Intermittent granular flow and clogging with internal avalanches
S.S. Manna1,2 - H.J. Herrmann1,3
1 P.M.M.H., École Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles,
10 rue Vauquelin, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
2 Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences,
Block-JD, Sector-III, Salt Lake, Calcutta 700 091, India -
ICA1, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
hans@pmmh.escpi.fr
Received 21 July 1999 and Received in final form 17 September 1999
Abstract
The dynamics of intermittent granular flow through an orifice at the bottom of a
granular bin and the associated clogging due to formation of arches blocking the
outlet, is studied numerically in two dimensions. When the hole size is less than
the grain diameter, only a single grain is removed from the system so that the system self-organizes
to a steady state and the distribution of the grain displacements decays as power
laws. On the other hand, when hole sizes are within few times of the grain diameter,
the outflow distributions are also observed to follow a power law.
PACS
05.70.Jk Critical point phenomena -
74.80.Bj Granular, melt-textured, and amorphous superconductors; powders
Copyright EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag
