Experimental and Numerical Studies of Shear Layers in Granular Shear Cell
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 122, Issue 3
Abstract
The stability of a shear layer inside a granular material in a gravity field is studied experimentally and numerically. A shear cell is built of transparent acrylic to visualize the motion of the granular material. This shear cell consists of two concentric cylinders containing layers of uniform spheres in the annular space between the cylinders. The shearing motion of the spheres is produced by rotating the bottom boundary of the cell. Friction of the cylinder walls resists the shear motion, thus creating a single shear layer adjacent to the bottom boundary, while the rest of the layers above move with constant speed as a solid body. As the rotation speed of the bottom boundary increases, two layers adjacent to the bottom boundary begin to shear. This shearing zone quickly thickens and dilates as the rotational speed increases. The transition of this shear motion from a single layer to many layers of shearing is studied by video recording. The initiation of this transition is observed to depend on the material properties and the number of layers overlaying the shear layer. A one-dimensional numerical model is constructed to bring insight into this transitional phenomenon.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Babić, M., Shen, H. H., and Shen, H. T.(1990). “The stress tensor in granular shear flows of uniform, deformable disks at high solids concentrations.”J. Fluid Mech., 219, 81–118.
2.
Bagnold, R. A.(1954). “Experiments on a gravity-free dispersion of large solid spheres in a Newtonial fluid under shear.”Proc., Royal Soc. London, Ser. A, London, U.K., 225, 49–63.
3.
Brennen, C. E., Ghosh, S., and Wassgren, C. (1993). Vertical oscillation of a bed of granular material: Powders and grains, C. Thornton, ed., A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 247–252.
4.
Bridgewater, J. (1972). “Stress-velocity relationship for particulate solids.”Paper 72-MH-21, Am. Soc. of Mech. Engrg., New York, N.Y.
5.
Bridgewater, J.(1980). “On the width of failure zones.”Géotechnique, London, U.K., 30, 533–536.
6.
Campbell, C. S.(1989). “The stress tensor for simple shear flows of a granular material.”J. Fluid Mech., 203, 449–473.
7.
Campbell, C. S.(1990). “Rapid granular flows.”Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., 22, 57–92.
8.
Cleary, P. W., and Campbell, C. S. (1993). “Self-lubrication for long runout landslides: examination by computer simulation.”J. Geophys. Res., 98(B12), 21911–21924.
9.
Craig, K.(1994). “Granular collision lubrication.”J. Rheology, 38(4), 921–936.
10.
Dent, J. D., and Lang, T. E.(1982). “Experiments on mechanics of flowing snow.”Cold Regions Sci. Technol., 5, 253–258.
11.
Hopkins, M. A., and Louge, M. Y. (1991). “Inelastic microstructure in rapid granular flows of smooth disks.”Phys. Fluids, A3(1), 47–57.
12.
Jenkins, J. T. (1987). “Rapid flows of granular materials.”Non-classical continuum mechanics; abstract techniques and applications. Cambridge University Press, London, U.K., 213–225.
13.
Jenkins, J. T., and Askari, E.(1991). “Boundary conditions for rapid granular flows: phase interfaces.”J. Fluid Mech., 223, 497–508.
14.
Nedderman, R. M., and Laohakul, C.(1980). “The thickness of the shear zone of flowing granular materials.”Powder Technol., 25, 91–100.
15.
Novosad, J.(1964). “Apparatus for measuring the dynamic angle of internal friction and external friction of a granular material.”Collect. Czech. Chem. Comm., Prague, Czechoslovakia, 29, 2697–2701.
16.
Parker, T. S., and Chua, L. O. (1989). Practical numerical algorithms for chaotic systems . Springer-Verlag, Inc., New York, N.Y.
17.
Sanders, B. E. (1991). “Uniformity and slug formation in two-dimensional granular chute flow: a comparison of physical experiments and numerical simulations,” PhD thesis, Clarkson Univ., Potsdam, N.Y.
18.
Savage, S. B. (1978). “Experiments on shear flows of cohesionless granular materials.”Proc., U.S.-Japan Seminar on Continuum-Mech. and Statistical Approaches in the Mech. of Granular Mat., Tokyo, Japan, 241–254.
19.
Savage, S. B.(1979). “Gravity flow of cohesionless granular materials in chutes and channels.”J. Fluid Mech., 92, 53–96.
20.
Savage, S. B.(1984). “The mechanics of rapid granular flows.”Adv. in Appl. Mech., 24, 289–366.
21.
Savage, S. B. (1989). “Flow of granular materials.”Theoretical and applied mechanics. Elsevier, New York, N.Y., 241–266.
22.
Savage, S. B. (1992). “Numerical simulations of Couette flow of granular materials; Spatio-temporal coherence and 1/f noise.”Physics of granular media, D. Bideau and J. Dodds, eds., Nova Science Publishers, New York, N.Y., 343–362.
23.
Savage, S. B., and Sayed, M.(1984). “Stress developed by dry cohesionless granular materials sheared in an annular shear cell.”J. Fluid Mech., 142, 391–430.
24.
Sayed, M. (1981). “Theoretical and experimental studies of the flow of dry cohesionless granular materials,” PhD thesis, McGill Univ., Montreal, Canada.
25.
Takahashi, H., and Yanai, H.(1973). “Flow profile and void fraction of granular solids in a moving bed.”Powder Technol., 7, 205–214.
26.
Toyama, S.(1970/1971). “The flow of granular materials in moving beds.”Powder Technol., 4, 214–220.
27.
Walton, O. R., and Braun, R. L.(1986). “Stress calculations for assemblies of inelastic spheres in uniform shear.”Acta Mechanica, 63, 73–86.
28.
Walton, O. R., Kim, H., and Rossato, A. (1991). “Micro-structure and stress difference in shearing flows of granular materials.”Proc., Engrg. Mech. Div. Conf., ASCE, New York, N.Y.
29.
Zhang, Y., and Campbell, C. S.(1992). “The interface between fluid-like and solid-like behaviour in two-dimensional granular flows.”J. Fluid Mech., 237, 541–568.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 122 • Issue 3 • March 1996
Pages: 187 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Mar 1, 1996
Published in print: Mar 1996
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.