Density Waves in One-Dimensional Granular Flows Driven by Non-Uniform Force Field

Abstract

We introduce a non-uniform gravity-like force field to control the granular flow state in a quasi-one-dimensional system, and study the system by the molecular dynamics simulation. We find that the granular flow under non-uniform force field can be well described by a density wave with fixed time period if a fixed particle number condition is used. The base frequency of the density wave does not depend on the position of the flow, while both the average density and oscillation amplitude of the flow vary continuously with the position. The formation of the density wave results from the aggregation of the granules in the decelerated region and the feed-back mechanism in the fixed particle number condition.