EXPERIMENTS IN MODEL GRANULAR MEDIA: A STUDY

OF GRAVITY FLOWS

J. RAJCHENBACH, E. CLEMENT AND J. DURAN

Laboratoire d'Acoustique et d'Optique de la Mati&e Condensde, Universit6 Pierre et Marie Curie,
4 place Jussieu, 75005 PARIS, FRANCE.

ABSTRACT

We study the flow under gravity of a granular model system submitted to shear in a rotating
cylinder. The system is confined in a vertical 2D geometry which allows visualisation of the bulk
and direct measurements of the velocity and density fields. We establish the existence of scaling
properties displayed by velocity and density profiles for a large range of different flow rates.

INTRODUCTION

Granular media consisting of assemblies of non-cohesive particles intervene in numerous

practical domains of engineering and fabrication processes (soil mechanics, pharmacology,
concrete, food industry, etc...). They display a large number of unusual properties (like strain
localisation, segregation, non-Newtonian flows, spontaneous heaping etc..) [1] [2]. All those
properties are weakly understood and remains a challenge for both engineers and physicists.
Contrasting with atomic systems, for which equilibrium statistical mechanics and linear response
theory provide a basis for the passage from a microscopic to a macroscopic viewpoint, the particles
are here so large that fluctuations of thermal origin are irrelevant and all classical methods of
statistical mechanics fail. Concerning granular flows, it has been known for a long time that they do
not obey hydrodynamics laws and one of the most open questions is to obtain constitutive relations
describing momentum and energy transport. For example, we know that, in opposition with
Bernoulli's law, the discharge rate of an hourglass does not depend on the height in the upper
vessel, and exhibits funnel behaviour. Furthermore, a gravity flow on an incline displays several
regimes of flow and a transition between an intermittent regime to a continuous one [3]. Two major
steps for the understanding of granular flows are due to Reynolds [4] and Bagnold [5].The seminal
concept of "dilatancy threshold" was proposed in 1885 by Reynolds who expressed the simple idea
that a powder can flow from rest only if, it has been dilated below a given density threshold in order
to overcome the large stress resistance due to the grain entanglement. Much later, Bagnold
proposed that, for a rapidly flowing powder, a collision regime exists where the collision frequency,
which sets the rate of momentum losses, scales like the velocity gradient between layers of flowing
particles. As a consequence, the shear stress is proportional to the velocity gradient and is bound to
diverge in the proximity of the dilatancy threshold, according to
crxz = F(p) (gradv) 2 (1)
where F(p) sets the divergence in the vicinity of the dilatancy threshold. More recently, several
theories attempted to go beyond this elementary picture by using a la Boltzmann collision theories
[6] [7], which attempt to describe the lower density collision regime. These theories have brought
some rational to Bagnold's arguments and have elucidated some dependence as a function of micro
mechanical parameters such as inelasticity of the grains, but still, there is no clear vision of the
influence of the solid friction and the role of the boundaries, nor full understanding of the cross-
over with the regime of higher density flows. Furthermore, considering the difficulties to make
measurements inside the bulk, there are very little experimental studies probing quantitatively this

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Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 367 01995 Materials Research Society
behaviour [8] 9] [10]. In our experiments we deal with bidimensional model system of grains,
consequently we are able to get in situ velocity measurements and we test the existence of some
general flowing behaviour.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

In the experiment reported here, we use a rotating cylinder which is a device initially designed
by Franklin and Johanson [II]: it is an hollow duralumin cylinder (20 cm diameter) with glass
windows, rotating around its horizontal axis at a constant speed fl. The rotating cylinder is a very
convenient set-up to accumulate data over long time, because the heap is continuously supplied
with new particles upstream. In the present case, the container is partly filled with monodisperse
metal spheres (d=1.5 mm) confined between two vertical boundaries separated by one bead
diameter. The rotation speed is driven by a quartz clock, and is varied from 5 to 20 r.p.m which
correspond to the steady continuous flow regime.

Figure 1.Bidimensional flow of steel spheres (d = 1.5 Figure 2. Computer reconstructed image
mm). White trails correspond to the beads corresponding to Fig. 1
displacement during the opening time of the shutter.(
At = 1/250 s).

On Fig. 1 we present a zoomed snapshot of the central region of the rotating cylinder. Each
photo looks like a collection of bright trails due to the displacement of each grain during the
opening time of the shutter. The inclined flow compares well with a flow of particles on an inclined
plane, provided that the flux of matter and of momentum, brought up by the rotation process, is
negligible in comparison to the surface gravity flow. This condition seems to be satisfied on the
photos, since for this range of shutter time, the bottom bed of beads looks motionless. In the region
where particles have attained their limiting velocity, the balance between shear stress and gravity
yields:
0
xz= (mgsinO/d2)J'z+00 p(h) dh (2).
The shear stress Yxz integrates all mechanisms leading to loss of momentum, which namely are the
diffusion of momentum due to collisions, the solid friction and the inelasticity. On Fig.2 we show a
computer reconstructed image of the photo presented in Fig. 1. We designed computer routines
suited to analyse images of the flow and calculate displacement and density fields.

526
Now we present the results of a standard analysis where, for a fixed position in the laboratory
reference frame and for a given rotation velocity, we average velocities and volume fractions
over hundreds of snapshots. Fig.3 and Fig. 4, display the volume fraction profiles and the
velocity profiles obtained for typical flow rate magnitudes corresponding to 500 particles/s
(case a), 800 particles/s (case b ) and 1500 particles (case c)/s. Note that the flux is
externally driven by adjusting the rotation speed of the drum. Comparing Fig.3. and Fig.4, we
notice that the flowing layer has a finite thickness (typically around 10 beads diameter) which
depends on the flux. The motion appears frozen for volume concentrations of the order of Pc
=-0.8, which is clearly smaller than the volume concentration of the 2D triangular compact
lattice (Pmax = 0.91). This gives an experimental approximation of the Reynolds dilatancy
threshold. Furthermore, a remarkable feature is that, in the average, the velocity gradient
looks weakly dependent on the flowing layer depth, and is roughly of same order of
magnitude: VV = 24 s-1.

8.2 £6.4
A 0 0.6 g e.2 0.4 6.6 6.6 1.6
0
A 4 A

1 ,- O
i -. s a• ,' -6.6. 4 1
a A

t4

' -L2.8 A-16oh 4a 4 A

CA 41

4 4

particle velocities (m/s) Volume fraction

Figure 3 . Velocity profile of the 2d flow of steel beads Figure 4 Corresponding volume fraction profiles
(d = 1.5 mm) (averaged on 100 snapshots)) [1i(case a (same experimental conditions)
), A(case b ), 0 (case c),see text.]

We claim that the previous analysis has a major drawback. The averaging procedure ignores
that for 2D experiments, fluctuations are of large amplitudes. Consequently, the standard
averaging procedure mixes spatial domains with different physical significance and may
smooth out essential pieces of information. Now we describe an alternative analysis
procedure based on the hypothesis that every snapshot represents some mechanical steady
state controlled by three variables: VV the velocity gradient, J the particle flux, 0 the
instantaneous flowing angle and pc the maximum volume fraction of the flowing layer. These
parameters are not necessarily independent but can be measured independently for each
snapshot. There is also an implicit hypotheses on the existence of a time scale separations
between the process controlling the shearing and the process controlling the fluctuations. For
each picture, VV, J and 0 are measured as well as zc the maximal depth of the flowing layer.

527
A flow depth scale H is computed: H = [J/VV/pc] 1 /2. On fig 5 and 6 we display the rescaled
velocity and density profiles for a large collection of snapshots at three rotation velocities.

%
Io - '.6 13
#a
1.6' jA 4Q.L.

0. .

V(2)
"V
., A

0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2. 8 . 1%2 ;.

0.0

Figure 5: Rescaled velocity profile Figure 6: Corresponding rescaled volume fraction.

We observe a data collapse in favour of generic flow laws of the type:

V(z) = VV (Z-Zc) (3a)

and
p(z) = pc (p[(z-zc)/H] (3b)

where (p is an "universal" profile function. This flow structure seems to characterise a

shearing regime for which the momentum transfer picture is to be established.

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