Otimização de elevadores de canecas no transporte de grãos a partir do método dos elementos discretos

Abstract

Grains are and have long been an essential food source for humanity, their large-scale production capacity, relative ease of storage and their long shelf life made grains the perfect food for consumption in less favorable times in antiquity, such as winter. These same particularities make them, today, the main food used to produce the base alimentation of a large part of the human population. This study will focus on bucket elevators specifically for grain transport, one of the most common systems for transporting such materials, will address details of the construction of these elevators and will run simulations, using the EDEM program, based on the discrete element method (DEM) to verify and optimize the operation of such important equipment. The study will be based on the variation of several operating factors in each simulation, in order to verify the interference of each one in the operation of these devices, the main ones being: the type of discharge, geometry of the cup, belt speed, exit funnel geometry, and at the end the variation of the diameter of the pulleys. Data were demonstrated and captured on the relationship between the design parameters with the efficiency and quality of unloading, as well as the complete optimization process of the operation of an elevator based on the discrete element method, simulated in this work.