In a granular gas experiment of magnetized particles confined in a thin layer, the rate of dissipative collisions is tuned by adjusting the amplitude of an external magnetic field. The velocity statistics are analyzed using the dynamic and static structure factors of transverse velocity modes. Using the fluctuating hydrodynamics theory we measure the deviation from kinetic energy equipartition in this out-of-equilibrium system as a function of the dissipative collision rate. When the collision rate is decreased, the distance to equipartition becomes smaller meaning that the dynamical properties of this granular gas approach by analogy those of a molecular gas in thermal equilibrium.
Experiments quantifying the rotational and translational motion of particles in a dense, driven, 2D granular gas floating on an air table reveal that kinetic energy is divided equally between the two translational and one rotational degrees of freedom. This equipartition persists when the particle properties, confining pressure, packing density, or spatial ordering are changed. While the translational velocity distributions are the same for both large and small particles, the angular velocity distributions scale with the particle radius. The probability distributions of all particle velocities…
We consider the problem of determining the granular temperatures of the components of a homogeneous binary heated mixture of inelastic hard spheres, in the framework of Enskog kinetic theory. Equations are derived for the temperatures of each species and their ratio, which is different from unity, as may be expected since the system is out of equilibrium. We focus on the particular heating mechanism where the inelastic energy loss is compensated by an injection through a random external force (``stochastic thermostat''). The influence of various parameters and their possible experimental relev…
A binary mixture made of heavy and light inelastic hard spheres in the free cooling state is considered. First, the regions in the parameter space where the partial granular temperature of the heavy species is larger (or smaller) than that of the light species are analyzed. Next, the asymptotic behavior of the mean square velocity ratio in the disparate-mass limit is investigated, assuming different scaling laws for the parameters of the mixture. It is seen that two general classes of states are possible: a "normal" state and an "ordered" state, the latter representing a strong breakdown of en…
Two species of particles in a binary granular system typically do not have the same mean kinetic energy, in contrast to the equipartition of energy required in equilibrium. We investigate the role of the heating mechanism in determining the extent of this non-equipartition of kinetic energy. In most experiments, different species of particle are unequally heated at the boundaries. We show by event-driven simulations that this differential heating at the boundary influences the level of non-equipartition even in the bulk of the system. This conclusion is fortified by studying a numerical model …
We report experiments on the equipartition of kinetic energy between grains made of two different materials in a mixture of grains vibrated in 2 dimensions. In general, the two types of grains do not attain the same granular temperature, Tg = 1/2m v^2. However, the ratio of the two temperatures is constant in the bulk of the system and independent of the vibration velocity. The ratio depends strongly on the ratio of mass densities of the grains, but is not sensitive to the inelasticity of grains. Also, this ratio is insensitive to compositional variables of the mixture such as the number fract…
We discuss the statistical mechanics of granular matter and derive several significant results. First, we show that, contrary to common belief, the volume and stress ensembles are inter-dependent, necessitating the use of both. We use the combined ensemble to calculate explicitly expectation values of structural and stress-related quantities for two-dimensional systems. We thence demonstrate that structural properties may depend on the angoricity tensor and that stress-based quantities may depend on the compactivity. This calls into question previous statistical mechanical analyses of static g…
The hydrodynamic conservation equations and constitutive relations for a binary granular mixture composed of smooth, nearly elastic, hard spheres with non-equipartition energies and different mean velocities are derived. This research is aimed to build three-dimensional kinetic theory to characterize the behaviors of two species of particles suffering different forces. The standard Enskog method is employed assuming a Maxwell velocity distribution for each species of particles. The collision components of the stress tensor and the other parameters are calculated from the zeroth- and first-orde…
We study the effects of long range interactions on the phases observed in cohesive granular materials. At high vibration amplitudes, a gas of magnetized particles is observed with velocity distributions similar to non-magnetized particles. Below a transition temperature compact clusters are observed to form and coexist with single particles. The cluster growth rate is consistent with a classical nucleation process. However, the temperature of the particles in the clusters is significantly lower than the surrounding gas, indicating a breakdown of equipartition. If the system is quenched to low …
In general, the total kinetic energy in a multicomponent granular gas of inelastic and rough hard spheres is unequally partitioned among the different degrees of freedom. On the other hand, partial energy equipartition can be reached, in principle, under appropriate combinations of the mechanical parameters of the system. Assuming common values of the coefficients of restitution, we use kinetic-theory tools to determine the conditions under which the components of a granular mixture in the homogeneous cooling state have the same translational and rotational temperatures as those of a one-compo…
Boundary shape, particularly roughness, strongly controls the amount of wall slip in dense granular flows. In this paper, we aim to quantify and understand which aspects of a dense granular flow are controlled by the boundary condition, and to incorporate these observations into a cooperative nonlocal model characterizing slow granular flows. To examine the influence of boundary properties, we perform experiments on a quasi-2D annular shear cell with a rotating inner wall and a fixed outer wall; the later is selected from among 6 walls with various roughness, local concavity, and compliance. W…
Using a specially designed experimental set up, we have studied the so-called continuous to intermittent flow transition in sand piles confined in a Hele-Shaw cell where the deposition height of the sand can be controlled. Through systematic measurements varying the height and the input flow, we have established, for the first time, how the size of the pile at which the transition takes place depends on the two parameters studied. The results obtained allows to explain, at least semi-quantitatively, the observations commonly reported in the literature, carried out in experiments where the depo…
In a recent paper [A. Santos, G. M. Kremer, and V. Garzó, \emph{Prog. Theor. Phys. Suppl.} \textbf{184}, 31-48 (2010)] the collisional energy production rates associated with the translational and rotational granular temperatures in a granular fluid mixture of inelastic rough hard spheres have been derived. In the present paper the energy production rates are explicitly decomposed into equipartition rates (tending to make all the temperatures equal) plus genuine cooling rates (reflecting the collisional dissipation of energy). Next the homogeneous free cooling state of a binary mixture is anal…
Rising motion of an obstacle in a vibrated granular medium is a classic problem of granular segregation, and called the Brazil nut (BN) effect. The controlling vibration parameters of the effect has been a long-standing problem. A simple possibility that the BN effect can be characterized solely by vibration velocity has recently been pointed out. The issue has become controversial before a long history of research, with only a few systems have provided for the simple possibility. Here, we investigate the rising motion of an obstacle in a vertically positioned one-layer granular bed under cont…
It is well-recognized that granular media under rapid flow conditions can be modeled as a gas of hard spheres with inelastic collisions. At moderate densities, a fundamental basis for the determination of the granular hydrodynamics is provided by the Enskog kinetic equation conveniently adapted to account for inelastic collisions. A surprising result (compared to its molecular gas counterpart) for granular mixtures is the failure of the energy equipartition, even in homogeneous states. This means that the partial temperatures $T_i$ (measuring the mean kinetic energy of each species) are differ…
Both the shape of individual particles and their surface properties contribute to the strength of a granular material under shear. Here we show the degree to which these two aspects can be intertwined. In experiments on assemblies of 3D printed, convex lens-shaped particles, we measure the stress-strain response under repeated compressive loading and find that the aggregate's shear strength falls rapidly when compared to other particle shapes. We probe the granular material at mm-scales with X-ray computed tomography and $μ$m-scales with high-resolution surface metrology to look for the cause …
We study in this work the dynamics of a granular impurity immersed in a low-density granular gas of identical particles. For description of the kinetics of the granular gas and the impurity particles we use the rough hard sphere collisional model. We take into account the effects of non-conservation of energy upon particle collision. We find an (approximate) analytical solution of the pertinent kinetic equations for the single-particle velocity distribution functions that reproduces reasonably well the properties of translational/rotational energy non-equipartition. We assess the accuracy of t…
We compute the mean square displacement (MSD) of intruders immersed in a freely cooling granular gas made up of smooth inelastic hard spheres. In general, intruders and particles of the granular gas are assumed to have different mechanical properties, implying that non-equipartition of energy must be accounted for in the computation of the diffusion coefficient $D$. In the hydrodynamic regime, the time decay of the granular temperature $T$ of the cooling granular gas is known to be dictated by Haff's law; the corresponding decay of the intruder's collision frequency entails a time decrease of …
We study an air-fluidized granular monolayer, composed of plastic spheres which roll on a metallic grid. The air current is adjusted so that the spheres never loose contact with the grid, so that the dynamics may be regarded as pseudo two-dimensional (or two-dimensional, if the effects of sphere rolling are not taken into account). We find two surprising continuous transitions, both of them displaying two coexisting phases. Moreover, in all cases, we found the coexisting phases display strong energy non-equipartition. In the first transition, at weak fludization, a glassy phase coexists with a…
We study here the steady state attained in a granular gas of inelastic rough spheres that is subject to a spatially uniform random volume force. The stochastic force has the form of the so-called white noise and acts by adding impulse to the particle translational velocities. We work out an analytical solution of the corresponding velocity distribution function from a Sonine polynomial expansion that displays energy non-equipartition between the translational and rotational modes, translational and rotational kurtoses, and translational-rotational velocity correlations. By comparison with a nu…
A granular material is observed to flow under the Coulomb yield criterion as soon as this criterion is satisfied in a remote but contiguous region of space. We investigate this non-local effect using discrete element simulations, in a geometry similar, in spirit, to the experiment of Reddy et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., 106 (2011) 108301): a micro-rheometer is introduced to determine the influence of a distant shear band on the local rheological behaviour. The numerical simulations recover the dominant features of this experiment: the local shear rate is proportional to that in the shear band and d…
Submerged granular hoppers exhibit an unexpected surge in discharge rate as they empty [Wilson et al. 2015]. With a more sensitive apparatus, we find that this surge depends on hopper diameter and also happens in air --- though the effect is smaller and previously unnoticed. We also find that the surge may be turned off by fixing the rate of fluid flow through the granular packing. With no flow control, dye injected on top of the packing gets drawn into the grains, at a rate that increases as the hopper empties. Thus we conclude that the surge is caused by a self-generated pumping of fluid thr…
Injection-rate effects on failure in a fluid-saturated granular fault gouge
Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem(耶路撒冷希伯来大学地球科学学院);Faculty of Science, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem(乌斯季纳拉贝姆扬埃万杰利斯塔普尔金耶大学理学院);Faculty of Science, Charles University(布拉格查理大学理学院);Université de Strasbourg(斯特拉斯堡大学);Institut Terre et Environnement de Strasbourg(斯特拉斯堡地球与环境研究所);PoreLab, The Njord Centre, Departments of Physics and Geosciences, University of Oslo(奥斯陆大学物理与地球科学系尼约德中心孔隙实验室)
Previous experiments have revealed that shock waves driven through dissipative gases may become unstable, for example, in granular gases, and in molecular gases undergoing strong relaxation effects. The mechanisms controlling these instabilities are not well understood. We successfully isolated and investigated this instability in the canonical problem of piston driven shock waves propagating into a medium characterized by inelastic collision processes. We treat the standard model of granular gases, where particle collisions are taken as inelastic with constant coefficient of restitution. The …