Pushing simulation and experimental research of belt pusher robot based on EDEM

Purpose The pushing effect of the pushing machine is an important indicator of the performance of the ranch pushing robot. In order to obtain the optimal operating parameters of the belt pushing robot and study the influence of the operating parameters of the pushing robot on the pushing rate and efficiency, this paper used EDEM software to simulate and analyze the pushing process of the pushing robot.

Method Based on the discrete element method, the contact parameters between TMR feed, as well as feed and contact device were obtained through experiment and simulation calibration. The EDEM software was used to establish Hertz- Mindlin contact models for three types of discrete unit material particles. The pushing angle, belt speed, and forward speed of the belt type pushing machine device were used as experimental factors, and the pushing rate and efficiency were used as evaluation indicators. A three-factor and three-level orthogonal experimental method was used to conduct pushing simulation experiments. The simulation results were verified through actual experiments. With the maximum pushing rate and efficiency of the pusher as the target values, optimization was carried out through response surface methodology.

Result The simulation test results showed that when the theoretical optimal operating parameter combination of the pusher in this paper was a pushing angle of 30°, a belt speed of 2.99 m/s, and a forward speed of 0.83 m/s, the pushing rate was 94.6%, and the pushing efficiency was 724.5 kg/min. For pushing rate index, the influence of belt speed and forward speed was extremely significant (P<0.01), and the influence of pushing angle was significant (P<0.05). For pushing efficiency, the influence of belt speed and forward speed was extremely significant (P<0.01), while the influence of pushing angle was not significant (P>0.05)

Conclusion The study verifies the rationality of the pushing machine structure, and provides a reference for the combination of pushing operation parameters of automatic pushing robots.