ITASCA Software services

The conveying of granular materials is present in many industries: pharmaceuticals with helical screws, food processing with vibration systems, mining with conveyor belts, among other examples. These systems require many adjustments to achieve optimal performance, which also depends on the material used and environmental factors: size distribution, grain shape, water content, etc. It is experimentally impossible to consider and test all configurations in advance. Numerical modeling provides a fast and inexpensive solution to perform sensitivity analyses and identify key parameters.

One of the main advantages of the discrete approach as defined by Itasca (PFC) is that it allows to accurately reproduce the size distribution, the grain shape (rounded, angular, or elongated), the mineralogical composition, as well as the mechanical and thermal properties of each mineral.