Experimental investigation of wall pressure and arching behavior under surcharge pressure in mass-flow hoppers

• The theoretical predictions are acceptable when surcharge pressure is high.
• The center of the slot opening is likely the position to cause the blockage.
• The increased surcharge pressure amplified the probability of blockages.
• A larger outlet opening width is required when the filling level is decreasing.
• Material protruding was observed before the arch started to collapse.

Based on Jenike's method, only the self-weight of each arch element is involved in the calculation of the arch thickness parameter which leads to the surcharge pressure not being taken into account in determining the critical outlet dimension of a bulk material storage bin. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of surcharge pressure on wall pressure distribution and arching behavior in mass-flow structures. A method is introduced to measure the hopper wall pressure distribution. The measurements of the wall pressure and critical outlet dimension were conducted under different surcharge pressures and at various filling levels. The experimental results are compared with existing prevailing theories, where the theoretical outlet dimensions demonstrated significant overdesign in terms of low surcharge pressure and reasonable estimates corresponding to high surcharge. The peak wall pressures around the transition area of the bin are smaller than the calculated values, whereas the stresses close to the outlet are larger than the relative theoretical values.

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