The influence of cohesion on polyhedral shapes during mixing in a drum

•Spherical particles with rolling friction cannot produce the same kinematics as even simple polyhedra when it comes to mixing in a vertical drum.•Cohesive materials with the same repose angle (up to 70 degrees) leads to significantly different mixing predictions. For highly cohesive particles, shape becomes less important.•In terms of morphology shape irregularity has the biggest effect on mixng. .•The mixing index increases if the cohesive material particle size is larger than the non-cohesive material, due to the increased pore size that promotes percolation.