ASSESSMENT OF A NEW TECHNIQUE FOR MEASURING FLOW PROPERTIES OF POWDERED MATERIALS STORED IN HOPPERS

Particulate materials stored in silos and hoppers still cause problems during discharge, spanning from unacceptable flow patterns and inadeq uate flowrates to arching or rat-holing formation that may even stop t he flow. All these problems relating to the flow of bulk material from hoppers and silos are very complex in nature as they are highly influ enced by both bulk material properties and hopper characteristics. The major breakthrough in the understanding of this phenomenon was made m ore than 30 years ago with Jenike's rational approach. Ever since then a number of new techniques and methods have been developed in order t o improve the reliability of hopper design. One of the latest techniqu es in this field is the Johanson Indicizer System. An initial assessme nt of the results obtained with this new technique are presented in th is paper.