Abstract This research experimentally studied the granular flow in the optimised curved hoppers obtained from our recently published optimisation method. A series of optimised hoppers were manufactured by CNC machining and an experimental apparatus was constructed to measure the MDR of various granular materials in the hoppers. Our experiment confirmed that the MDR of the optimised curved hoppers has increased more than 100% from that of those conventional conical hoppers. The critical prefill level for reaching a steady discharge rate in the curved hoppers is related to a fixed ratio to the diameter of the hopper orifice, which increases with the initial half-angle of a curved hopper. Three types of granular materials, i.e. rice, urea powders and sands, differing in shape, density and surface roughness, all gained improved MDR in the same curved hoppers, which demonstrates the flexibility of the optimised curved hoppers to maximize MDR for different granular materials.

中文翻译：

---

具有最大质量卸料率的优化弯曲料斗——一项实验研究

摘要 本研究通过实验研究了我们最近发表的优化方法获得的优化弯曲料斗中的颗粒流动。通过CNC加工制造了一系列优化的料斗，并搭建了实验装置来测量料斗中各种颗粒材料的MDR。我们的实验证实，优化后的弯曲料斗的 MDR 比传统的锥形料斗提高了 100% 以上。在弯曲料斗中达到稳定排放速率的临界预填充水平与料斗孔口直径的固定比率有关，该比率随着弯曲料斗的初始半角而增加。大米、尿素粉、砂三种颗粒材料，形状、密度和表面粗糙度各不相同，