DEM simulation of percolating particles in binary mixtures

The aim of the thesis is to study the phenomenon of discharging of binary mixtures of granular material in order to better understand the percolation mechanism, which consists of the relative movement of small particles moving through the void space between the larger ones. The studied system consists of a silo which is filled with the binary mixture and subsequently discharged in funnel flow. The investigation was conducted using the LIGGGHTS simulator through which it was possible to represent the filling and discharging behavior of the granular material mixtures using DEM approach. In the first part of the thesis, the percolation phenomenon and the DEM approach are presented; then, will be described the parametric analysis conducted to find the parameters to introduce in DEM simulations. Finally, several simulations were conducted using binary mixtures with different diameter ratios and different compositions. The data obtained from the simulations were processed and compared with the experimental data in order to validate the results achieved.