David J Goldfarb | PubMed Health

PubMed2003

Free surface waves in wall-bounded granular flows.

We report free-surface waves in granular flows near boundaries in an inclined chute. The chevron-shaped traveling waves spontaneously develop at inclinations close to the angle of repose for both steady and accelerating flows. Two distinct regimes are characterized by internal angle and frequency variations. Experimental measurements indicate that subsurface circulation driven by velocity gradients near frictional walls plays a central role in the pattern formation mechanism, suggesting that wave generation is controlled by the granular analog of a fluid boundary layer.

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PubMed2002

Shear instabilities in granular flows.

Unstable waves have been long studied in fluid shear layers. These waves affect transport in the atmosphere and oceans, in addition to slipstream stability behind ships, aeroplanes and heat-transfer devices. Corresponding instabilities in granular flows have not been previously documented, despite the importance of these flows in geophysical and industrial systems. Here we report that breaking waves can form at the interface between two streams of identical grains flowing on an inclined plane downstream of a splitter plate. Changes in either the shear rate or the angle of incline cause such waves to appear abruptly. We analyse a granular flow model that agrees qualitatively with our experimental data; the model suggests that the waves result from competition between shear and extensional strains in the flowing granular bed. We propose a dimensionless shear number that governs the transition between steady and wavy flows.

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