Full Paper

Silo Discharge: Measurement and Simulation of Dynamic

Behavior in Bulk Solids
By Jens-Uwe Bhrnsen, Heinz Antes, Michael Ostendorf*, and Jrg Schwedes

This paper deals with the experimental investigation and the numerical simulation of silo discharge processes, including dynamic
interactions between the silo filling and the elastic silo walls. The discharge process is described by a system of nonlinear
differential equations. Via the Finite Element Method (FEM) based on an EULERian reference frame, the deformation rate,
the velocity field, the porosity, and the stress distribution can be calculated without the need of re-meshing the FE-grid. To
compare simulation results with measured data, the numerical simulation examples are chosen to be similar to an experimental
test-silo of the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Optical measurement
techniques are applied to investigate the flow profile, and load cells on the silo walls register the stress evolution, e.g., a stress
peak (switch) moving from the outlet to the transition from hopper to shaft.

1 Introduction the flow pattern was recorded by a conventional camera. More

recent investigations of the velocity profile have been
During silo discharge, phenomena like silo quaking occur accomplished using a CCD- or video-camera, e.g., [12]. The
causing problems which can affect the silo structure and the evaluation of the velocities is done with a computer, where a
environment. Until now, many of these problems have not mean velocity with respect to time is always calculated.
been completely understood because the dynamic effects, Particle Image Velocimetry has been used to analyse the
such as time dependent change of the flow profile while velocity profile [13], and a detailed description of the use of
discharging bulk solids, often called silo honking or silo Particle Image Velocimetry with granular flows can be found
quaking, are only sparsely investigated. in [14].
For the simulations of bulk solids flow, hypoplastic
constitutive relations are used. The development of these
models started from the hypoelastic theories of Truesdell [1] in 2 Numerical Models
1955. In the research group of Gudehus [2] a comprehensive
hypoplastic model for bulk solids has been developed, where The EULERian coordinate frame is used for the description
the fundamental hypoplastic constitutive equation was of granular flow. Thus, one can simulate discharge periods
created by Kolymbas [3]. This basic equation has been over a couple of seconds without needing to re-mesh the finite
improved by Mhlhaus [4] with COSSERAT terms. Bauer element grid, since the coordinate frame is not moving, and
[5] and von Wolffersdorff [6] improved the hypoplastic hence the relative velocity c becomes equal to the material
formulation with density dependent behaviour including the velocity v. The following differential equations hold for the
void ratio and introduced material constants with more CAUCHY stress tensor T, the density r(x,t) of the bulk solids,
physical meaning. the material velocity v, and the volume force bv due to gravity:
Many authors reported on the occurrence of dynamic Equation of momentum
effects while discharging silos, among others, Levinson and  
@Tij dtj
Munch-Anderson [7] and Tejchman [8]. Tejchman reports on T rx; t( bv v) r bj 0 (1)
@x i dt
discharging experiments with a cylindrical silo made of
perspex. He observed strong vibrations which were mini- Conservation of mass
mised using a rifled wall. In [8] an extensive list of authors
@r @r @ti
investigating dynamic effects is given, while results of more r
rv r 0 (2)
@t @t @xi
detailed investigations of dynamic behaviour of bulk solids
have also been published [9].
Measurements of flow patterns using optical flow analysis
2.1 Hypoplastic model
are common practice, e.g., [10,11]. In these first investigations,
Hypoplasticity describes inelastic phenomena without
using additional terms like a yield surface or plastic potential.
[*] Dr.-Ing. J. U. Bhrnsen, Prof. H. Antes, Institute of Applied Mechanics,
Technical University of Braunschweig, Spielmannstrae 11, D-38106
Elastic and plastic deformations are not distinguished, i.e., it is
Braunschweig, Germany; Dipl.-Ing. M. Ostendorf (author to whom recognised that inelastic deformations affect the loading
correspondence should be addressed, e-mail: m.ostendorf@tu-bs.de), process from the start, and one uses a unique equation which
Prof. J. Schwedes, Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering, Technical
University of Braunschweig, Volkmaroder Str. 4/5, D-38104 Braunsch- combines the stress, the strain and the material constants. A
weig, Germany. comprehensive introduction to hypoplasticity is given in [3].

Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200401913  2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 71
 Full Paper
The following definition of the JAUMANN tensor T was
introduced by Gudehus and Wolffersdorff 1996:
1

T fb fe
^
T
tr T ^
h
  i
^ tr T
F 2 D a2 T ^
D fd aF T^ T^0 kDk H : D (3)
where D = 1/2 (v+v), i.e., the deformation rate, (the
symmetrical part of the velocity gradient) L = gradv. T = T/trT
and T = T 1/3 tr(T)I are the so-called stress ratio tensor and
its deviator, respectively. The barotropy factor fb and the
pycnotropy factors fe and fd depend on the void ratio e = (V/
R(msi/rsi)) 1. The void ratio at isotropic compression, ei, the
void ratio at maximum compaction, ed, and the void ratio at
critical state, ec (see Fig. 1) are determined with shake tests.
The granular stiffness hs is determined with compaction tests
and depends on the hydrostatic pressure ps = tr(T). For
detailed descriptions of the model parameters, see [15,16].
Figure 1. Void ratio: dependence on volumetric (hydrostatic) stress: ei upper
limit, ed lower limit, ec critical void ratio, and ep SOM-region (swept out of
memory').
2.2 Viscosity
The viscous behaviour of bulk solid shear flow has been
known since 1954 [17] (and is discussed further in [18]). In 1994
Hutter and Hwang [19] showed that the velocity-dependent
behaviour of the general constitutive stress deviator can be
derived from a rate-dependent functional, where the dynamic
extension is represented by an additional term which includes
the deformation tensor coupled with a viscous parameter.
Thus, Eq. (3) can be written in the following form by
separating T into a static part T s and a dynamic part T v:
T = h(T,D) + g(T,D,D
) = T s + T v = H : D + G : D
Theqvelocity-dependent
dynamic material tensor Gijkl =
02
2l* trD (dik djl) = cdyn(dik djl) is a description of a
Non-NEWTONian fluid (formulated by Gladen [20]). The
density-dependent viscous parameter l* = ((r(t)/r0)w)l0*
[Ns/m2] is introduced here. r0 means the bulk solids density in
72  2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
the filling state, the parameter l0 and the exponent w are
calibrated with experimental data. With decreasing density
during the discharge, a decrease in viscosity near to the orifice
occurs.
The dynamic material coefficient cdyn = 2l* (trD2)
[N/m2] describes the influence of the shear deformation on the
viscous damping: with an increase of the deviatoric stretching
rate D, the influence of the viscous term increases.
2.3 Numerical Solution Methodology
When solving the system of differential equations, the Finite
Element Method is used [21] where the variation of the
velocity dv is taken as a weighting function. An implicit
EULER integration schema is applied.
The calculation of the stress rate T requires small time steps
in dimension of 106 s. The hypoplastic formulation ensures a
physical valid stress state [15].
For the 2-D simulation of the bulk solids and the wall,
isoparametric 8-node elements are used with a 9-GAUSS
point integration for the bulk solid elements and a 16-GAUSS
point integration for the wall elements. The coupling between
the bulk elements and the wall elements is realized by a special
6-node contact element with the assumption of a COULOMB
friction law.
For the simulation, the material parameters in Tab. 1 were
used (d50: median diameter, jb: bulk density, jc: internal
friction angle, jw: wall friction angle, k: horonzal stress-ratio).
At the orifice, as kinematic boundary condition, a maximum
outflow velocity of ty = 1 cm/s is prescribed, i.e., starting from
zero, the maximum velocity is reached after an opening period
of 0.2 s.
Table 1. Material parameters used for the simulation.
Bulk solids d50 rb jc jw k
3
PET pellets 3.05 mm 950 kg/m 28 15 0.41
3 Experimental Setup
The stresses were measured in a silo made of plane perspex
walls with a steel framework as a support structure (Fig. 2). For
a constant discharge rate, a conveyor belt was placed below
the orifice of the silo. Since the velocity of the conveyor belt is
(4) adjustable, the discharge rate can be changed up to 2 kg/s.
Special load cells (described in [22]), mounted on the wall,
measure normal forces and two perpendicular shear forces.
Up to eight of these cells can be used for one measurement
(left side: L1L8, right side: R1R8). The deformation of the
walls in the shaft region can be measured (W1W4) with
4 strain gauges. The whole structure rests on 3 load cells (B1
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 Full Paper

Figure 3. Comparison of simulation and experiment: velocity profile in the

hopper during discharge.

Figure 2. Experimental setup and FE-grid: positions of the load cells and strain
gauges for the measurement of the wall stresses, the wall deformations, and the
silo mass. The FE-grid represents the symmetric part of the silo.

B3). Thus, the amount of bulk solids in the silo is known. All
data are collected with a PC with a scan rate of 5,000 data
points per second.
In addition to the stress measurements, the bulk solids are
observed optically with a CCD-camera. With these data, the
velocities of the bulk solids are detected using Particle Image
Velocimetry (PIV) (see [13,14,23,24]). PIV is a common tool
for non invasive investigation of velocimetry profiles, see [14]
for a detailed description. Figure 4. Velocity profiles at different heights: comparison between the
Three different bulk solids PET (je = 30, jc = 44), PP (je = calculated and the experimental data.
29, jc = 39), and PS (je = 29, jc= 42) were used for the
discharge experiments.

in the upper region are slightly smaller than the calculated

4 Results
4.1 Flow Profile
In Fig. 3, the numerically simulated velocity field is
compared with the results of two experiments. The simulation
gives the velocities at each point of the FE-grid. The
experiment gives video data from the CCD-camera. The
analysis of the video data is applied with Particle Image
Velocimetry (PIV). The measured velocities are time aver-
aged over 4 seconds.
The simulated velocity profile and the experimentally
determined velocities in the hopper region are depicted in
Fig. 4. A good agreement between simulation and experiment
can be seen. The simulated and experimental velocities at the
outlet are approximately the same due to the fact that the
boundary condition at the outlet for the simulation uses the
known velocity of the conveyor belt. The measured velocities
velocities.
A closer look at the velocities reveals that the direction of
the vectors in the simulation near the outlet are smooth to the
walls of the hopper while the velocities of the experiments are
not. Further the velocities near the wall at the outlet are
smaller in the experiments than in the simulation. The reason
for this is probably that the viscosity parameter used in the
simulation is too small. The viscosities are determined by
shear tests, which are difficult to perform for coarse bulk
solids.
4.2 Developement of Stress
At the beginning of discharge, the stress state of the bulk
solids in the hopper changes from the filling state, with the
major principal stress being vertical at the axis, to the
discharge state, with major principal stress being horizontal

Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 http://www.cet-journal.de  2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 73
 Full Paper
at the axis. The change starts from the bottom of the silo
moving upwards to the transition of hopper and shaft. This
change of the stress state is called the switch. In Fig. 5 the
mechanism of movement for the switch is illustrated. The
filling state of the bulk solids in the hopper for the ideal case is
shown in Fig. 5a. In this case the stress state is called the active
stress state.
Figure 5. Principle stress trajectories and maximum normal wall stress: changing
from active to passive stress state in the hopper and upward movement of the
stress peak at the beginning of discharge.
At the transition of the stress state a stress peak of the wall
normal stress occurs. The increase of wall stress is due to the
fact that at the onset of flow the lowest layer dilates first,
whereas the layers above are still not moving. Due to the
dilation, the bulk solids density, the strength, and, hence, the
supporting stresses for the layers above are decreasing
(Fig. 5b). As a result, the normal and the shear stresses on
the wall must increase to fulfill the equilibrium of forces in the
layer above. The dilation front moves upwards. The change of
the stress state and therefore the switch are moving upwards
from the orifice and cease at the transition from hopper to
shaft because the stress state in the shaft of the silo remains
active (Figs. 5b and c).
Figure 6. Simulation: wall normal rate of deformation at different load cell positions R in hopper region the program distinguishes between filling
and shaft (see Fig. 2).
74  2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Fig. 6 demonstrates how the switch is initiated. The simulated
rate of deformation D, normal to the silo walls at different
heights, is depicted versus time. The rate of deformation D is
calculated directly by the FEM. The stress of an elastic body
is given by T or the stress rate T. The simulated positions are
similar to those of the load cells shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7 shows the measured normal wall stresses versus time
for the load cells R2, R3, R4 (hopper), and R7 (shaft) (for
positions see Fig. 2). The switch moving upwards can be
Figure 7. Wall normal stresses in hopper and shaft at different positions R (see
Fig. 2).
determined. In the shaft (R7, Fig. 2), a slight decrease of
the normal wall stress is visible. The simulation gives a precise
increase of the rate of deformation at position R7 in Fig. 6
(please note: positive rate of deformation D results in a stress
decrease and negative D results in a stress increase).
While moving upwards, the stress peak is increasing. This
behaviour can clearly be verified by the experiment shown in
Fig. 7 but is not visible in Fig. 6. The time scale of the
simulation is smaller than that of the experiment. This is
because, due to the necessary small time step size
of 106 s, the possible calculation time allows a
simulation of only a few seconds.
In Fig. 8 the stress profiles at five different
points of time measured in the test silo are
displayed. The used material was PET. Until a
time of t = 3 s the silo is in filling state. This is
because after starting the measurements the start
of discharge is delayed. After a period of t = 5.3 s
the discharge state in the silo is fully developed.
In the first and last diagram (t = 3.3 s and t = 5.3 s,
respectively) the theoretical values for the filling
and discharge states are displayed as lines.
The values were calculated with the stres-
stool program published by Schulze [25]. This
program calculates the stresses according to the
theory of Janssen [26] for the shaft. In the hopper
and discharge state. The filling state is calculated
http:www.cet-journal.de Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1

Figure 8. Wall normal stress in experimental silo at different time steps:
measured results at load cellpositions R (bars) and analytical results of filling
state and discharge state (lines) [25].
according to Motzkus, the discharge state is calculated via a
proposal of Arnold and McLean, where the theory of Jenike is
applied. It can be seen that the stresses measured in the hopper
are higher than the theoretical values whereas in the shaft the
measured stresses are less then the calculated values. One
possible reason for this result may be that the method of filling
the silo did not lead to an active stress state. Another reason
for this behaviour could be that the bulk solids properties are
not measured precisely. For the used material, this is possible
because the particle size is rather large. For bulk solids with
large particle sizes the exact determination of the properties is
difficult. Nevertheless, the maximal stresses near the transi-
tion of hopper and shaft are the same in theory and
experiment.
5 Discussion
When the discharge state is reached, the flow of the bulk
solids is called steady state flow because the stresses and the
bulk solids density do not change any further. This statement is
valid for time averaged data. When looking at the instanta-
neous flow, the situation is different. In Fig. 9, a closer look at
the stresses at the transition of hopper and shaft is done for the
wall normal stress near the transition at positions L4 and R4
(see Fig. 2).
It can be seen that although the discharge state is reached,
the stresses at the transition are not constant but alternating
on the left and right sides of the silo. A frequency with a period
time of approximately 5 s was determined for these fluctua-
tions. Similar results have been published [27] and moving
shear bands are probably responsible for this effect, the
occurrence of shear bands has already been described [28].
The simulation cannot describe an alternating state because of
the applied symmetric approach and the uniform filling.
Chem. Eng. Technol. 2004, 27, 1 http://www.cet-journal.de
Full Paper
Figure 9. Measured stress distribution: alternating stress fluctuation in the
hopper.
Furthermore, the FE-Method with the continuum mechanical
approach is not yet able to consider moving shear bands.
6 Conclusions
The hypoplastic model, taking into account the void ratio
and the stress dependencies, is a convergent and rather
effective approach for the simulation of bulk solids silo
discharge. The new density-dependent viscosity formulation
improves the behaviour modelling of the bulk solids and is a
suitable extension for the hypoplastic equation. This approach
characterizes the dilatant behaviour of bulk solids, so that
shear bands can be localised [21]. The moving switch can be
detected and the velocity distribution shows a satisfactory
agreement with the experimental data.
Stress measurements in a large scale silo have shown that at
the beginning of discharge the switch is moving upwards from
the bottom to the transition from hopper to shaft. During
discharge, stress fluctuations were detected with several
frequencies.
In further investigations the dynamic effects will be resolved
by measuring stresses and deformations at the silo walls. It is
planned to perform velocity measurements using the PIV-
method at the same time as the stress measurements. Thus, we
will be able to correlate the velocity and stress fluctuations
giving us a better understanding of the observed dynamic
effects.
Acknowledgement
Jens-Uwe Bhrnsen and Michael Ostendorf gratefully
acknowledge the finalcial support of the Deutsche For-
schungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
Received: August 22, 2003 [CET 1913]
 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim 75
 Full Paper
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