The static and dynamic wall stresses in a circulatory two-dimensional wedge hopper

The stresses on the wall in a circulatory two-dimensional (2D) wedge hopper were theoretically and experimentally investigated. By extending the differential slice method of Walters, an ordinary differential equation for the vertical stress in the wedge hopper was derived. Employing the Runge-Kutta (order 4) method, the static wall stress distributions in the wedge hopper were numerically calculated. A pressure gauge for simultaneously measuring the normal and shear stresses of the granular solids was used. The static wall stress distributions produced by the granular solids were measured and compared with the theoretical prediction using the differential slice and Runge-Kutta (order 4) methods. The variations in the dynamic wall stresses with time in a circulatory 2D wedge hopper were obtained during granular material circulation. In addition, the variations in measured dynamic normal and shear stress results on the left-side wall with bed height were observed and compared with the theoretical results using the Silo Stress Tool. The research work reported here provides additional theoretical and experimental knowledge about granular flows in a wedge hopper to workers in this field, and also enhances the differential slice method application to granular flows.