Coupled simulation of fluid-particle interaction for large complex granules:A resolved CFD-DEM method for modelling the airflow in a vertical fixed bed of irregular sinter particles

A resolved CFD-DEM method is proposed to simulate the fluid-particle interaction for large complex granules.The airflow in a vertical sinter fixed bed is numerically studied using this method.The multi-sphere clumped method is used to create irregular sinter particles in DEM.The immersed boundary method and dynamic cell refinement are applied to describe the fluid flow around particles with higher resolution,by which the fluid-particle interaction can be simulated more accurately.The simulation results presented the packing voidage distributions and the airflow fields in the sinter beds of different single and mixed particle size ranges.The bed pressure drops were simulated and the results were compared with the corresponding experimental ones.The good agreement indicated that the proposed resolved CFD-DEM method is an effective tool to model the fluid-particle interaction for irregular large granules in the gas-solid multi-phase systems.

Fatigue Property of Low Cost and High Strength Wheel Steel for Commercial Vehicle

The fatigue properties of the newly developed wheel steel used for commercial vehicles were studied using push-pull axial loading fatigue tests with stress ratio R=-1. Q235B steel, which is conventionally applied to commercial vehicle wheels, was also analyzed for comparison. Although the chemical composition and microstructure （ferrite and pearlite） of newly developed wheel steel were similar to those of Q235B, the 107 cycles fatigue limit of the new wheel steel was 260 MPa, which is 24% higher than that of Q235B （210 MPa）. The improvement of the fatigue strength of the new wheel steel can be attributed to grain refinement. In order to investigate the effect of the decrease in thickness of the wheel steel on the fatigue property of the wheel, dynamic cornering fatigue tests were conducted on full scale wheels with the model of 8.25 × 22.5. The results indicated that the newly developed wheel steel had outstanding fatigue life even if the mass loss was 10% in comparison with Q235B.

Characterizations of Dynamic Strain-induced Transformation in Low Carbon Steel

Dynamic strain-induced transformation of the low carbon steel Q（235） at 770℃ and 850℃ leads to fine ferrite grains. The microstructure characterization and mechanism of the fine ferrite grain were studied by scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, transmission electron microscopy （TEM） and electron backscattered diffraction （EBSD） technique. The results show that strain-induced microstructure is the mixed microstructure of ferrite and pearlite, with cementite randomly distributed on ferrite grain boundaries and the grains interiors. EBSD images of grain boundaries demonstrate that high angle grain boundaries （HAGBs） are dominant in both of the deformation induced microstructures occurring below and above A（e3） , with only a few low angle grain boundaries （LAGBs） existing in the grain interiors. It implies that the dynamic strain-induced transformation （DSIT） happens above and below A（e3） temperature and has the same phase transition mechanisms. The refinement of ferrite is the cooperative effect of DSIT and continuous dynamic recrystallization （CDRX） of ferrite. Besides, DSIT is deemed as an incomplete carbon diffusion phase transition through the analysis of microstructure and the previous simulated results. The strengths of the Q（235） steel with refined ferrite and pearlite structure get doubled than the initial state without treated by DSIT and the residual stress in the refined structure is partly responsible for the ductility loss.