Convective Flow in a Horizontally Vibrated 3D Granular Packing
Abstract
We report experimental observations of a horizontally vibrated granular medium made out of sand grains. For large enough acceleration, two counter-rotating convection rolls appear in the upper part of the granular packing, whereas the bed remains unperturbed in the lower part. For increasing acceleration, the free surface exhibits different shapes: slight dome, two ridges and single roof. A quantitative characterization is performed by mean of PIV and image analysis. It shows that both relaxed and dynamic densities present a maximum at Γ = 3ṡ8 and that the measured thickness of the fluidized region scales with a square root law (as a function of the dimensionless acceleration). In the discussion, a convection mechanism is proposed, as well as an analogy with classical Newtonian fluids.
- Publication:
-
Powders and Grains 2009
- Pub Date:
- June 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.3180029
- Bibcode:
- 2009AIPC.1145..721R
- Keywords:
-
- 45.70.-n;
- 81.05.Rm;
- 02.60.-x;
- Granular systems;
- Porous materials;
- granular materials;
- Numerical approximation and analysis