Open Access

ARTICLE

Discrete Particle Simulation of Gas-Solid Flow in Air-Blowing Seed Metering Device

Zhengquan Li^1,*, Pei Zhang¹, Yongchang Sun¹, Chenglin Zheng¹, Liang Xu², Dianyu E¹

1 Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory for Simulation and Modelling of Particulate Systems, Jiangxi University of Science & Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China
2 Energy Materials Computing Center, Jiangxi University of Science & Technology, Nanchang, 330013, China

* Corresponding Author: Zhengquan Li. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Computational Mechanics of Granular Materials and its Engineering Applications)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2021, 127(3), 1119-1132. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2021.016019

Received 31 January 2021; Accepted 03 March 2021; Issue published 24 May 2021

Abstract

In this paper, the gas and seed flow characters in the air-blowing seed metering device are investigated by using the coupled computational fluid dynamics and discrete element method (CFD-DEM) in three dimensions (3D). The method of establishing boundary model based on the computer-aided design (CAD) drawing, has been used to build the boundary model of seed metering device. The 3D laser scanning technique and multi-element method are adopted to establish the particle model. Through a combined numerical and experimental effort, using 3D CFD-DEM software, which is based on the in-house codes, the mechanisms governing the gas and solid dynamic behaviors in the seed metering device have been studied. The gas velocity field and the effect of different rotational speeds and air pressures on the seeding performance and particle velocity have been studied, similar agreements between numerical and experimental results are gained. This reveals that the 3D CFD-DEM model established is able to predict the performance of the air-blowing seed metering device. It can be used to design and optimize the air-blowing seed metering device and other similar agriculture devices.

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Keywords

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