TY - JOUR T1 - Internal Structure of Inertial Granular Flows JF - Physical Review Letters Y1 - 2014 A1 - Emilien Azéma A1 - Farhang Radjaï AB -

We analyze inertial granular flows and show that, for all values of the inertial number I, the effective friction coefficient μ arises from three different parameters pertaining to the contact network and force transmission: (1) contact anisotropy, (2) force chain anisotropy, and (3) friction mobilization. Our extensive 3D numerical simulations reveal that μ increases with I mainly due to an increasing contact anisotropy and partially by friction mobilization whereas the anisotropy of force chains declines as a result of the destabilizing effect of particle inertia. The contact network undergoes topological transitions, and beyond I0.1 the force chains break into clusters immersed in a background “soup” of floating particles. We show that this transition coincides with the divergence of the size of fluidized zones characterized from the local environments of floating particles and a slower increase of μ with I.

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VL - 112 IS - 7 JO - Phys. Rev. Lett. ER -