Benchmarking a DEM‐CFD Model of an Optical Belt Sorter by Experimental Comparison

A DEM-CFD (discrete element method - computational fluid dynamics) model of an optical belt sorter was extensively compared with experiments of a laboratory-scale sorter to assess the model's accuracy. Brick and sand-lime brick were considered as materials. First, the transport characteristics on the conveyor belt, involving mass flow, lateral particle distribution and proximity, were compared. Second, sorting results were benchmarked for varying mixture proportions at differing mass flows. It was found that the numerical model is able to reproduce the experimental results with high accuracy.