Numerical and experimental studies have been undertaken to analyze three parameters controlling the compaction of granular media submitted to sinusoidal horizontal vibrations. We have characterized the influence of the dimensionless acceleration Γ, the geometry of the container and the friction coefficients on the grain velocities and on the packing densities. Above a critical acceleration Γ, the velocities increases with Γ. For low values of Γ, the surface layers are compacted, whereas the bottom layers remain at their initial density. For high values of Γ, the bottom layers get compacted, the surface layers are fluidized so that the bulk dynamic and relaxed densities decreased. In the same way, the effect of the dimensions of the container and of the friction coefficients on the packing properties has been studied for given heights of sand, acceleration and frequency. It has been shown that the influence of the two last parameters is similar to that of acceleration. The numerical results given by the Discrete Element Method appear to be in good agreement with experimental results.
We report experimental observations of a horizontally vibrated granular medium made out of sand grains. For large enough acceleration, two counter-rotating convection rolls appear in the upper part of the granular packing, whereas the bed remains unperturbed in the lower part. For increasing acceleration, the free surface exhibits different shapes: slight dome, two ridges and single roof. A quantitative characterization is performed by mean of PIV and image analysis. It shows that both relaxed and dynamic densities present a maximum at Γ=3.8 and that the measured thickness of the fluidized region scales with a square root law (as a function of the dimensionless acceleration). In the discussion, a convection mechanism is proposed, as well as an analogy with classical Newtonian fluids.
Sinusoidal horizontal vibrations have been applied to a parallelepiped containing rounded sand grains. To model the granular medium behavior, a commercial software based on Molecular Dynamics has been used. The influence on the rheologic behavior of many process parameters, such as the dimensionless acceleration and the frequency has been studied. The velocity, density, pressure and mass flow fields have been computed, both in dynamic and static modes and compared with experimental results. The correlation between these different parameters has been also examined.
X ray microtomography experiments were performed in order to evaluate the densification of silica sand submitted to horizontal sinusoidal vibrations carried out at constant frequency (50 Hz) with controlled acceleration and deceleration Γ. Packing homogeneity was characterized using relative density distribution through 3D images of the relaxed samples. Information obtained from the images allowed us to evaluate data at grain scale: porosity and pore size distribution, number of contacts per particle, particle shape and size distribution were evaluated and linked to the densification process. Based on the internal analysis of samples, the results confirm and extend the conclusions of previous works regarding the 3-layer densification under vibration and the proposed optimized vibration cycle to get dense and homogeneous samples. They extend them to different initial packings. Additionally, significant correlations are found between density and local particle packing characteristics such as pores size distribution, or the number of contacts per particle.
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