This python script computes the temporal evolution of the Lacey mixing index [1] for a binary mixture of particles in EDEM from the mixture component mass fractions in a dense grid of rectilinear sampling bins as described below.

An example result from the script is shown in Figure 1. A value of zero corresponds to the perfectly segregated state and a value of one to the randomly mixed state. In addition to the graphs shown in Figure 1 the script outputs the results in a comma delimited text file.

Figure 1 a) Dense grid of rectilinear bins for the calculation of the Lacey mixing index and b) the temopral evolution of the Lacey mixing index.

[1] Gu, Z. and Chen, J. J. J. (2015) ‘A probabilistic analysis of some selected mixing indices’, Chemical Engineering Research and Design. Institution of Chemical Engineers, 93(April), pp. 293–303. doi: 10.1016/j.cherd.2014.04.014.

EDEM 2022.3 and EDEMpy 1.2.0

The settings of the script are contained in the Lacey_settings.txt file and defined in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Inputs for the Lacey mixing index script

The python file can be executed directly from the EDEM Analyst using the Run EDEMpy script feature (File->Run EDEMpy script). The EDEM deck files, Lacey.py file and Lacey_settings.txt file should all be in the same folder. The script will find and post-process all EDEM decks in the folder that it is in and output the results in the same location.