Violations of the Clausius-Duhem inequality in Couette flows of granular media.

Abstract

Spontaneous violations of the Clausius-Duhem (CD) inequality in Couette-type collisional flows of model granular media are studied. Planar systems of monosized circular discs (with disc numbers from 10 to 204, and disc diameters from 0.001 m to 1 m) with frictional-Hookean contacts are simulated under periodic boundary conditions by a molecular dynamics. The scale-dependent homogenization of micropolar media is used to determine the energy balances and mechanical entropy production. The dissipation function exhibits spontaneous negative entropy increments described by the fluctuation theorem. The boundary between violations and non-violations of the CD inequality is mapped in the parameter space, where the probability of such events diminishes with the disc diameter, the disc number and the area fraction increasing. The dissipation function is a random process, tending to Gaussian as the number of discs increases, and possessing non-trivial fractal and anti-persistent Hurst properties.