Nowadays pelletizing drums are widely used in the steel industry. These units are characterized by high endurance and low cost of maintenance. However, use and control of these units in the process of coarsening have a number of issues. For most of the cases pelletizing drums are “black box” and control accuracy can not be estimated exactly. It is explained by low existing theoretical basis of this production process. Particularly it is tied up with the variability of the bulk materials (charges) parameters supplied to the unit. Overcome of this issues can be reached with development of intelligent control systems for drum pelletizing machines. Main requirement for such systems is possibility to level or consider the effect of charges properties variability in control. However, it is necessary to study the behavior of bulk materials inside the units. Visual assessment of pelletization does not allow to evaluate the ongoing physical processes. Development of mathematical and numerical models can help studying the process and take a lot of parameters into account including charges properties and even interaction with water. But the adequacy of the resulting models also has to be clarified using physical devices to record or capture bulk materials behavior inside the units. This research proposes a DEM simulation test of the concept for bulk material behavior control through the recognition of the mixture movement fragments using special capsules. This part is dedicated to the simulation model set up and extracting the particles trajectories for further processing.

This paper presents a numerical simulation of powder sintering. The numerical model presented in this paper uses the discrete element method, which suggests that the material can be modeled by a large set of discrete elements (particles) of a spherical shape that interact with each other. A methodology has been developed to determine the DEM parameters of bulk materials based on machine vision and a neural network algorithm. The approach is suitable for obtaining the exact values of the DEM parameters of the investigated bulk material by comparing the visual images of the material’s behavior at the experimental stand in reality and in the model. Simulation of sintering requires an introduction of cohesive interaction between particles representing interparticle sintering forces. Numerical sintering studies were supplemented with experimental studies that provided data for calibration and model validation. The experimental results have shown a significant capability of the designed numerical model in modeling sintering processes. Evolution of microstructure and density during sintering have been studied under the laboratory conditions.

The article presents the results of experimental investigations of the magnitude and nature of change loads drive of mine shuttle car VS-30 used to deliver ore to extraction chambers in potash mines. The design of program-recording complex "VATUR" developed by employees of the department "Mining Electrical Engineering" Perm National Research Polytechnic University. In the investigation of operating modes of the drive of self-propelled mine wagons were carried out measurements and recording the instantaneous values of voltage and current of electric motors, calculated values of active and apparent power consumed by the motor pump stations and bottom conveyors of mine shuttle car. Carried out investigations modes of operation and changing loads on the units and details of the tram drive. It is proved that the operation of electric motors of the mine shuttle cars increased characterized by a systematic overload. Outdated system controlling the rotational speed of shafts drive motor gives rise to considerable dynamic loads on components of mechanical transmissions for shuttle cars. Significant loss of time causing the reduction in technical performance longwall set of equipment of potash mines arises during the maneuvering operations and unloading ore from shuttle cars. Based on the analysis of the change of loading drives and statistics of dangerous failures were justified the technical solutions to improve the reliability of mine shuttle car. The recommendations to increase the efficiency of transporting potash in the longwall set of equipment, improving maneuverability of self-propelled cars and reduce downtime for unloading are given.