A finite element analysis using ABAQUS was carried out to investigate the loads on a hopper during filling. Simple geometries were chosen and meshes were designed to represent the granular material and the hopper. An interaction between the contacting surfaces of the granular material and the hopper wall was modeled through a constitutive model of Coulomb friction. In order to simulate a filling process, the meshes representing the granular material and the interaction between the granular material and the wall of the hopper were suspended at the beginning of the analysis. They were then incrementally reactivated in a designed sequence. Such an operation of reactivation of meshes and interactions after initial suspension was assumed to represent the filling process. With this assumption, the development of loads exerted from the granular material on the hopper wall was investigated. Several material constitutive laws widely used for granular materials were adopted and implemented in parallel analyses. An analysis of the so-called "swith-on" filling was carried out as well. It was found that the maximum load was not at the outlet even from the very beginning of the filling. The maximum load increased and moved upwards along the hopper wall with the development of filling and was located a a position around two-fifths of the length of the hopper wall from the outlet when the filling was finished. It was also shown that the different material models did not have obvious effects on the trend and magnitude of loads under the current investigation conditions. The switch-on filling method reduced the magnitude of the loads on the lower part of the hopper wall and increased it in the upper part. The maximum load using the switch-on filling method was smaller than that when filling layer by layer and was slightly shifted upwards.