Granular systems are of major importance due to its presence in different technological processes. Handling, transportation, storage, blending and packaging of powders, stones, solid, salt, grains and seeds are common practices in construction, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and paper industries among others. Concerning the mixing of granulates, different types of blending mechanisms might be used. In the case of shear blenders, the material mixes while passing through a hopper that generally has deflecting obstacles that may affect the output flow rate.

In particular, granular flows through apertures have been intensely studied in the last past 50 years in vertical systems. Nevertheless, spite that fact that in many industrial applications, grains are horizontally transported at a constant rate (as on conveyor belts or floating on the surface of a flowing liquid, not much work has been reported in horizontal systems.

In this work we present results on the effect of an individual obstacle and of an array of obstacles on the flow rate of grains transported by a horizontal conveyor belt at a constant speed and discharged through an aperture.