Inertial shear bands in granular materials

Abstract

We provide numerical solutions to the momentum and energy balance of a kinetic theory for the steady, collisional shearing of identical, inelastic, frictional spheres between two different types of boundaries—rigid-bumpy and erodible, in the absence of gravity. A rigid-bumpy boundary is a source of fluctuation energy for the flow, an erodible boundary is a sink. As a consequence, the characteristics of shearing between two rigid-bumpy boundaries, two erodible boundaries, and a rigid-bumpy and an erodible boundary are all different. Here, we display these differences and relate them to measurements of inhomogeneous shearing and the development of shear bands in laboratory experiments.