Particulate flows are quite common in nature and in industry. Their dynamic behaviour is very complicated due to the complex interactions between individual particles and their interactions with surrounding gas or liquid and wall. Understanding the microscopic mechanism in terms of these interactions is therefore the key leading to truly interdisciplinary research and producing results that can be generally used. This aim can be effectively achieved via particle scale research. An important discrete model is the so-called discrete element method. This technique can provide dynamic information, such as the trajectories of and transient forces acting on individual particles, which is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain by the conventional experimental techniques. Consequently, it has been increasingly used to study various particle flows. This presentation will provide a brief introduction to our recent work in this area.