Effect of variations in the polar and azimuthal angles of coarse particles on the structure of drainage channels in thickened beds

The 3D reconstruction and quantitative characterization of drainage channels and coarse tailings particles in a bed were conducted in this study.The influence of variations in the azimuthal angle(θ)and polar angle(φ)of coarse particles on drainage channel structure was analyzed,and the drainage mechanism of the bed was studied.Results showed that water discharge in the bed reduced the size of pores and throat channels,increasing slurry concentration.The throat channel structure was a key component of the drainage process.Theφandθof particles changed predominantly along the length direction.The changes inφhad a cumulative plugging effect on the drainage channel and increased the difficulty of water discharge.The rake and rod formed a shear ring in the tailings bed with shear,and theθdistribution of particles changed from disorderly to orderly during the rotation process.The drainage channel was squeezed during the shearing process with the change inθ,which broke the channel structure,encouraged water discharge in the bed,and facilitated a further increase in slurry concentration.The findings of this work are expected to offer theoretical guidance for preparing high-concentration underflow in the tailings thickening process.

Effects of particle fractions on the Bingham yield stress and viscosity of fine-coarse particle suspensions

The rheological behaviors of highly concentrated fine particle suspensions(clay-silt-water mixtures)and coarse particle suspensions(coarse particles within a fine particle suspension)were investigated in this study.Experimental results demonstrated that the Bingham Fluid Model with two rheological parameters,Bingham yield stressand viscosity,wellcharacterized the rheological behavior of fine particle suspensions at shear rates between 4 and 20 s^(-1).The inclusion of coarse particles within a fine particle suspension induced an enhancement to the rheological parameters.The rheological parameters of a coarse particle suspension not only depend on its total particle fraction but also on its relative fine/coarse particle fractions.Empirical equations of these two parameters were proposed,quantitatively related to both fine and coarse particle fractions.Results indicated that the Bingham yield stress and viscosity are much more(an order larger)sensitive to changes in fine particle fraction than to changes in coarse particle fraction.

An evaluation method for internal erosion potential of gravelly soil based on particle size distribution

Internal erosion occurs when fine particles escape from the soil driven by seepage flow,which is considered to be the crucial factor causing the failure of earth structures filled with gravelly soil.The objective of this paper is to suggest an appropriate method to assess internal erosion potential of gravelly soil.By analyzing the sensitivity of soil material to internal erosion,the variable(Dc15/df85)max and the content of coarse particles(Pc)are selected as the evaluation indexes(Dc15 and df85 are the diameters of 15%mass passing in the coarse component and 85%mass passing in the fine component,respectively).A series of gravelly soils with different particle size distributions are tested for internal erosion by the self-made permeameter.Based on the test results,an evaluation method for the internal erosion of gravelly soil is proposed.Gravelly soil is prone to internal erosion when 60%≤Pc<95%and(Dc15/df85)max≥9.5.The proposed method shows good accuracy in evaluating the internal erosion of 36 soil samples from other studies,which confirms the reliability of the method.The proposed method makes it possible to accurately assess internal erosion of gravelly soil,and an alternative method is provided for engineers to determine whether there is a risk of internal erosion in earth structures consisting of gravelly soil.

On the Influence of Vortex-Induced Resistance on Oil-Shale Particle-Slurry Flow in Vertical Pipes

The transportation in vertical pipelines of particle slurry of oil shale has important applications in several fields(marine mining,hydraulic mining,dredging of river reservoir,etc.).However,there is still a lack of information about the behavior of coarse particles in comparison to that of fine particles.For this reason,experiments on the fluidization and hydraulic lifting of coarse oil shale particles have been carried out.The experimental data for three kinds of particles with an average size of 5 mm,15 mm and 25 mm clearly demonstrate that vortices can be formed behind the particles.On this basis,a vortex resistance factor K is proposed here to describe this effect.A possible correlation law is defined by means of a data fitting method accordingly.This law is validated by an experiment employing particles with an average size of 3.4 mm.The vortex resistance factor K results in a reduction of the speed of solid particles and an increase in the sliding speed as well as a decrease in the hydraulic gradient.As a result,using this factor,the calculation of the solid particle speed and hydraulic gradient can be made more accurate with respect to measured values.

Analysis on Shock Wave Speed of Water Hammer of Lifting Pipes for Deep-Sea Mining

Water hammer occurs whenever the fluid velocity in vertical lifting pipe systems for deep-sea mining suddenly changes. In this work, the shock wave was proven to play an important role in changing pressures and periods, and mathematical and numerical modeling technology was presented for simulated transient pressure in the abnormal pump operation. As volume concentrations were taken into account of shock wave speed, the experiment results about the pressure-time history, discharge-time history and period for the lifting pipe system showed that： as its concentrations rose up, the maximum transient pressure went down, so did its discharges; when its volume concentrations increased gradually, the period numbers of pressure decay were getting less and less, and the corresponding shock wave speed decreased. These results have highly coincided with simulation results. The conclusions are important to design lifting transporting system to prevent water hammer in order to avoid potentially devastating consequences, such as damage to components and equipment and risks to personnel.

Experimental investigation of critical suction velocity of coarse solid particles in hydraulic collecting

Hydraulic collecting and pipe transportation are regarded as an efficient way for exploiting submarine mineral resources such as the manganese nodules and ores.Coarse particles on the surface of the sea bed are sucked by a pipe during the mining and crushing of the mineral.In this paper,the critical suction velocity for lifting the coarse particles is investigated through a series of laboratory experiments,and the solid-liquid two-phase flow characteristics are obtained.Based on the dimensional analysis,the geometric similarity is found between actual exploitation process and model test with the same kind of material.The controlling dimensionless parameters such as the hydraulic collecting number,the relative coarse particle diameter,the relative suction height,and the density ratio are deduced and discussed.The results show that the logarithm in base 10 of the hydraulic collecting number increases approximately linearly with the increase of the relative suction height,while decreases with the relative particle diameter.A fitting formula for predicting the critical suction velocity is presented according to the experimental results.

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.

Characteristics of mass distributions of aerosol particle and its inorganic water-soluble ions in summer over a suburb farmland in Beijing

Agricultural activity is one of the most important sources of aerosol particles.To understand the mass distribu-tion and sources of aerosol particles and their inorganic water-soluble ions in a suburb farmland of Beijing,particle samples were collected using a microorifice uniform deposit impactor(MOUDI)in the summer of 2004 in a suburb vege-table field.The distribution of the particles and their inor-ganic water-soluble ions in the diameter range of 0.18-18 mm were measured.The dominant fine particle ions were SO_(4)^(2−),NO^(3−),and NH_(4)^(+).The association of day-to-day variation of the concentration of these ions with temperature,humidity,and solar radiation suggested that they are formed by the reac-tion of NH_(3) released from the vegetable field with the acid species produced from photochemical reactions.Fine particle K+is likely from vegetation emission and biomass burning.Coarse particles like Ca^(2+),Mg^(2+),NO_(3)^(−),and SO_(4)^(2−)are sug-gested to come from the mechanical process by which the soil particle entered the atmosphere,and from the reaction of the acid species at the surface of the soil particle.The results show that fertilizer and soil are important factors determining the aerosol particle over agricultural fields,and vegetable fields in suburban Beijing contribute significantly to the aerosol particle.