Millions of tons of iron ore and very high input mass streams of metallurgical coal and limestone are consumed every year for the primary iron and steel making process.These raw materials are typically transferred to the site and stored on stockyards,and are subsequently reclaimed and conveyed to the individual processing plants.As such,the steel making industry involves the entire spectrum of bulk materials handling and storage applications which include receiving,unloading,stocking,handling and supply of the raw materials.Wear is a critical issue for the bulk solids handling equipments.Normally wear in bulk handling equipment results from a combination of both impact and abrasion.It is essential to ensure that wear of bulk solids handling equipment is minimized so that long service life with a minimal maintenance requirement can be achieved.In this paper,an application of the Discrete Element Method ( DEM) combined with a wear model is applied for the analysis of the wear of the feeder belt in the reclaimer.The throughput of the reclaimer is 9 300 t/h.The velocity of the feeder belt is 1.3 m/s,and the feeder width is 3 000 mm.The DEM model not only provides a quantitative description of the bulk solids flow through the reclaimer but also gives detailed information concerning the impact and shear power acting on the reclaimer structure and the belts.The modelling parameters within the DEM software are based on the experience of TUNRA Bulk Solids in interpreting flow property information of the raw material,e.g.bulk density,wall friction,and internal friction.In addition,site validation of the DEM modelling was achieved in defining the flow profile.In this paper,results of the flow review for the reclaimer and a possible option to reduce excessive belt wear are presented.A combination of the slewing angle and the luffing angle is modelled.The possible option to retrofit to the existing reclaimer to reduce wear of the feeder belts was investigated to improve the flow of material in the centre chute hopper.The potential option was developed and modelled to evaluate the relative performance of the design aimed at minimising wear.The comparison was performed by analysing the impact and shear wear contours for the configurations.The DEM results showed that the feeder belt wear could be significantly reduced after the modification of the reclaimer.These techniques and findings are intrinsic in establishing methodologies for improvement in the design of bulk solids handling equipment.