Apart from the basic issues of belt width, belt speed, lump size, available drop and moisture content you should pay attention to the selection of chute material.

Sugar needs to be sampled at regular short intervals these days so that it can be traced not just sampled. So you'll probably consider a cutter in the chute.

Fertilisers can be anything from goat dung to phosphates (I use the former because its free) so you might have accretion and ventilation issues to contend with. ■

These are pretty basic questions and suggests you need to understand the basics of chute design (see our book). As far as then talking about simulation which I presume means testing your design using DEM, based on the questions and your experience I suggest this will be a useless exercise. The materials you are talking about are pretty run of the mill products with the only issue being whether the sugar is raw or refined and whether this is a multi-purpose chute as putting sugar through a chute also handling fertiliser is most unusual.

Cheers

Colin Benjamin

Gulf Conveyor Systems Pty Ltd

www.conveyorsystemstechnology.com ■