The flowbehavior of particles during the burden distribution process in the parallel-hopper bellless top blast furnace was investigated with the discrete element method( DEM) as well as a model experiment. It is shown that the DEMsimulation results agree with the experimental results well. The contact force distribution in the hopper is nonuniform,i. e.,the strong force chains mainly locate in the lower part of the parallel-hopper and in the vicinity of the inclined wall. The flowpattern in the parallel-hop...