A block-movement-based analysis for cohesive powders in a rotating drum experiment

The precise characterization of the flow behavior of cohesive powders can be challenging. With the blockmovement-
based analysis, we introduce a more immediate characterization technique that even works for
highly cohesive powders. Based on the strongly discontinuous dynamics in rotating drums dominated by the formation
of large blocks and their subsequent breakage in abrupt avalanche events, it describes the flow behavior
with geometrical properties of the falling down structures like block height or speed. Its advantages are the
higher information content and the short observation time to get stable results. These properties make it a promising
candidate for calibrating parameters for computer simulations. In addition, its high sensitivity allows to detect
evensmall changes in the flowbehavior.We demonstrate themethodwith threemetal powders and identify
the differences in their flowability. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of preconditioning at different
humidity to underline the sensitivity of our approach.