Mixing and Condensation in a Wet Granular Medium
Abstract
We have studied the effect of small amounts of added liquid on the dynamic behavior of a granular system consisting of a mixture of glass beads of two different sizes. Segregation of the large beads to the top of the sample is found to depend in a nontrivial way on the liquid content. A transition to viscoplastic behavior occurs at a critical liquid content, which depends upon the bead size. We show that this transition can be interpreted as a condensation due to the hysteretic liquid bridge forces connecting the beads, and we provide the corresponding phase diagram.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- April 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.168702
- arXiv:
- arXiv:cond-mat/0302582
- Bibcode:
- 2003PhRvL..90p8702G
- Keywords:
-
- 45.70.Mg;
- 05.65.+b;
- Granular flow: mixing segregation and stratification;
- Self-organized systems;
- Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics;
- Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
- E-Print:
- submitted to PRL