This award will enable Professor Alfred G. Bishara, Ohio State University, to collaborate with Professor Ir. F.J.C. Rademacher, University of Twente, The Netherlands. They will study the interactions between bulk solids and hopper silo walls under flow conditions. The need to do this research is indicated by the high incidence of hopper silo structural damage and failure that takes place under gravity flow of bulk solids. The increasing number and size of silos in agriculture, mining, chemical, slipping and other industries makes it more important to understand the response of these structures to various loading conditions. Many silo construction codes are based on incomplete evidence for good design. Professor Bishara is expert in the finite element analysis of bulk solids silo interactions and Professor Rademacher is skilled in parametric experimental investigations of the flow of bulk solids in hopper silos. Their skills are complementary and useful to the research they have successfully collaborated in the past.
