Optimizing

Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials
 Contents

 Challenges of designing bulk material handling equipment 3

 The importance of including the impact of materials 5

 Traditional approaches for calculating material loads 7

 Simulating bulk material behavior with the

Discrete Element Method 8

 Introducing realistic material loads in

Finite Element Analysis and Multi-body Dynamics 9

 Case study: Austin Engineering Optimize

Custom Truck Body Performance 11

 Case study: Dragline Bucket Design at VR Steel 13

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 2
Challenges of Designing
Bulk Material Handling Equipment
When designing heavy equipment in the construction, off-
highway or mining industries such as truck bodies,
diggers, grab buckets and excavators, engineers are
faced with many challenges. Machines need to be reliable
and efficient, being able to perform well under extreme
conditions, there is constant pressure to increase payload
capacity but at the same time equipment needs to be
lightweight and use fuel efficiently to keep costs down.

To address those challenges, the use of CAE tools such as Finite element analysis (FEA)
and Multi-body dynamics (MBD) are well established in the engineering toolkit for the
design of structures and mechanical equipment. The benefits of simulation driven
product development are numerous and include shorter design cycles, reduced
product development time and costs, product innovation and the need for fewer
physical prototypes resulting in significant cost reduction.

But there is one thing missing in such analysis:

the material itself that the machine is supposed to handle!

Can you spot the difference?

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 3
4
The importance of including
the impact of materials

Let’s think about a bucket moving a material like

sand. It can be free-flowing one day but after a
heavy rain shower it becomes highly cohesive and
very difficult to handle.

When in operation, nearly every aspect of equipment

performance – stresses on load arms, hydraulic forces,
traction of tyres, delivery of power, etc. – is dependent to
some degree on the bulk material being handled.

Real bulk materials such as rocks, coal, iron ores, gravel,

soil and grains are complex in their behaviors. They can
vary widely in shape and size. This variability means it is
very difficult for engineers to predict how they will behave
with their equipment.

Engineers could be dealing with heavy duty, large quarry

rocks that are generating high force impacts; or perhaps a
fine but highly abrasive material such as sand; or even
cohesive clay-like materials that can be difficult to handle
and stick to the equipment.

Bulk materials exist in different form –

free-flowing, sticky, cohesive,dry,
large lumps, sandy…

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 5
 Predicting how a specific material
might affect a piece of
equipment is challenging due to
the complexity of bulk materials.
Assumptions may be dangerous
and lead to expensive mistakes.

[left] Mine conveyor transfer

failure - $10M/day loss in
production.

Understanding how a design will perform in a particular

material environment is critical to ensuring an optimal
design that combines strength and durability, with
performance efficiency.

It is important to analyze the forces on machinery to

minimize failure but also minimize weight, and to
understand how the equipment interacts with materials to
maximize the amount of material being moved while
It is important that to
preventing handling errors. In order to determine this,
have an understanding of
engineers will often create estimates of the forces and
the forces acting on
loads acting on equipment, or they might build a physical equipment to minimize
prototype but such approaches simplify the complex the chances of damage
behaviors of real bulk materials and have limitations. or failure.

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 6
Traditional approaches for
calculating material loads
Traditional approaches to get representative load data in
Finite Element Analysis or Multi-body Dynamics simulations
include hand calculations to approximate the load, reliance
on prior experience, or assumption of the anticipated
material behavior. However, these methods cannot
guarantee accuracy and small errors in calculations can lead
to large errors in stress analysis results and fatigue life
prediction. In addition, predicting material behavior is difficult
and by relying on hand calculations and assumption, an
engineer may only be able to assess a small set of
conditions – such as the estimated maximum load at one
point during operation. This method cannot guarantee the
optimum design and performance and may lead to inclusion
of excessive safety margins and a risk of over-engineering.

Another approach to get loads is physical testing where

experimental data is integrated into the simulation to
produce more accurate and realistic loads to represent
the complex ground material. However, creating an
experimental run is a costly and time-consuming
process and typically restricted to a small number of
available materials nd motions. Obviously, it is also
necessary to actually build the design that the engineer
wants to test. Due to the high cost, such prototyping is
often reserved for late stage design assessment, rather
than as a regular design iteration check.

In order to iterate to the best possible design, an engineer

needs to be able to define with confidence the material loads
acting on their equipment and understand how these loads
impact on the performance of the equipment.

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 7
Simulating bulk material behavior
with the Discrete Element Method
The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is a particle-scale
numerical method for modeling the bulk behavior of
granular materials and geomaterials such as iron ores,
rocks, pellets, tablets, grains, soils, gravel and more.

Using a software powered by DEM technology means

engineers can recreate the behavior of real materials of any
size and shape in a virtual environment and get crucial
insight into how such materials will interact with equipment
during a range of operation and process conditions.

By adding DEM in the design process, engineers can

perform virtual testing of buckets, excavators, bulldozers,
truck bodies and any other piece of equipment with an
accurate representation of the bulk material they are
intended to handle. DEM Simulation of large
boulders/ rocks, fine and
cohesive materials

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 8
Introducing realistic material loads
in Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
and Multi-body Dynamics (MBD)
When combined with other CAE tools such as FEA and MBD, Discrete
Element Method (DEM) simulation can provide key insight into equipment
designs. It allows engineers to reduce the reliance on hand calculation and
assumption when designing heavy equipment and addresses the challenges
of how their equipment will perform when dealing with bulk materials.

Why include the insight of DEM?

 Get an accurate representation of loads and forces acting on equipment – this
means more accuracy, no more hand calculations, approximations or assumptions
 Examine how various movements and conditions as well as different types of
materials will affect the overall design
 Reduce the need for physical prototyping – hence reducing costs significantly!
 Increase confidence that a design will perform as planned in real conditions
 Gain greater insight into equipment performance

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 9
10
CASE STUDY
Austin Engineering Optimizes Custom
Truck Body Performance

Austin Engineering is a leading designer and manufacturer of

customized dump truck bodies, buckets and ancillary products
used in the mining industry.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Discrete Element Method (DEM)

simulation are used by Austin Engineering to model and virtually
test the design of their truck bodies to improve durability and
performance.

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 11
 CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS
Austin Engineering designs Austin Engineering uses DEM Using DEM with FEA enables
and manufactures truck with FEA to evaluate each of Austin Engineering to
bodies for use in off-highway their truck body designs. improve the durability and
environments. performance of each truck
body design.
Each site where their The DEM software simulates
equipment is deployed is realistic material behavior The realistic material loads
different, and Austin and provides engineers with from the DEM tool
Engineering has to customize accurate pressure significantly improve accuracy
their designs for each client distributions of material compared to traditional
to cope with the local acting on their equipment. approaches and mean truck
environmental challenges body designs are strong,
and meet productivity These loads are then used as efficient and will perform in a
requirements. inputs into structural and range of operational
fatigue analysis. conditions.
Optimized durability and
performance efficiency is a
Combining DEM with FEA
key part of all their custom Austin Engineering is able to allows Austin Engineering to
truck body designs. Physical perform extensive ‘what-if’ show their clients how a
prototyping at this scale is analysis of operational design will perform on-site,
expensive, and so each scenarios such as alternative and ensure that their needs
custom design needs to be tray loadings and cornering are met before it is sent for
tested virtually to guarantee conditions. fabrication.
performance at each site.

EDEM and ANSYS software let us simulate any on-site

condition and demonstrate to our clients that each
solution will meet their specific needs. The EDEM
[integration with] ANSYS Workbench provides an
easy-to-use and streamlined interface for performing
realistic analysis of our equipment designs. With this
capability we can optimize the design and
performance of each Austin Engineering truck body.
Lyndon Greeshaw
Mechanical Engineer
Austin Engineering

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 12
CASE STUDY
Dragline Bucket Design at
VR Steel

VR Steel (Pty) Ltd designs, builds, and repairs fabricated mining

equipment attachments.

VR Steel uses Multi-body Dynamics (MBD) and Discrete Element

Method (DEM) software to field-test new design options, custom
designs for specific users, build fewer physical prototypes, shorten
the design cycle and increase customers’ productivity.

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 13
 CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS
Optimization of dragline VR Steel used a Discrete The ability to accurately
bucket performance and Element Method tool coupled simulate the performance of
productivity–for a wide range with multibody dynamics prototype bucket designs and
of media and mining simulation software, to wear packages resulted in:
conditions around the globe. simulate both the bulk soil
dynamics and the dynamics of Engineering Solutions:
VR Steel needed to develop a the bucket and lifting gear.  Increase in fill level
new optimized bucket design–
This cutting edge, integrated  Shorter filling cycle
balancing efficiency, capacity,
durability, and projected particle-machine dynamics  Reduction in bucket mass
operating & maintenance solution successfully  Lower operating costs
(O&M) costs. modelled the transient provided an overall
particle-structure interaction– productivity gain of 2%
VR Steel wanted to streamline simulating the complete
the design process. Their digging cycle of a dragline
Benefits to VR Steel:
customers needed design bucket.
solutions assured to:  Improved bucket design
This virtual performance delivering:
 Fill easily and empty testing predicted the
completely  Only one physical prototype
prototype bucket:
 Operate at maximum  Repetitive virtual testing
capacity  Mode and rate of fill under the same operating
 Boost wear protection  Transient loading of bucket conditions
 Reduce operating costs & gear  Faster convergence to the
 Improve overall efficiency  Wear patterns and rates best design

When a 45 ton bucket digs through soil during its

filling cycle, numerous loads are applied to the
structure at various locations over time, which can
eventually lead to wear and strain on equipment.
The combined capabilities of EDEM and MSC
Adams gave us the insight to be able to minimize
the level of wear and strain on equipment whilst in
the design stage - before going into full production.
We therefore increased the productivity for the
customer while minimizing peak strains in their
equipment. What more could the customer
and OEM want?
Bertus Haasbroek
Chief Design Engineer
VR Steel

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 14
Interested in bulk material simulation?
Find out more about EDEM –
Discrete Element Method (DEM) software

Want to include realistic material loads in your

FEA or MBD tool?
Discover EDEM for CAE –
no bulk material simulation knowledge needed

Optimizing Heavy Equipment Design

for Handling Bulk Materials 15
EDEM is the market-leading Discrete Element Method (DEM)
software for bulk material simulation.

EDEM is used for ‘virtual testing’ of equipment that handles or

processes bulk materials in the manufacturing of mining,
construction, off-highway and agricultural machinery, as well as in
the mining and process industries.

Blue-chip companies around the world use EDEM to optimize

equipment design, increase productivity, reduce costs of operations,
shorten product development cycles and drive product innovation.

www.edemsimulation.com
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