Modeling of material flow and particle breakage inside cryogenic grinder

K.Charithkumar and Prof. T.K.Goswami Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpru,West Bengal, India 721302
80

Introduction
Cryogenic grinding is the process of size reduction at low

Different parameters used in simulation

70 60 50

Mass out

temperatures using mainly Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) It is an effective process to enhance the quality of ground spice powder by reducing loss of volatile oil and giving fine particle size Cryogenic Grinder consists of a Pre cooler, LN2 injector and a Grinder
p

40 30 20

Dd

Model Model Model Model Model

1 2 3 4 5

10 0

Fig.: Screw conveyor model used in simulation Table: Dimensions of different screw conveyor models
S. No Model Diameter of Flight (D mm) 50 50 50 50 65 65 Diameter of Shaft (d mm) 20 20 30 30 30 30 Pitch (p mm) 17.5 35.0 17.5 35.0 17.5 35.0

Fig.: Hammer and Pin mill models used in simulation both have casing dimension of 15 by 4
Length modeled (L mm) 355 355 355 355 355 355 Shaft rpm 7.5 3.75 10 5 5 2.5 Feed rate (kgh-1) 3 3 3 3 3 3

80

90

100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210

Time (seconds)

Fig.: Graph showing mass output with time for different screw conveyor models

1 2 3 4 5 6

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

Schematic view of cryogenic grinder assembly

Fig.: Agglomerate of 255 meta particles

Table. Parallel Bond Parameters
1 Normal Stiffness per unit area (N/m3) Normal Stiffness per unit area (N/m3) Critical Normal Strength (Pa) Critical Normal Strength (Pa) Bond Disk radius Radius of Meta particle Number of meta particles 8.5e+09 4.25e+09 1.5e+06 750000 0.4mm 0.25mm 255 50
0.8 1 HammerMill_1000rpm

Objectives
To maximize the residence time of particles inside the LN2 spray zone of pre-cooler for a given mass output and to

Table: DEM parameters used in simulation

1 2 Particle radius Contact model Particle Poisson Ratio Particle shear modulus Surface Poisson Ratio 2 mm Hertz-Mindlin 0.32 1.1x 107 Pa 0.3 6 7 8 9 10 Surface shear modulus Particle- Particle Coeff. of Friction Particle- Particle Coeff. of Restitution Particle- Surface Coeff. of Friction Particle- Surface Coeff. of Restitution 7x 1010 Pa 2 3 4 3 4 5 0.01 0.2 0.01 5 6 7

0.5

Fig.: Close view of bonded particles breakage in hammer mill

1.2

determine the position of LN2 injector inside pre cooler To select an impact mill for grinding which could give maximum size reduction and to determine the dimensions of the mill for the given feed rate

8 Total number of particles used

Fraction of Intact bonds

HammerMill_2000rpm 0.6

Flow patterns observed in different screw conveyor models Discrete Element Method
Discrete Element Method computes contact forces and displacements of the particle assembly by tracking the motion of individual particle Translational and rotational motions of particle i are defined as

0.4

PinMill_1000rpm

0.2 PinMill_2000rpm 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

Time (seconds)

d vi = dt

(F
j

n ij

+ F tij

)+

mig
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Fig.: Graph showing fraction of intact bonds with time for hammer mill and pin mill at different rpm

Ii

di = dt

( R i F tij ) + i j j

Conclusion
Much of the material is flowing on bottom left side of the screw conveyor. Hence placing of Liquid nitrogen injectors should be on that side. Model 1and Model 2 are giving uniform feed out put Particle breakage in Pin mill is more in comparison to Hammer mill

where, mi, Ri, i, and Ii are the mass, radius, linear velocity, angular velocity, and moment of inertia of particle i; Fnij, Ftij, and ij are normal force, tangential force acting on particles i and j at contact points; g is acceleration due to gravity respectively. Forcedisplacement laws at the contacts can be represented by different contact models EDEM 2.4.3 Academic Edition from DEM Solutions was used in the present work Fig.: Flow patterns after 100s inside different screw models showing residence time of particles in bottom left quarter of barrel Model 4 Size it will be on the Poster Model 5 Model 6

Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to IIT Kharagpur for financial support for purchasing the EDEM software and DEM solutions for the Academic license and technical support