Drag force in immersed granular materials

Abstract

We investigate the drag forces acting on large objects moving through a granular packing immersed in water. In this aim, we conducted uplift experiments involving pulling out horizontal plates at a prescribed velocity vertically. During these tests, we observed that the drag force reaches to peak at a low displacement and then decays. Results show that the peak drag force strongly increases with the velocity and depends on the plate size and grain diameter. We identify empirical scaling laws for these properties and introduce a Darcy-flow mechanism that can explain them. Furthermore, we conducted tests involving suddenly stopping the motion of the plate, which evidenced a progressive relaxation of the drag force in time. We discuss how a visco-elasto-plastic mechanical analogue can reproduce these dynamics. These results and analyses highlight fundamental differences in drag force between dry and immersed granular materials.