method (DEM, a hard sphere approach) is used. The particle–wall interactions are taken into account in a changed numerical approach of hard sphere model. The effects of two basic factors of the rotating velocity (phase velocity) and the wave numbers are separately investigated. A simple but useful method for cluster identification is provided and used. The energy-based analysis of particle clusters and the motion pattern study indicate the existence of a pulsed variation in the kinetic energy of the clusters at low wave numbers and a cyclic bulk motion of the clusters at high wave numbers. The necessary conditions for the pulsed variation of motion of particle clusters at low wave number are analyzed and a mode for industrial application, e.g. coal grinding process in power plant, is demonstrated.