Numerical study of granular flow in a converging hopper

The flow of granular material has been of major importance in commerce and industry for a long time. This thesis will discuss the numerical method used to solve a strongly coupled system of fully nonlinear partial differential equations which describes granular flow in a converging hopper.;In the thesis, we use an eigenvalue problem to analyze the stability of the governing equations; we prescribe appropriate boundary conditions for the problem according to the stability results; we modify the strain rate tensor to create a conservation form of the system; and we employ Newton's method and central differences to solve the equations numerically.;We find that the numerical solutions, which satisfy our boundary conditions, are close to the Jenike radial solution. Our numerical simulations show that, with an non-radial flow as an outflow, the stress increases abruptly near the exit surface. This phenomenon might suggest reinforcement near the exit of an industrial hopper. The current numerical simulations could be regarded as a prelude to studying free boundary problem at outflow.