Investigation of nonlocal granular fluidity models using nuclear magnetic resonance

Abstract

Nonlocal rheology models describe features in granular flows, such as scale dependence and flow below the yield point, that are not captured by local rheology models. It has been proposed that these features may be described by the transport of a property known as the granular fluidity. In this article, we studied an annular Couette shear cell of lobelia seeds using nuclear magnetic resonance to collect detailed measurements of the velocity distribution and volume fraction. These data were used to study nonlocal granular rheology models. We found that the nonlocal granular fluidity model was capable of accurately describing the decay in the velocity profile along the shear gradient direction. We also measured the dimensionless fluidity and validated the general form of the relation between this quantity and the volume fraction.