Evolution of wet agglomerates inside inertial shear flow of dry granular materials

Type Article
Date 2020-03
Language English
Author(s) Vo Thanh-Trung1, 2, Mutabaruka PatrickORCID2, Nezamabadi Saeid2, 3, Delenne Jean-YvesORCID3, Radjai FarhangORCID2
Affiliation(s) 1 : Bridge and Road Department, Danang Architecture University, 550000 Da Nang, Vietnam
2 : LMGC, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France
3 : IATE, UMR1208 INRA-CIRAD-Université de Montpellier-SupAgro, 34060 Montpellier, France
Source Physical Review E (2470-0045) (American Physical Society (APS)), 2020-03 , Vol. 101 , N. 3 , P. 032906 (10p.)
DOI 10.1103/PhysRevE.101.032906
WOS© Times Cited 16
Abstract

We use particle dynamics simulations to investigate the evolution of a wet agglomerate inside homogeneous shear flows of dry particles. The agglomerate is modeled by introducing approximate analytical expressions of capillary and viscous forces between particles in addition to frictional contacts. During shear flow, the agglomerate may elongate, break, or be eroded by loss of its capillary bonds and primary particles. By systematically varying the shear rate and surface tension of the binding liquid, we characterize the rates of these dispersion modes. All the rates increase with increasing inertial number of the flow and decreasing cohesion index of the agglomerate. We show that the data points for each mode collapse on a master curve for a dimensionless scaling parameter that combines the inertial number and the cohesion index. The erosion rate vanishes below a cutoff value of the scaling parameter. This leads to a power-law borderline between the vanishing erosion states and erosion states in the phase space defined by the inertial number and the cohesion index.

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