(206d) Continuum Modeling of Cohesive Powder Flow

This presentation will describe a continuum model for predicting the flow of a cohesive powder used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The model consists of an Eulerian-Lagrangian finite element method simulation using a modified Drucker-Prager Cap (mDPC) material model implemented in the commercially-available Abaqus Explicit software package. The existing issues of excessive dilation with the Abaqus built-in DPC model have been improved by modifying the plastic potential surface in the shear zone. Material properties are obtained from the literature as well as laboratory tests. Simulations of powder flow in a feed screw are performed and compared to experimental observations.