Surge instability of dry granular materials in large scale rotating drum experiments

Covering effect, size-fractionated, and stability of dry water with seawater@nano-SiO2: Electrochemical methods

Dry granular materials have been the subject of many investigations, while wet granular materials, which widely exist in many real-world applications, have only received limited attention. The aim of this paper is to address the missing gap in continuum modeling of wet granular materials. To study the wet granular flows, a grain-scale capillary interaction is introduced, as additional cohesive stress in the continuum-scale framework. We coupled the viscoplastic constitutive law for dry granular material and cohesion model for wet isotropic granular material to capture the behavior of wet granular materials. This combined model is implemented in a smooth particle hydrodynamics framework because the meshfree nature of this method captures the large deformation of granular flows without local grid distortion. The Wendland kernel is used as the interpolation kernel to improve numerical stability. This framework is validated by comparing numerical results with recent experimental findings for both dry and wet cases. The comparisons are illustrative of the potential of the framework to capture the behavior of granular materials across different phases. For different levels of friction and water content, the run-out dynamics and shear strength properties of granular materials in the final quasi-static regime are investigated. For granular flows on flat surfaces, compared with dry granular materials, with the introduction of surface tension in wet granular materials, it is found that there are increases in shear stresses locally and globally, enabling stronger internal forces to support structures with larger angles of repose. The surface energy-induced cohesion is found to play an important role in low friction cases compared to high friction cases. To benchmark the numerical framework presented here, granular column collapses on curved surfaces are also investigated. For flows on curved surfaces, although there are also increases in internal shear stresses, the differences in final profiles between wet granular materials and dry granular materials are not as pronounced as that on flat surfaces due to geometric constraints. The findings of this work are demonstrative of the capabilities of the smooth particle hydrodynamics method for the study of wet granular materials. This effort can serve as a step forward in the quest for a unified continuum theory and computational framework of granular material dynamics.

External forces lead to granular flow under the condition that the applied shear stress reaches the yield (shear) stress while another stress must be maintained for continuous flow in steady state. Most studies in granular physics focus on dry granular materials and their flow rheology. However, wet granular materials are ubiquitous in geology and many real world applications where interstitial liquid is present between the grains. There are several proposals for flow rules of dry and wet granular materials available in the literature. These flow rules differ in complexity and in the number of parameters, which are combined in the equations. The main focus areas of my research are (i) the formulation of suitable constitutive equations for the hydrodynamic density-stress-strain relations, specifically for wet granular materials, (ii) the deduction of the constitutive equations from discrete element simulations, and (iii) the validation of the micro-macro transition with numerical, theoretical and experimental results. The geometrical set-up of split-bottom shear cell used in my research is most appropriate for assessing the shear band originating from the split position that widens near the free surface. My research proposes a modified generalized flow rule/rheology to close the fundamental conservation laws for mass and momentum. Subsequently, a correlation is developed between the micro parameters and the {steady state cohesion in the limit} of very low confining pressure. Another aspect of studying unsaturated granular media is the movement of interstitial liquid due to the rupture of existing and formation of new liquid bridges. Shearing a wet granular system causes a re-distribution and transport of the interstitial liquid. The liquid transport can be modeled by a diffusion equation with a space-dependent diffusive coefficient in the split bottom geometry. Alternatively, it is shown here that this is an advective-diffusive process with constant diffusivity coefficient and a space-dependent drift, when transformed to an appropriate set of variables that can be solved analytically. The final chapter of this thesis concerns the experimental work exploring the surface flow profile for different dry and wet granular materials.

It has been widely shown that particle crushing increases the compressibility of granular materials. For a particular crushable material and given test conditions, an empirical relation can be established between the breakage ratio and the plastic work. Along these lines, constitutive models have been developed based on the effect of grading evolution during crushing. In parallel, due to corrosive attacks of the humid environment at the tip of microcracks within solid grains, the mechanical behavior of crushable granular materials depends also on the water content: the higher the material humidity, the higher the particle crushing. However, the experimental data on the relation between loading–wetting conditions and the breakage ratio are still quite scarce. In this paper, we present experimental results on crushable sand to study the effect of flooding under isotropic, oedometric, and triaxial stress paths. The main objective of this study is to obtain a consistent framework for the effect of water based on the breakage ratio. Our results have shown that, for a given initial density and stress path, the dry material after flooding reaches the equivalent behavior of the initially wetted material in terms of compression curve, particle crushing, and creep compressibility index, regardless of the point of flooding. Moreover, the relation between the breakage ratio and the final void ratio is unique and depends neither on the stress path, the water content, the point of flooding, nor the loading condition (time of creep or relaxation), but exclusively on the initial density and on intrinsic parameters. These findings could improve the prediction of the effect of water and time on the mechanical response of crushable granular materials through constitutive models based on grading evolution.

Dry granular matter, with infinite tangential friction, is modeled as a connected graph of grains linked by purely repulsive contacts. The degrees of freedom of a grain are non-slip rotation on, and disconnection from another. The material stability under shear (jamming) is ensured by odd circuits of grains in contact that prevent the grains from rolling on each other. A dense hard granular material has two possible states: fragile solid, blocked by odd circuits, and dry fluid or bearing, in the absence of odd circuits, that flows under shear by creation and glide of a pair of dislocations as in plasticity of continuous media. We did introduce the notions of blob, a region of the material containing only even circuits, and of critical contact that closes an odd circuit. The granular material is then represented, at low energies and critical applied shear, as a chain of blobs connected by critical contacts. The entropy is the logarithm of the number of spanning trees constrained to go through critical links. For a vanishing tangential friction, the graph description with the frustrating odd circuits is still valid, because the force between grains remains a scalar and repulsive. A granular material inside a cylindrical drum rotating at constant velocity around its horizontal axis alternates intermittently between solid and fluid states. As a fragile solid, it follows a limit cycle of avalanches (slip) and stuck rotations with the drum. This is the stick-slip behavior of a solid subjected to solid friction (to the driving drum) and gravity. In the fluid state, the friction is viscous and the granular material flows to a fixed point with constant slope.

In this study sound wave propagation through different types of dry confined granular systems is studied. With three-dimensional discrete element simulations, theory and experiments, the influence of several micro-scale properties: friction, dissipation, particle rotation, and contact disorder, on the macro-scale sound wave propagation characteristics are investigated. Experiments, analyzed with the “Spectral Ratio Technique”, make it possible to extract frequency-dependent propagation velocities and attenuation. An improved set-up for future investigations is proposed in order to better understand dispersion and propagation of sound in granular materials. The full dispersion relation of a Face-Centered-Cubic lattice is derived from a theoretical analysis that involves translations, tangential elasticity, and rotations. The additional displacement and rotation modes and the energy conversion between them is studied using discrete element simulations. Simulations and theory are in perfect quantitative agreement for the regular lattices examined. As a first small step away from order, systems with weak geometrical disorder (system structure) but strong contact disorder, i.e. with an inhomogeneous contact force distribution, are studied next. They reveal nicely the dispersive nature of granular materials and show strong frequency filtering. Low frequencies propagate, whereas high frequencies vanish exponentially. A more detailed study of how energy is transfered between different wavenumber bands shows linearly increasing transfer rates for increasing wavenumbers. A first theoretical approach using a linear Master Equation leads to a quantitative prediction of the energy evolution per band for short times. A bigger second step in complexity is made by investigating the sound propagation in a realistic tablet made of a sintered frictional and cohesive polydisperse powder and prepared in different ways. These simulations nicely display history dependence and the effect of different material parameters. As a conclusion, simulations were found to be a valuable tool to complement theoretical and experimental approaches towards the understanding of complex phenomena, such as sound propagation in (dry) granular materials. However, many open issues, in particular concerning the modeling, still remain.

Strong earthquakes with larger magnitude and longer durations trigger many landslides, however, how magnitude and duration affect landslides is still unclear. Many factors could contribute to this, including additional shear stress provided by strong ground motion, or “seismogenic liquefaction”; herein, we hypothesize that the dynamic weakening of sliding zone gouge is important. We explored the influence of earthquake magnitude and duration on landslide triggering by simulating the seismic response of sliding zone gouge using a dynamic ring‐shear device and glass spheres. The experiments showed that vibration with larger amplitudes and longer durations more easily trigger deformation and even instability in dry granular materials. We used a dynamic triaxial‐bender system to find that the shear modulus of these materials decreased with the increase in duration and amplitude of cyclic loading. We suggest that this universal decrease in shear modulus is an important landslide‐trigger mechanism. Our results revealed how magnitude and duration of earthquakes affect co‐seismic landslides and why earthquakes with larger magnitude and long durations can trigger more co‐seismic landslides.

While it has been acknowledged from geophysical tests that the wave propagation is reliable in probing material properties, the understanding of wave behaviours in granular material remains limited due to its complexity. The current study presents a series of discrete-element modelling (DEM) on wave propagation in dry granular materials, in which both face-centred cubic (FCC) packing with increasing particle tolerance and random packing with monodisperse spheres have been considered. The elastic moduli and Poissons ratio of each packing have been obtained by compression (P-) and Shear (S-) wave velocities. While the stress exponent exceeds 1/3 that predicted by Hertz-Mindlin contact law with introducing the size dispersity, a linear relationship has still been identified between the coordination number normalized by contact force and the elastic moduli normalized by confining pressure. Besides, certain frequencies of received wave signal have been filtered in examining the frequency content, especially for those packings with high polydispersity at low stress level, thereby indicating that the specific frequency is attenuated due to the local disorder. The energy density ratio (K) is employed to estimate the degree of mode conversion, which shows shear waves will dominate when propagating in inhomogeneous granular assemblies.

The viability of 18 bacterial strains desiccated on anhydrous silica gel and stored at a temperature of 22 degrees C for at least 3 months was determined. According to their stability in the dried state, these strains could be classified into three typical groups. Group 1, containing Gram-positive strains and Salmonella serotypes, was marked by a very slow decrease of the concentration of culturable cells from day 14 on (respectively day 21 for Salmonella thompson). The rate of decrease expressed as regression coefficient (b) ranged from -0.000389 to -0.00521 log (cfp ml-1) per d. The Group 2 strains Enterobacter cloacae and Escherichia coli did not reach a comparable slow decrease in the dry material within the indicated time period. Regression coefficients were respectively -0.04406 and -0.03412 log (cfp ml-1) per d. The reciprocal values -(1/b) were respectively 23 d per log (cfp ml-1) and 29 d per log (cfp ml-1), indicating the time periods in which a reduction of 1 log unit of culturable cells occurred. Group 3 strains Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aeromonas hydrophila and Aer. sobria were marked by a significant susceptibility to cell damage caused during desiccation and reconstitution. A high initial decrease (ID) of the concentration of culturable organisms seems to be a characteristic property of these bacterial strains: culturable organisms could not be detected after storage for 1 d (Aer. hydrophila, Aer. sobria) or 7 d (Ps. aeruginosa). The wide range of resistance of the different bacterial strains tested indicated that the silica gel model system is a suitable tool for microbiological challenge tests to investigate the survival of micro-organisms exposed to desiccation and their stability in dry materials.

Interaction between dry granular materials and an inclined plate (comparison between large-scale DEM simulation and three-dimensional wedge model)

In this paper, the effects of interparticle force on mixing, segregation, and stratification in dry granular materials are investigated. Avalanche segregation, stratification and also segregation in rotating drums are examined. A series of binary mixtures of granular materials is prepared which consists of spherical iron particles and a nonmagnetic material. By placing each mixture in a magnetic field, the induced magnetic interparticle force could be altered and the effects on particle segregation observed. Using this technique, the effects of altering interparticle force on both avalanche and radial segregation are examined. It is found that altering interparticle force could induce mixed materials to segregate and also induce segregating granular materials to mix. We also report a complete reversal of segregation and stratification as interparticle force was increased. These results have important implications for the mixing of cohesive powders.

Dry granular materials consist of a collection of macroscopic discrete particles interacting solely via contact forces. By changing the external conditions, the granular packing displays rich phenomena ranging from fluid-like properties to jamming glassy behavior and to aging observed when these grains are trapped in a frozen state. Once the grains contact liquid, the force between the liquid and grains has an influence on the mechanical properties of the wet granular materials, and some mechanical behaviors are quite different from those of the dry granular materials. However, the underlying mechanism of the complex dynamics of granular assemblies is still not completely understood. In this paper, mechanical spectroscopy (the shear modular G and the related energy dissipation tan) of NaCl wet granular system is investigated with different liquid content (weight fraction) under the constant temperature 25℃ and air humidity by a modified low-frequency inverted torsion pendulum. The NaCl wet granular system also displays jamming behavior when subjected to an external vibration with increasing intensity, which is quiet similar to dry granular matter. With the increase of water content, all the spectra of tan and modular G show a peak at the water content about 11% (critical water content). At the same time, the applied shear force has little influence on the positions of these peaks. All of these behaviors illustrate that the main interaction forces among granular matters in the system are changed at the moment.

In this study, a power series which can generate different families of new water sorption isotherm models were presented. Experimentally obtained values for equilibrium moisture content of pear for three different temperatures, 15, 30 and 45C, and water activities, from 0.112 to 0.920, as well as literature experimental values for equilibrium moisture content of potato for three different temperatures, 30, 45 and 60C, and water activities, from 0.112 to 0.900, were fitted with the newly generated sorption isotherm models plus the referent Anderson model known in the literature as Guggenheim‐Anderson‐de Boer (GAB) model. In order to find which model gives the best results for approximation of experimental sorption data, several statistical criteria proposed in scientific literature were used. For each model and experimental data set, the average performance index was calculated and models were ranked afterwards. After that, some statistical rejection criteria were checked (D’Agostino‐Pearson test of normality, single‐sample run test, confidence intervals of estimated parameters, significance and precision of the model parameters). The performed statistical analysis shows that the two newly generated three‐parameter models, M32 and M34, give the better fit to the sorption data of pear than the referent three‐parameter Anderson model, while M32 gives the best fit to the sorption data of potato.Practical ApplicationsThe sorption isotherms of food materials are of great importance in the food industry and technology, especially for the design and optimization of the drying equipment and in the approach to the prediction of shelf life stability of material. The new generated three‐parameter models, M32 and M34, can be successfully used in practical calculations of the equilibrium moisture content, which is an important parameter in storage conditions of dry food materials. With the incorporation of M32 or M34 in the drying model, more accurate values of transient moisture and temperature profiles on the dried materials will be obtained.

Shear banding is widely observed in natural fault zones as well as in laboratory experiments on granular materials. Understanding the dynamics of strain localization under different loading conditions is essential for quantifying strength evolution of fault gouge and energy partitioning during earthquakes and characterizing rheological transitions and fault zone structure changes. To that end, we develop a physics-based continuum model for strain localization in sheared granular materials. The grain-scale dynamics is described by the shear transformation zone (STZ) theory, a nonequilibrium statistical thermodynamic framework for viscoplastic deformation in amorphous materials. Using a finite strain computational framework, we investigate the initiation and growth of complex shear bands under a variety of loading conditions and identify implications for strength evolution and the ductile to brittle transition. Our numerical results show similar localization patterns to field and laboratory observations and suggest that shear zones show more ductile response at higher confining pressures, lower dilatancy, and loose initial conditions. Lower pressures, higher dilatancy, and dense initial conditions favor a brittle response and larger strength drops. These findings shed light on a range of mechanisms for strength evolution in dry sheared granular materials and provide a critical input to physics-based multiscale models of fault zone instabilities.

We present vibrational techniques to pump, mix, and separate dry granular materials using multifrequency vibrations applied to a solid substrate with a standard audio system. The direction and velocity of the granular flow are tuned by modulating the sign and amplitude, respectively, of the vibratory waveform, with typical pumping velocities of centimeters per second. Different granular materials are mixed by combining them at Y-shaped junctions, and mixtures of granules with different friction coefficients are separated along straight channels by judicious choice of the vibratory waveform. We demonstrate that the observed velocities accord with a theory valid for sufficiently large or fast vibrations, and we discuss the implications for using vibrational manipulation in conjunction with established microfluidic technologies to combine liquid and dry solid handling operations at sub-millimeter length scales.