Bulk material handling s is by far the largest international industrial activity, with over 16,000,000,000 tonnes of common products handled each year, many time from source to use. It is a mature operation, dating back more than 4,000 years, yet the development of industry and growth of population, the technology is of recent development and is far from offering the degree of reliable prediction that is readily available to designers of equipment for handling liquids and gasses. Advances were introduced from soil mechanics and Andrew Jenike made a breakthrough in hopper design and the quantification of powder flow properties in the 1960’s, but the immense backlog of established industry and limited output of engineers with education in this field, meant that the available techniques were, and are not yet, widely exploited.

Research in bulk technology is essentially focussed on specific areas and it is impossible for a single study to cover the immense range of variables that are experienced in this massive activity. It also tends to be highly sophisticated and, not surprisingly when fitting formula to specific findings, produces equations that may have limited applications.

Bulk material handling s is by far the largest international industrial activity, with over 16,000,000,000 tonnes of common products handled each year.