Handling of bulk material mixtures

In order to improve the handling behaviour of poorly-flowing fine-particle bulk materials, these can be mixed with a suitable coarse-particle and free-flowing solid. On the other hand, the flow characteristics of a coarse material are worsened by the particle attrition and/or fracture occurring during the handling. In order to determine the optimum proportion of coarse material or fines in a mixture, analyses of different mixtures with systematically varied compositions were performed. Fundamental theoretical considerations regarding the structure and the possible behaviour of dual particle-size mixtures supplement an analysis of the measurement results.