The breaking behavior of the burden in the vertically arranged cooler will cause the change in the voidage of the material layer, which will seriously affect the gas permeability of the material layer, and reduce the heat recovery efficiency of vertically arranged cooler. In order to investigate the break of particles in the coke dry quenching (CDQ) chamber, and sintering waste heat recovery vertical tank, the discrete element method was used to explore the falling movement of the burden material via considering the particle breakage in the shaft moving bed. The falling movement process of the particles with different shapes, sizes and bond strength in two vertically arranged cooler was simulated. The velocity and pressure distribution of burden were analyzed. The breaking of coke and sinter particles were compared. The results indicated that the device structure, burden height and particle strength were the main factors affecting particle breakage during the falling movement of the burden. During the falling process, the pressure of particle increased first, then decreased after entering the discharge zone, and the particle breakage was closely related to the pressure. When the coke fell into the corbel zone in the CDQ chamber, the average pressure of the material layer reduced and the breaking rate was slowed down due to the expansion of the device body diameter. Because the strength of the sintered ore was relatively small, the breaking phenomenon occurred when it entered the sintering vertical tank, and the expansion of the device body had little effect on the breaking. Owing to the influence of fixed furnace wall, particles were more likely to be broken near the device wall. Additionally, the square particles were broken along a diagonal from a certain apex. The rectangular particles were broken from one side to the other, and the irregular particles were broken inward from the missing side.