Filling and emptying state of silos above discharge devices

Drive power is an essential design criterion for most machines,as well as for different discharge devices, such as conveyor belts or screw conveyors, which can be found below silos. However, in order to be able to determine the required driving power, the knowledge of the load transferred from the silo to the discharge device is necessary first. In this paper, the effects of the interaction of these two components on the basis of investigations on a model bin with a discharge belt will be discussed. Subsequently, the possibilities and problems of an analytical calculation are examined and compared with simulation results using the discrete element method.