No Arabic abstract
We study the flow of elongated grains (wooden pegs of length $L$=20 mm with circular cross section of diameter $d_c$=6 and 8 mm) from a silo with a rotating bottom and a circular orifice of diameter $D$. In the small orifice range ($D/d<5$) clogs are mostly broken by the rotating base, and the flow is intermittent with avalanches and temporary clogs. Here $dequiv(frac{3}{2}d_c^2L)^{1/3}$ is the effective grain diameter. Unlike for spherical grains, for rods the flow rate $W$ clearly deviates from the power law dependence $Wpropto (D-kd)^{2.5}$ at lower orifice sizes in the intermittent regime, where $W$ is measured in between temporary clogs only. Instead, below about $D/d<3$ an exponential dependence $Wpropto e^{kappa D}$ is detected. Here $k$ and $kappa$ are constants of order unity. Even more importantly, rotating the silo base leads to a strong -- more than 50% -- decrease of the flow rate, which otherwise does not depend significantly on the value of $omega$ in the continuous flow regime. In the intermittent regime, $W(omega)$ appears to follow a non-monotonic trend, although with considerable noise. A simple picture, in terms of the switching from funnel flow to mass flow and the alignment of the pegs due to rotation, is proposed to explain the observed difference between spherical and elongated grains. We also observe shear induced orientational ordering of the pegs at the bottom such that their long axes in average are oriented at a small angle $langlethetarangle approx 15^circ$ to the motion of the bottom.
We investigate, at a laboratory scale, the collapse of cylindrical shells of radius $R$ and thickness $t$ induced by a granular discharge. We measure the critical filling height for which the structure fails upon discharge. We observe that the silos sustain filling heights significantly above an estimation obtained by coupling standard shell-buckling and granular stress distribution theories. Two effects contribute to stabilize the structure: (i) below the critical filling height, a dynamical stabilization due to granular wall friction prevents the localized shell-buckling modes to grow irreversibly; (ii) above the critical filling height, collapse occurs before the downward sliding motion of the whole granular column sets in, such that only a partial friction mobilization is at play. However, we notice also that the critical filling height is reduced as the grain size, $d$, increases. The importance of grain size contribution is controlled by the ratio $d/sqrt{R t}$. We rationalize these antagonist effects with a novel fluid/structure theory both accounting for the actual status of granular friction at the wall and the inherent shell imperfections mediated by the grains. This theory yields new scaling predictions which are compared with the experimental results.
We use Topological Data Analysis to study the post buckling behavior of laboratory scale cylindrical silos under gravity driven granular discharges. Thin walled silos buckle during the discharge if the initial height of the granular column is large enough. The deformation of the silo is reversible as long as the filling height does not exceed a critical value, $L_c$. Beyond this threshold the deformation becomes permanent and the silo often collapses. We study the dynamics of reversible and irreversible deformation processes, varying the initial filling height around $L_c$. We find that all reversible processes exhibit striking similarities and they alternate between regimes of slow and fast dynamics. The patterns that occur at the beginning of irreversible deformation processes are topologically very similar to those that arise during reversible processes. However, the dynamics of reversible and irreversible processes is significantly different. In particular, the evolution of irreversible processes is much faster. This allows us to make an early prediction of the collapse of the silo based solely on observations of the deformation patterns.
We study experimentally gravity-driven granular discharges of laboratory scale silos, during the initial instants of the discharge. We investigate deformable wall silos around their critical collapse height, as well as rigid wall silos. We propose a criterion to determine a maximum time for the onset of the collapse and find that the onset of collapse always occurs before the grains adjacent to the wall are sliding down. We conclude that the evolution of the static friction toward a state of maximum mobilization plays a crucial role in the collapse of the silo.
We present experimental data corresponding to a two dimensional dense granular flow, namely, the gravity-driven discharge of grains from a small opening in a silo. We study the microscopic velocity field with the help of particle tracking techniques. From these data, the velocity profiles can be obtained and the validity of some long-standing approaches can be assessed. Moreover, the fluctuations of the velocities are taken into consideration in order to characterize the features of the advective motion (due to the gravity force) and the diffusive motion, which shows nontrivial behaviour.
Resistance force exerted on an obstacle in a gravity-driven slow granular silo flow is studied by experiments and numerical simulations. In a two-dimensional granular silo, an obstacle is placed just above the exit. Then, steady discharge flow is made and its flow rate can be controlled by the width of exit and the position of obstacle. During the discharge of particles, flow rate and resistance force exerting on the obstacle are measured. Using the obtained data, a dimensionless number characterizing the force balance in granular flow is defined by the relation between the discharge flow rate and resistance-force decreasing rate. The dimensionless number is independent of flow rate. Rather, we find the weak shape dependence of the dimensionless number. This tendency is a unique feature for the resistance force in granular silo flow. It characterizes the effective flow width interacting with the obstacle in granular silo flow.