The process of sintering of several particles in contact via a viscous flow mechanism was studied numerically using computational fluid dynamics. The volume of fluid technique within a finite volume method was used to simulate bridge formation between particles, as well as densification at different configurational states of the particles. The method was validated by comparing results for two-particle coalescence with the literature. The effect of the number of particles on agglomeration kinetics was studied by comparing bridge growth rate for systems having different numbers of particles in a chain. Although increasing the number of particles led to a decrease in the local bridge growth rate and to slower equilibration, there were no marked differences, when the overall volume of the system was considered. The effect of coordination number on the densification rate was directly studied by changing the number of particles in contact with a central particle. Increasing the coordination number caused the overall rate of densification to increase, but delayed equilibration, analogous to steric effects. These findings describe the configurational state of agglomerates, typical of mesoscale caking. In a multi-scale study, they can be used to characterize caking at a bulk scale to partly address the lack of experimental data in this field.

使用计算流体动力学数值研究了通过粘性流动机制烧结接触的多个颗粒的过程。有限体积方法中的流体体积技术用于模拟粒子之间的桥形成以及粒子在不同构型状态下的致密化。通过将两个粒子合并的结果与文献进行比较，验证了该方法的有效性。通过比较链中具有不同颗粒数的系统的桥生长速率，研究了颗粒数对团聚动力学的影响。尽管增加粒子数量会导致局部桥梁生长速率降低并降低平衡速度，但在考虑系统的总体积时，并没有明显的差异。通过改变与中心粒子接触的粒子数，直接研究了配位数对致密化速率的影响。配位数的增加导致总的致密化速率增加，但延迟平衡，类似于空间效应。这些发现描述了聚集体的构型状态，这是中等规模结块的典型特征。在多尺度研究中，它们可用于表征块状结块，以部分解决该领域缺乏实验数据的问题。中尺度结块的典型特征。在多尺度研究中，它们可用于表征块状结块，以部分解决该领域缺乏实验数据的问题。中尺度结块的典型特征。在多尺度研究中，它们可用于表征块状结块，以部分解决该领域缺乏实验数据的问题。