Model test of helical angle effect on coal loading performance of shear drum

The work presented in this paper focuses on improving coal loading performance of shear drum.Employing the similarity theory,we carried out a dimensional analysis of the correlation parameters which influence coal loading performance of shear drum.On the basis of similarity criterion,proportional relationship between the model and the prototype was taken on the condition of taking 1/3 as the similarity coefficient.Besides taking 1600 mm drum as the prototype,four helical angle models of shearer drums(15°,18°,21°,24°) were developed.Simultaneously,based on an established cutting test-bed,coal loading performance tests for the four drums were carried out at the same drum rotational and haulage speeds.After analyzing the data of coal-loading performance and torque,we concluded that:both the coal loading performance and torque vary along the track of the parabola with the opening side facing downwards;the best coal loading performance arises when the helical angle is at 19.3°,while the biggest torque arises at 22.1°;and the coal loading performance had nonlinear relationship with the torque.

Numerical study of coarse coal particle breakage in pneumatic conveying

Pneumatic conveying of coarse coal particles with various pipeline configurations and swirling intensities was investigated using a coupled computational fluid dynamics and discrete element method. A particle cluster agglomerated by the parallel-bond method was modeled to analyze the breakage of coarse coal particles. The numerical parameters, simulation conditions, and simulation results were experimentally validated. On analyzing total energy variation in the agglomerate during the breakage process, the results showed that downward fluctuation of the total particle energy was correlated with particle and wall col- lisions, and particle breakage showed a positive correlation with the energy difference. The correlation between the total energy variation of a particle cluster and particle breakage was also analyzed. Parti- cle integrity presented a fluctuating upward trend with pipe bend radius and increased with swirling number for most bend radii. The degree of particle breakage differed with pipeline bending direction and swirling intensity： in a horizontal bend, the bend radius and swirling intensity dominated the total energy variations： these effects were not observed in a vertical bend. The total energy of the particle cluster exiting a bend was generally positively correlated with the bend radius for all conditions and was independent of bending direction.