Abstract The prediction of transient granular material flow is of fundamental industrial importance. The potential of using numerical methods in system design for increasing the operating efficiency of industrial processes involving granular material flow is huge. In the present study, a numerical tool for modelling dense transient granular material flow is presented and validated against experiments. The granular materials are modelled as continuous materials using two different constitutive models. The choice of constitutive models is made with the aim to predict the mechanical behaviour of a granular material during the transition from stationary to flowing and back to stationary state. The particle finite element method (PFEM) is employed as a numerical tool to simulate the transient granular material flow. Use of the PFEM enables a robust treatment of large deformations and free surfaces. The fundamental problem of collapsing rectangular columns of granular material is studied experimentally employing a novel approach for in-plane velocity measurements by digital image correlation. The proposed numerical model is used to simulate the experimentally studied column collapses. The model prediction of the in-plane velocity field during the collapse agrees well with experiments.