Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853 www.elsevier.

com/locate/triboint

Effects of wall material hardness on choice of wall materials for design of hoppers and silos for the discharge of hard bulk solids
M.S.A. Bradley *, A.N. Pittman, M. Bingley, R.J. Farnish, J. Pickering
The Wolfson Centre for Bulk Solids Handling Technology, University of Greenwich, Wellington Street, London SE18 6PF, UK Received 10 May 2000; received in revised form 19 September 2000; accepted 22 September 2000

Abstract This paper presents the results of a programme of experimental work designed to assess the industrial signicance of plate hardness in hopper and silo construction upon the obtaining of reliable ow of hard bulk solids from the vessel. Previously, it has generally been thought that plate nish is the dominant effect in determining frictional characteristics, and no attention has been given to the effect of plate hardness. However this programme has shown that the effect of plate hardness can in practice be quite signicant, to the extent that choosing increased plate hardness can reduce the steepness of the hopper wall needed for reliable discharge and hence the headroom requirement for the vessel. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Hopper; Silo; Friction; Hardness

1. Introduction Knowledge of the frictional characteristics between bulk solid and vessel wall is essential when designing hoppers or silos for storage and discharge of bulk materials. This frictional characteristic determines what the ow pattern will be in the vessel as it discharges, for any given angle on the converging section of the vessel. Conversely, the frictional characteristic determines what angle is needed on the converging section, to achieve any chosen discharge pattern. There are essentially two possible discharge patterns that may occur from such vessels (Fig. 1); a discussion of these may be found in any work dealing with silos (e.g. [1]). Essentially they comprise mass ow in which sliding occurs between the bulk solid and the wall of the converging section during discharge, and core ow in which such sliding does not occur. The diagrams above are simplied in that with mass ow, the velocity of the solids adjacent to the wall in the cone is often slightly lower than that on the centre line, and in core ow (also known as funnel ow) the owing core is frequently

Fig. 1. Discharge patterns from the silos: (left) mass ow; (right) core ow.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-181-331-8646; fax: +44-141331-8647. E-mail address: m.s.a.bradley@greenwich.ac.uk (M.S.A. Bradley).

tapered (wider at the top) and sometimes moves around within the bulk. Mass ow has many operational advantages, and is chosen for these on occasion, but it requires a steeper wall on the converging section. The effect of wall friction angle is summarised by Fig. 2; the limits for mass ow depend on the hopper half angle a, the wall friction angle f and the effective angle of internal friction d. The advantage of a lower friction angle is that since mass

0301-679X/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 0 1 - 6 7 9 X ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 3 0 - 4

846

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

factor to include, bearing in mind that most plate nishing processes in the silo industry tend to be specied by means of the nishing method and consumables used, rather than the nished plate roughness.

3. Materials and nishes chosen Most bulk solids are either signicantly harder, or signicantly softer, than the available range of steels (including those steels that are sold as wear resistant and those which are not). In cases where the steel is harder than the bulk solid, hardness was not expected to have any effect. Hence it was clearly of greater interest to test a combination of materials where the bulk solid was harder than the steel. The bulk solid chosen was a crushed magnesite rock, a hard material with angular particles; these were expected to show up a greater difference in friction with steel hardness than for rounded particles. Three size ranges of magnesite were used to evaluate the effect of this variable (coarse, ne and wide particle size distributions). A coarse sample was produced by screening to over 2 mm; ne was screened to under 300 m; and the wide size distribution was the full range of 04 mm. More information on the magnesite is in Appendix A. The steels chosen were of ve grades of varying generic types but covering a 2:1 range of Vickers Hardness Number; all are used commercially for silo construction. It was desired to use a nishing process representative of that which is used commonly in commercial production of silo converging sections. To achieve this, all were nished in the same way, using the process which follows: A coarse exible silicon carbide disc (P40 grit) was used on an angle grinder to remove hard scale where this was present; Coarse silicon carbide paper (P40 grit) was laid on a at, hard surface and the sample was rubbed against this until all traces of the grinding marks and any visible pits were removed; This was repeated using P80 silicon carbide paper with the direction of rubbing at right angles to that used previously, until all visible traces of the scratches remaining from the previous nishing step were eliminated. Again this was repeated, using P120 grit silicon carbide paper, at right angles to the work on the P80 paper, until all visible traces of the previous step were removed. This process is very similar to that used for commercial plate nishing in hopper construction, with identical abrasive types (although different manufacturers have their own selection of precise grades). In commercial

Fig. 2.

Wall friction angle vs hopper half-angle (from [1]).

ow can be obtained with a less-steep wall, this leads to a cheaper construction for a given storage capacity. Hence there is clearly an advantage, when specifying a mass ow hopper or silo, to employ a wall material that, in combination with the bulk solid being stored, gives the lowest friction economically achievable. However, in practice there is a bewildering choice of different materials available to the silo designer, even if considering only steels. The designer is also required to consider possible wear problems associated with storing and handling the bulk solid. Consequently, hard steels are sometimes chosen where there is likely to be a problem with wear, and softer, and hence cheaper, ones tend to be used elsewhere or in cases where the designer believes it is more economic to use cheap materials and replace them regularly, an approach used commonly in the minerals industry. Much has been written about this issue of wear in hoppers (e.g. [2,3]) and how this is affected by steel hardness. It is also well known that the friction is heavily dependent upon the nish applied to the steel during manufacture and fabrication [18]. However, little work has been published to date to demonstrate how the friction between a bulk solid and wall material are affected by the combined mechanical properties of the two elements across a practical range. This research programme was conceived to explore some of the factors at work in this area.

2. Objective The objective of the work was to take steels of different hardnesses, nish them all in the same way, and evaluate the effects on the friction and the processes that control the friction. It was anticipated that the same nishing process would not necessarily produce the same roughness levels on all materials, and this in itself could be partly responsible for any differences in friction between the different steels. However this was considered to be an important

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

847

applications, mechanical means of producing the motion are normally used (usually hand-held belt sanders or xed linishing machines); however, the use of such machines to work the small samples needed here (150mm square) was not thought appropriate as it would have resulted in rounding of edges and possible lack of atness. The above method of nishing was thereby as representative as possible of industrial practice, albeit with the replication of the process between samples more closely controlled than would be the case commercially. The range of steel plate materials used was: Mild steelhot rolled and descaled, principally ferritic 3CR12ferritic semi-stainless (Cromweld Steels Ltd) Stainless steels 304, 316common nickelchrome austenitic stainlesses Abro 400through hardened quenched martensitic low alloy plate (James Fairley Steels Ltd)

Table 1 Experimental conditions for the test work a Friction inuences Experimental comments

Bulk solid parameters Particle size and size distribution Variablethree size ranges of the same material Particle shape Constant (as far as could be known) Particle hardness Constant Moisture content Constant (dry) Particle density Constant Bulk density Constant Surface chemistry characteristics Constant Temperature Constant (ambient) Wall surface characteristics Roughness and roughness Variable (constant with material) spectrum Hardness Variable (constant with material) Chemical composition Constant (see note) Temperature Constant Loading and environmental factors Normal pressure Constant (10 kPa) Relative rubbing or sliding Constant (2.3 mm/min) velocity Temperature and humidity or Constant (approx. 20C, 60% moisture conditions RH) Wall vibrations Constant
a It is thought that there is no chemical nor magnetic interaction between the bulk solid and the various wall materials. Therefore, this parameter is taken to be a constant despite the wall materials being varied.

4. Experimental work Wall friction measurements were undertaken using a Jenike-type shear cell [4] modied in the way which is customary for measurement of wall friction, i.e. with the lower ring replaced by a sample of the wall material as shown in Fig. 3 below. A range of normal stresses between surface and bulk solid was used, and measurements were made with the bulk solid moving both parallel to and normal to the surface nishing scratches. In practice it is generally preferable to ensure that the lay of the nish is parallel to the ow of bulk solid, however it was felt that an exploration of the effect of ignoring this conventional wisdom might show something useful. This kind of testing usually produces slightly reduced readings for the angle of friction as stress is increased [5]. It was with this in mind that the test results analysed

for this paper were all for the same normal contact stress of 10 kPa. The wall friction angle is dened by the equation: t f tan1 sw where: t is the shear stress at the wall upon the wall; sw is the corresponding normal stress. Wall friction is dictated by the interaction among three
Table 2 The hardneses of the materials used a,b Material Vickers Pyramid Hardness no. at 10 kgf 131 182 196 252 328

Mild steel Cromweld 3CR12 SS 316 SS 304 Abro 400

Fig. 3. The measuring element of the Jenike shear cell as used for wall friction measurement; the bulk solid is constrained with the steel ring.

a Figures are mean values from ve tests; in all cases the standard deviation of the readings were under 3.1 HVPN, giving a condence interval of 95% within 6 HVPN of the mean. b Hardness of the magnesite mineral was approximately 450 HVPN, established from mineral tables [6], thus making it considerably harder than any of the steels tested.

848

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

principal items, namely the bulk solid, the wall surface characteristics and the environmental and loading conditions [3]. Each of the three items has operational parameters that inuence the experimental determination of the frictional relationship between bulk solid and wall, summarised in Table 1. Steel hardness was veried using a Vickers machine at 10 kgf; a mean of ve readings, at different points on the nished surface of each plate sample, was taken after nishing (Table 2). Surface roughness as well as hardness was measured with all steel samples. This roughness was measured using a laser ranging device (Micro-Optronics (Germany) model ILD 2000), with the results being processed to give a roughness average (Ra) value in microns. The Ra value is the mean departure of the surface prole from the centre line, thus giving an indication of the amplitude of the texture of the surface. Further explanation of this may be found in [7].

Fig. 5. Wall friction (parallel to nish marks) vs plate hardness.

5. Results There was a loose correlation between hardness and measured surface roughness, with Ra values (both along and across the nish marks) tending to increase with hardness (Fig. 4). As will be seen from this graph, similar values of Ra were found along and across the nish for each steel. There was a much clearer correlation between friction and hardness, with friction reducing as hardness increased. This held for all three bulk solids and in both directions of movement, as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. Generally the friction was highest with the ne material, lowest with the coarse material, and in-between for the sample with the wide size distribution. This held for all steels and directions of movement (Figs. 58). Minimal correlation was apparent between surface roughness and friction, which seemed somewhat surprising on rst glance (Figs. 6 and 7). However the change of surface roughness across the entire range is actually quite small. Error bars have been added to Figs. 7 and 8, to aid

Fig. 6. Wall friction (across nish marks) vs plate hardness.

Fig. 7.

Wall friction (parallel to nish marks) vs surface roughness.

Fig. 4.

Surface roughness vs steel hardness.

Fig. 8.

Wall friction (across nish marks) vs surface roughness.

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

849

their consideration. An error value of 1 is shown based on the experience of the authors that wall friction measurements with hard bulk solids on steel substrates are usually repeatable within 0.5 and would only very rarely exceed 1 in variation between tests undertaken by a single operator as was the case with this work. The increase in friction when the bulk solid was moving across the nish marks (compared with movement parallel to them) showed an interesting trend. For the ne bulk solid the increase in friction showed a clear tendency to reduce with reducing hardness; whereas with the coarse bulk solid it reduced with increasing hardness. For the wide size distribution, by contrast, the increase in friction was lower with intermediate hardnesses, and higher at the extremes of hardness (Fig. 9). The one outlying value at the extreme top of the graph is thought to be a spurious reading, although no explanation has emerged as to why this may have arisen. Again, error bars of 1 have been added using the same rationale as explained above.

wall material hardness, Strijbos [8] has suggested that this threshold occurs when: Mean particle diameter (m) 1 Wall roughness (m) Where the ratio is larger than 1, the effect of surface nish on friction is much reduced. In this case the particle diameters of all the bulk solid samples were many times the wall roughness value, such that the ratio above was in excess of 100; thus it would be expected that the surface nish itself would have minimal effect on the friction angle. Roberts [9] also comments upon this effect in terms of the mechanism by which wall roughness affects measured wall friction; he illustrates the possibility of particles interlocking with the surface roughness where a substantial proportion of particles are smaller than the scale of the roughness. Where such interlocking occurs, the particles touching the wall become trapped, such that a signicant proportion of the movement of the bulk of the particles relative to the wall takes place by means of shear within the bulk solid. This gives rise to an apparent increase in wall friction, since the internal friction of the bulk solid is usually much higher than the friction between particles and wall material. With the particles used in this study, the roughness is so much smaller than the particles that such an effect would be negligible, again supporting the observation that the variation in surface roughness between these plates would not be expected to have a signicant effect on the wall friction measurements. 6.2. Mechanisms of friction The bulk solid being used here was substantially harder than even the hardest steels used, such that the interaction between the materials would be expected to be damaging to the surface. It is commonly recognised (e.g. [10]) that where Ha 1.25(approx) Hs Ha Hs Hardness of abrasive Hardness of surface

6. Analysis and modelling 6.1. Surface roughness effects The absence of any signicant correlation between friction and surface roughness, suggests that the surface nish achieved was sufciently ne, concerning the particle sizes involved, to not be an issue. Consequently, variation in the surface roughness achieved did not, of itself, have a signicant inuence. This supports the view that for any given particle size, there is a threshold surface nish, beyond which improvement in nish does not give a gain in reduced friction. In making this observation it should be noted that the range of surface roughness was quite small across the ve different materials, so the deduction of clear trends would probably be difcult anyway. For situations where particle hardness is greater than

Fig. 9.

Increase in friction vs plate hardness.

then plastic deformation of the surface will result locally to contact areas between particles and wall, and relative movement will result in plastic scratching. Here the mineral had a hardness of approximately 450 HVPN whereas even the hardest steel was only around 330 HVPN. It should be borne in mind that for this plastic scratching to occur, the true contact area must be small enough to allow the local contact stress to reach the indentation pressure of the surface. In another study

850

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

using the same bulk solid and steels as used here, and at approximately the same pressures [11], the magnesite was shown to induce substantial wear upon these steels by means of plastic scratching when sliding was extended, supporting this assertion. The interaction process in this study will therefore have been one of abrasion involving ploughing, rather than the typical model of adhesion often used for nominally non-damaging conditions of interfacial sliding [1214] The abrasion process will most likely have been close to two body in nature [10] since the constraint of the particles between their neighbours in the cell under stress will have effectively prevented rotation of the particles which were moving against the wall. Considering this issue further, during the friction test, initial sliding of the bulk solid against the wall was undertaken to settle the particles in the cell and obtain a constant friction value. During this settling the friction began at a low value and rose asymptotically to a steady value. At the same time the volume of the bulk solid decreased to a steady value. The settling is therefore interpreted as a process of particle rotation and rearrangement into a denser packing, bringing the particles from a mobile three-body condition into a static matrix relative to each other (a two body condition) so that during the steady state part of the sliding when the wall friction value was measured, there was no relative particle movement. 6.3. Modelling Hutchings [10,15] presents a model for asperity contact under conditions of two body plastic abrasion as shown in Fig. 10. This model was developed to shed light on the amount of material removed in plastic scratching, however it should equally be usable to assist in analysis of the frictional force arising from the ploughing process. It must of course be emphasised that the model is a great simplication of a very complex three-dimensional process, however it appears to enable some understanding to be derived. The model is based upon a rigid-plastic behaviour of the steel and a rigid behaviour of the asperity of conical form. Consideration of the mechanics of the process will show that resistance to horizontal movement of the asperity through the surface arises through two components of force, rstly the action of the indentation pressure against the projected area of the contact zone in front elevation (Bhushan [16] undertakes some analysis of such a component of force), and secondly the shear stress acting against the ow of metal over the surface of the asperity around the sides of the asperity. The rst of these is equal to the area of the triangular projected elevation of the interaction zone, i.e. ax, multiplied by

Fig. 10. Hutchings model, employing the concept of a conical indenter being pushed into a soft surface and dragged along to cut a groove. It excludes any consideration of the effect of displaced material being piled up.

the indentation pressure P. The normal load is supported over half the area of the conical interacting surface, i.e. pa2 w P 2 hence a 2w Pp (2) (1)

The contact-normal-pressure-derived component of the horizontal force, hP=Pax. From geometry a=xtan(a), so hP Pa2 tana (3)

Substituting (2) into (3) yields hP 2w tanap (4)

thus indicating that for this model, hP is dependent only upon a and independent of P. In plain English this suggests that for constant halfangle of the asperity, this component of the frictional resistance to sliding would be independent of the indentation hardness of the steel. (w, the normal load, remaining constant). In addition, hP is directly proportional to w, so that

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

851

whether the load is carried on a small number of deeplypenetrating asperities or a large number of asperities with small penetration, the total of all the hP components remains the same. This suggests that particle size should not affect the wall friction. Moving on to the shear component of the horizontal force, the geometry is a little more complex since the shear stress acts in a changing direction from the front to the side of the cone. It may be found explicitly by integration but it is sufcient for the purposes of this analysis to note that it is proportional to the contact area and the shear strength of the steel. This assumes that the surface of the asperity is rough on a smaller scale, thus preventing true slip at the actual interface between metal and mineral; this is broadly similar in nature to the adhesive component of friction as modelled in [12]. Shear strength of the steel is directly proportional to its tensile strength, which in turn is directly proportional to indentation pressure P. The contact area is half the area of the cone below the surface, i.e. from geometry pa2 2sina hence ht Pa2p 2sina (6) (5)

and hence less friction. Secondly, real asperities, when examined under the microscope, tend to be somewhat rounded so the effective half angle a becomes smaller when the penetration depth is smaller, owing to a higher indentation pressure in the steel (Fig. 11). 6.5. Particle size effects With regard to particle size effects, there is no such obvious explanation. However, it is by no means assured that the shapes of the asperities are comparable between smaller and larger particles. Indeed, there is every likelihood that smaller particles may well be more angular than larger ones, since most practical crushing processes have a tendency to knock the corners off larger particles to leave them somewhat more rounded, these lost corners then becoming the smaller particles which are thereby more angular. The photomicrograph in Appendix A tends to support this hypothesis although it is difcult to be certain from a visual inspection. This would appear to be the most likely explanation of the higher friction measured with the smaller particles, although more work would be needed to clarify this point; the difculty in conducting appropriate measurements of asperity geometry would be considerable. 6.6. Effect of direction of movement The increase in friction, when the bulk solid slides across the surface nishing marks compared with parallel to them, is a phenomenon frequently observed even though the model of Strijbos suggests this to be unlikely. In particular, the differences in this increase in friction, with different combinations of bulk solid and wall material, are extremely interesting. It gives some clues as to the relative signicance of the ploughing process at the contact points of particles with wall surface, against another contributor to friction which has not yet been discussed; deformation of the assembly of particles as it moves over the surface. In the early stage of this paper, it was intimated that the process of bulk solid in a cell sliding across a relatively smooth surface, can be thought of as essentially a two-body process. However, there are

where ht is the shearstress-derived component of the horizontal force. Substituting (2) gives ht w sina (7)

The conclusion is similar to that for the rst component; the shearstress-derived component of frictional resistance is also independent of indentation hardness P, and summed across a variable number of contacting asperities sharing a given total load, yields a total shear resistance invariant with the number of asperities and hence particle size within an assembly. However in each case it should be noted that as the half-angle of the conical asperity, a, increases, so both components hP and ht reduce in magnitude, i.e. asperities which are more obtuse produce less friction. 6.4. Effect of steel hardness in model On this basis there are two reasons why the harder steels would display lower friction. Firstly, real asperities will suffer elastic deformation, making them atter during contact. With a higher contact pressure P on a harder steel, the elastic deformation of the asperity itself will be greater, leading to a greater half angle a

Fig. 11. Showing how the effective angle of attack a on a rounded asperity becomes greater (a2) on a hard steel where penetration is low, compared with on a soft steel (a1) where penetration is higher.

852

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

reasons why this may not be strictly the case. As the particles move across the surface, even though they do not become trapped in the roughness, the forces at individual particles in contact with the wall will change slightly according to whether they are touching a higher or lower spot on the surface. It seems likely therefore that there will be some limited relative movement between the particles especially in the layer adjacent to the wall. The energy to drive this movement against the interparticle frictional forces is derived from the overall force on the cell, hence contributing to its magnitude in addition to the ploughing process. This thesis is speculative at present. On softer surfaces with the coarser particles, the friction increases to a greater degree when measuring across the nish marks as opposed to parallel to them. This suggests that, in these circumstances, deformation of the particle assembly is rather less signicant than increased ploughing forces. Conversely in the case of the ner bulk solids sliding on softer surfaces, the results suggests that the effect of the increased deformation of the particle assembly far outweighs that of the increased ploughing forces. This may also help to explain the generally increased friction with the ner materials. As far as the authors are aware, no analysis has been published concerning this issue of deformation of the particle assembly during sliding; it would seem to form a promising avenue for further modelling and research.

7. Conclusions As far as practical considerations for design are concerned, clearly there is an advantage to using harder steels. The lower friction associated with the harder steels will result in the need for a less steep wall angle, and hence a cheaper vessel, to obtain reliable ow. As an example, taking the data from Fig. 4 for the bulk solid with the wide particle size distribution, the friction angle ranged from approximately 26 with the softest plate to 20 with the hardest one; referring to the hopper design chart in Fig. 2, the corresponding maximum angles from the vertical to achieve mass ow increase from 18 to 26. Clearly if building a large vessel, one with a cone half angle of 18 will require much more headroom than one with the 26 angle. The economic trade-off between these two would need to be calculated for any given design, but clearly should not be ignored. It should be noted that the hard plate needs only to be tted in the converging section, as the wall friction in the parallel section above does not affect the ow pattern signicantly. It should be noted that the use of surface-hardened plate is not recommended, as once the hard surface is worn away, much of the operating life will be upon the softer core and this will yield a higher frictionprobably

preventing mass ow if the hopper has been designed using the frictional characteristic of the hard surface. The only exception to this is if the plate surface can be hardened sufciently to prevent wear (i.e. to a hardness somewhat greater than the bulk solid). It may also be noted that the decision is sometimes taken to line only the lower part of a hopper cone since this is well known to be the place where wear is quickest (owing to the high sliding velocity near the outlete.g. [17]). Whilst such a practice will be economic in terms of replacement of wearing parts, it does not yield the advantage of reducing the angle needed for the larger part of the cone higher up, which is the part having most inuence on the overall height and hence cost of the silo structure. The nishing process to be used, and the Ra value thus achieved, needs to be considered carefully. Clearly the harder steels do not take such a smooth nish as the softer ones when subjected to the same nishing process. However this should be viewed as only part of the story; in addition it is important to apply the concept of the threshold surface nish as identied by Strijbos. That means that for a given bulk solid, there is a certain level of smoothness of nish necessary to approach an optimum friction value, and nishing to a higher standard does not improve ow signicantly so is economically undesirable. When considering actual fabrication implications, the measurements conrmed the intuitive view that the nishing marks on the wall material of a hopper, silo or chute should always be arranged to run parallel with the direction of material discharge. This work also shows that when measuring the frictional characteristic of a hard angular bulk solid for equipment design purposes, it is desirable to use the smaller fraction of a supplied sample; in all cases such ner elements gave higher friction. Fortunately, this coincides with the conventional view that the ne element of any bulk solid should normally be selected for testing when determining the internal ow characteristics of a bulk solid [18] (smaller particles normally give rise to poorer ow of a bulk solid in respects other than wall friction). This selection of the smaller component is particularly important where the bulk solid could be variable, or subject to segregation in handling such that there could at times be concentrations of nes owing through the system. Finally, since the system studied was one in which damage would be sustained by the steel, surface topography will inevitably change during the operation of a real hopper or silo as a result of wear. This is likely to change the friction with time. This effect is the subject of a current research programme at The Wolfson Centre and will be published in due course, but early observations suggest that friction has a tendency to increase during the wearing-in process if the wall material begins with a

M.S.A. Bradley et al. / Tribology International 33 (2000) 845853

853

nominally smooth nish (i.e. a nish with roughness less than the threshold below which friction does not decrease with reducing roughness).

References
[1] Various authors. Handbook for short course Design of hoppers and silos for strength and ow. London: University of Greenwich, 1999. [2] Johanson J, Royal TA. Measuring and use of wear properties for predicting life of bulk materials handling equipment. Bulk Sol Handl 1982;2(3):51723. [3] Roberts AW, Wiche SJ. Prediction of lining wear life of bins and chutes in bulk solids handling operations. Tribol Int 1993;26:34551. [4] Jenike AW. Storage and ow of solids. Bulletin no. 123, Engineering Experiment Station, Univ. of Utah, November 1964. [5] Roberts AW, Ooms M, Wiche SJ. Concepts of boundary friction, adhesion and wear in bulk solids handling operations. Bulk Sol Handl 1990;10(2):189. [6] Eakle & Pabst. Mineral tables. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc, 1938. [7] Dagnall H. Exploring surface texture. Leicester, UK: Taylor Hobson Ltd. [8] Strijbos S. Friction between a powder compact and a metal wall. J Powder Bulk Sol Technol 1977;Summer:83. [9] Roberts AW, Sollie LA, De Silva SR. The interaction of bulk solid characteristics and surface parameters in surface or boundary friction measurements. Tribol Int 1993;26(5):33543. [10] Hutchings IM. Mechanisms of wear in powder technology: a review. Powder Technol, 1993;76:313. [11] Bradley MSA, Bingley MS, Pittman AN. Abrasive wear of steels in handling of bulk particulates: an appraisal of wall friction as and indicator of wear rate. Wear 2000;243:2530. [12] Adams MJ, Briscoe BJ, Pope L. A contact mechanics approach to the prediction of the wall friction of powders. In: Briscoe BJ, Adams MJ, editors. Tribology in particulate technology. Adam Hilger, 1989. [13] Briscoe BJ, Tabor D. In: Clark, Feast, editors. Polymer surfaces. Chichester: John Wiley, 1978. [14] Abou-Chakra H, Tuzun U. Coefcient of friction of binary granular mixtures in contact with a smooth wall (parts A and B). Chem Engng Sci 1999;54:590125. [15] Hutchings IM. Tribology: friction and wear of engineering materials. London: Arnold, 1995. [16] Bhushan B. Principles and applications of tribology. Chichester: John Wiley, 1999. [17] Corder GD, Thorpe RB. An experimental study of the wear at Hopper Walls. Kona Powder Part 1995;13:10512. [18] Arnold, PC, Maclean AG, Roberts AW. Bulk solids: storage, ow and handling, TUNRA Bulk Solids Handling Research Associates. The University of Newcastle, 1982.

Appendix A. Information on the bulk solid The bulk solid was crushed magnesite from Queensland Magnesite in Australia. This is a mineral containing oxides of magnesium, iron and aluminium, which is used in the production of refractory linings. The three grades used were sized as follows: Size microns Nominal Bottom Top Mass median grade Fine 0 300 192 Coarse 2000 4000 2650 Broad 0 4000 1126 A photomicrograph of the sample from the broad size distribution grade is shown below (Fig. 12). This illus-

Fig. 12. The crushed magnesite used for the testing. The largest particles in the photograph are approximately 4 mm across.

trates well the highly angular nature of the material, as a result of the crushing process.