RANDOMISED MODEL OF GRANULAR MATERIAL BEHAVIOUR IN AN ORE HEAP.

A new model has been devised to simulate the material in a two dimensional ore heap. The novelty of the model is the introduction of random spacing between the uniform rods along the base of the heap. The intention was to remove the overall structural influence of the rods of a previous model which led to the prediction of a constant vertical stress across the base of the heap rather than the actual pressure profile which is similar to the material profile. Numerical results showed that no improvement had been reached in that the computed pressures on average had a distribution similar to the regular model but with considerable randomness superimposed. It was concluded that the overall structural influences had not been removed by the introduction of irregular spacing of uniform based rods. The modelling of granular material will therefore need further sophistication. 3 refs.