Review of mass-flow hopper design with respect to stress fields and surcharge loads

Current procedures for mass-flow hopper design are based on the radial stress theory developed by Jenike and involve the determination of the critical outlet dimensions for flow to be initiated. These procedures ignore the surcharge loads on the hopper and involve a study of the passive or arched stress field that exists under flow conditions. An alternative approach as applied to hopper wall load analysis is to employ the horizontal slice method. The arched stress field and horizontal slice methods of analysis are compared. The influence of surcharge loads in the determination of hopper geometry is investigated.