Resuspension processes in a wide range of particle sizes

Abstract

Particulate matter offers a broad spectrum of phenomena, well known in the granular matter community. This fact is not only related to the individual or collective behaviour that grains can present depending on the external boundary conditions and/or internal interactions but, to the wide range of particle sizes. This feature confers the possibility of studying a particular phenomenon in different size scales. The main goal of this paper is to describe the detachment of particles from surfaces, where particles go from tens of microns to several millimetres, in a variety of scenarios. All the studied systems presented here have in common the need to determine the critical conditions to lose the equilibrium balance, initiating incipient motion. Solving the right time moment for particle resuspension, consideration of the local interactions between particle, surface and external applied forces can be achieved from different modelling approaches, from deterministic dynamics to statistical mechanics. This paper focuses on some of these approaches performed recently on grains through different size scales.