Boosting Mine Chute Design - Improve Chute Design and Reduce Costs with Altair EDEM

ArcelorMittal is the world’s leading steel and mining company, with a presence in 60 countries and primary steelmaking facilities in 17 countries employing more than 190,000 people. In a recent project, a large-scale charging chute of a sinter cooler plant in Fos-Sur-Mer had to be optimized by the ArcelorMittal R&D team to improve the reliability and efficiency of this device. The objective was to identify a better and more feasible design that improved granular segregation, abrasion, and mechanical resistance. ArcelorMittal R&D used the high-performance software for granular material simulation EDEM to simulate and analyze the granular flows in the charging chute. Providing pre-calibrated material models, EDEM enabled the engineers to create and calibrate their EDEM model to match the physical experiments. The DEM simulation provided valuable insight into the granular flow in the charging chute and segregation patterns, which is difficult and sometimes impossible to measure in experiments.

Astec. Inc, a member of the Astec Industries family of companies, is located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Astec is a manufacturer of continuous and batch-process hot-mix asphalt plants and related equipment and services.

EDEM has become an integral part of Astec’s design process, having proven itself to Astec engineers as a valuable design tool.

Hatch Ltd. is a global supplier of engineering, project and construction management services to the Mining, Metallurgical, Energy, and Infrastructure sectors.

Hatch deploys EDEM BulkSim software to explore “what-if” scenarios, while performance testing and verifying complex conveyor transfer point designs.

Longking is a large engineering and manufacturing company in China. Longking Bulk Materials Science & Engineering Division is a specialized group that designs and supplies bulk handling and storage equipment to clients around the world.

EDEM simulation technology was used to evaluate issues of blockage and dust emission with a transfer chute and propose a new design that would solve the problem.

VR Steel (Pty) Ltd designs, builds, and repairs fabricated mining equipment attachments. With EDEM virtual prototypes VR Steel field-tests new design options, custom-designs for specific users, builds fewer physical prototypes, shortens the design cycle and increases customer’s productivity.

VR Steel used EDEM with multibody dynamics software to develop a new optimized bucket design - balancing efficiency, capacity, durability and projected O&M costs.

VR Steel (Pty) Ltd designs, builds, and repairs fabricated mining equipment attachments, including truck load bodies. With Altair EDEM™ virtual prototypes VR Steel can test new design options, custom designs for specific uses, build fewer physical prototypes, shorten the design cycle and increase customers’ productivity.

Nemag BV is a manufacturer of grabs designed for handling a range of bulk materials from coal and iron ore to grain, animal feed, scrap metal, minerals, and biomass. Nemag worked with the group of Dr. Dingena Schott at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) to develop a new generation of grabs for iron ore that are faster and lighter — using Altair EDEM™ bulk material simulation software to test and optimize the new design.