Effect of vibration on solid-to-liquid transition in small granular systems under shear Martin F.Melhus & Igor S.

Aranson

Granular Matter ISSN 1434-5021 Granular Matter DOI 10.1007/s10035-012-0314-7

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Granular Matter DOI 10.1007/s10035-012-0314-7

ORIGINAL PAPER

Effect of vibration on solid-to-liquid transition in small granular systems under shear

Martin F. Melhus Igor S. Aranson

Received: 15 August 2011 Springer-Verlag (outside the USA) 2012

Abstract The effect of vibration on the solid-to-liquid-like transition of a dense granular assembly under planar shear is studied numerically using soft particle molecular dynamics simulations in two dimensions. We focus on small systems in a thin planar Couette cell, examining the bistable region while increasing shear, with varying amounts of vertical vibration, and determine statistics of the shear required for uidization. In the absence of vibration, the threshold value of the shear stress depends on the preparation of the system and has a broad distribution. However, adding periodic vibration both lowers the mean uidization threshold value of the shear stress and decreased its variability. A previous study performed similar simulations using random noise; the results from these two studies exhibit excellent agreement with proper normalization over appropriate ranges of parameters. Keywords Fluidization transition Vibration Noise

1 Introduction One of the leading problems in granular materials is formulation of a continuum theory for dense granular ows. Numerous simulations and experimental and theoretical studies [127] have explored the regimes from a static, or frozen
M. F. Melhus Department of Physics, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-3112, USA M. F. Melhus I. S. Aranson (B) Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439, USA e-mail: aronson@anl.gov

state through slow dense ows and into rapid dilute ows. Dilute ows can be consistently described by the kinetic theory of dissipative granular gases undergoing inelastic collisions [28,29], but dense ows present significant difculty in the formulation of a continuum theory (see, e.g., [1117]). From a owing state, as the applied shear is reduced, the ow drops smoothly to zero, at shear stress we label . However, from a static state, the onset of ow begins abruptly, at a value of applied shear f that is higher than . For values of applied shear between and f , the ow is bistable and history dependent. Our investigations focus on this solid to liquid-like, or uidization transition in small systems, and the effects of external inuences on uidization. In our previous study [30], we investigated the effects of random noise on the uidization transition in a dense granular assembly. In the absence of noise, the uidization threshold value of the shear stress was found to depend on the preparation of the system and has a broad distribution. Adding force uctuations both lowered the mean threshold value of the shear stress and decreased its variability. This behavior was interpreted as thermoactivated escape through a uctuating barrier. In this study, we investigate the effects of periodic vibration on the uidization transition. Periodic vibration, modeled by applying a sinusoidally oscillating force, could potentially produce very different effects on the uidization transition. We observed that over a specic range of vibration frequencies the effects of vibration are identical to the effects of random noise, despite the deterministic nature of the vibration. At frequencies higher than this range significant amounts of the energy of vibration is dissipated in granular collisions, and at lower frequencies, cell size artifacts (a resonance of the entire granular assembly), affect the measured uidization transition.

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2 Molecular dynamics simulations We consider a two dimensional granular assembly in a planar Couette geometry with the ow bounded by plates of length L x , with the bottom plate stationary and the top plate free to move vertically (subject to applied pressure P and support of the grains), and horizontally (subject to the applied shear and resistance of the grains), see Fig. 1. The top and bottom boundaries are roughened by particles with diameter twice that of the mean of the particles in the bulk (omitted from Fig. 1). Larger wall particles are used to inhibit crystallization effects. A periodic boundary condition is imposed at the sides of the cell. As in our earlier works, Ref. [1820], all variables and parameters are scaled by the acceleration due to gravity g, mean particle size d p , and mean particle mass m p (note while we scale for convenience the acceleration by g, there is no force of gravity in our simulations). We model the interaction between individual grains using the soft contact approach described in [1823]; the grains are treated as non-cohesive inelastic disk like particles, interacting by normal and shear forces wherever they overlap. Normal interactions are modeled by the spring-dashpot model [31], and shear interactions are modeled by the technique developed by Cundall and Strack [32]. Motion of the individual grains is obtained by integrating the Newton equations using the fth order Gear predictor-corrector technique [33] with the forces and torques produced by interactions with neighboring grains, including the ones afxed to the boundaries. Since we are interested in the bulk properties of granular media, the vibration was included by the addition of a time-periodic sinusoidal acceleration applied to each grain. Alternatively, the vibration could be introduced via periodic movement of the conning plates. While in both cases the overall behavior is qualitatively similar, in the rst case, however, the behavior of a small, dense granular ensemble (as in our work) is less susceptible to the specifics of particles interactions with the vibrating plates. It is also more computationally efcient since there are no transients associated with the propagation of vibration from the plates to the bulk. The simulations were written to input the particle interaction time tc = 5.0 103 s, the time step t = 1.0 104 s, the coefcient of normal restitution en = 0.92, and the coefcients of friction between particles and between the particles and the wall pp = pw = 0.50. Some simulations were also performed for stiffer particles (smaller tc ), no qualitative change was observed. In this case, however, the timestep was smaller. Initial states were prepared by dropping particles pseudorandomly into the cell, stopping them upon contact with another particle. After placing all particles, the top of the cell is lowered onto the grains until it contacts a particle, and zero shear is applied for the duration of a typical run to create the initial starting condition. Then the shear was increased at a moderate rate until reaching = 0.20, whereupon the

Fig. 1 Diagram of the system. A two-dimensional granular assembly under periodic vibration is conned by applied pressure P and sheared by constant force F . Periodic boundary conditions are applied in the direction of shearing (x-axis), and oscillating vibrational forces are applied in the direction of the applied pressure (y-axis)

rate of increase was reduced, until at = 0.22 the rate of increase was xed at = 0.002 per computational step. Each computational step was 2 105 time steps, or 20 s of simulation time. This initial protocol limited us to measuring uidization transitions f > 0.22, which limited the mean uidization transition measured to m 0.24, given the distribution of our data. More detailed explanations of our methodology (and simulation parameters) can be found in [1820,30]. To characterize the statistical properties of the uidization transitions, as in our previous study, we examined the probability distributions S( f ) of the uidization transitions f for different vibration accelerations over several initial conditions. Acceleration is dened as its normalized rms value, i.e. by taking the amplitude of vibration a divided by the gravity acceleration g, and divided by 2 (this factor is explained fully in the section comparing vibration and random noise). We used the same set of initial conditions at every vibration level and for every frequency. Histograms are displayed in Fig. 2 for relatively low frequencies of vibration (38 Hz) and for higher frequency, 60 Hz, Fig. 3. As it is evident from Figs. 2 and 3, there is an overall trend of widening of the histograms with the decrease in acceleration . Strikingly, there is no dependence on the frequency of vibration in the range of frequencies 38 Hz, see Fig. 2. This behavior will be discussed in detail below. These histograms are comparable those in Fig. 3 of our previous work [30] with random forces acting on individual particles, since they are based on a variety of starting congurations. There is no way to normalize around the mean, or perform multiple simulations around a particular initial condition as we did in [30], as the simulations for vibration are completely deterministic while the simulations with random noise are not. The histograms for the lowest values of displayed are virtually identical to those observed for lower values of , and we expect this would be representative of a histogram if no vibration were applied. Overall, we see the expected trend of the mean decreasing and the distribution width decreasing as increases.

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3 Hz
0.3
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4 Hz
0.3 0.4

6 Hz
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0.3 0.4 60 40 20 0 60

0.3 150 100 50 0 150 100 50

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Fig. 2 Histograms of uidization shear at 38 Hz, for selected amplitudes of vibration . All scales are identical, and all histograms are for 1000 samples

Fig. 3 Histograms of uidization shear at 60 Hz. From the top down, left column, normalized vibration acceleration = 0.911, 1.62, 2.88, 5.13, all 103 ; right column, = 0.911, 1.62, 2.88, 5.13, all 102 . All scales are identical, and all histograms are for 2500 samples

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The dependance of the mean uidization shear m on the normalized vibration amplitude is displayed in Fig. 4. The value of m remains fairly constant for values of less than 1 104 . Further, the relation between vibration amplitude and m is fairly linear, as observed in the inset to Fig. 4. The standard deviation of the threshold uidization shear is displayed in Fig. 5. As for the graph of m , there is no significant change in the behavior of for values of less than 1104 . 1000 realizations at each frequency were used to generate Figs. 4 and 5.

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3 Frequency dependance of uidization shear We investigated the effects of changing the vibration frequency f and the vibration acceleration on the mean uidization shear m . We executed runs at frequencies between 0.7 and 240 Hz and found a wide variety of behaviors. In all cases, increasing eventually decreased m , but the value of where this happened varied considerably, for a variety of reasons. Figure 6 shows the results of these experiments. The predominant feature of Fig. 6 is the change in behavior for frequencies greater than 15 Hz. In the region from 3 to 15 Hz, m is fairly insensitive to changes in frequency; above

Fig. 4 The mean uidization shear m as a function of normalized random noise , and as a function of normalized vibration acceleration . The inset shows the same data on the same axes, but on a linear scale for and

15 Hz, the decrease in m occurs at higher values of as frequency increases. We initially speculated that the data above 15 Hz would collapse when normalized by applied energy, but we found that the collapse was poor, and only held over small ranges of frequency. We now attribute this increase to the fact that at higher frequencies the particle displacements due to vibration become orders of magnitude

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0.035

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3 Hz 4 Hz 6 Hz 8 Hz

0.32 0.30 0.28 0.26 0.24

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Fig. 5 The standard deviation of the uidization shear as a function of vibration amplitude. Main graph is in log-linear scale; the inset is the same graph in a linear scale
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Fig. 7 A side view of Fig. 6, showing the shift in the decrease of m with increasing frequency

0.3
m

0.25

0.2 10 -3 10 -2 10 -1 10 0 2 4 8 15 30 60 120

Frequency (H

z)

Fig. 6 (Color online) Plot of of the mean uidization shear m as a function of vibrational acceleration and frequency. Red + are the observed values, dark blue are lines of constant frequency, and light blue are lines of constant vibrational acceleration

smaller than the particle size and smaller than the typical particle deformation. Consequently, high frequency vibration will cause deformation of the particles rather than produce particle displacements. For example, at 15 Hz and an vibration acceleration of = 2.9103 (where m has decreased to approximately 0.28), the vibration displacement amplitude is 0.1 m. This displacement is much smaller than the typical deformation of the particles under the applied pressure, which is 2.2 m (the particle diameter is 100 m). We hypothesize that much of the vibrational energy will be dissipated in particulate shape deformation at frequencies higher than 15 Hz. For example, at = 5.13 103 , m = 0.262 at 15 Hz, and m = 0.305 at 30 Hz; m is decreased less than 1/3 as much at the higher frequency. Figure 7 illustrates the change in the decrease of m with increasing frequency. Further, the particular shape of the decrease in m with fre-

quency will be highly sensitive to the details of the model of particle-particle interaction. At lower frequencies than those displayed in Fig. 6, we observed a decrease in f with , related to resonances at the natural frequency of the system. To verify this hypothesis, we ran a short series of tests where shear was increased (via the normal experimental protocols) close to f and then abruptly set to zero. On removing the applied shear, the top plate oscillated at a frequency of approximately 0.8 Hz. (The exact value varied from run to run; we hypothesize this is due to the specic conguration of the granular assembly during each run.) We believe that this oscillation represents the entire granular assembly acting as a lightly damped spring and mass system. The applied shear stress causes particle deformation that stores energy, and upon the removal of the applied stress, this energy drives the system in damped oscillation. Further, during similar tests with a deeper cell (increased from 10 particle diameters nominal to 30), this natural oscillation frequency decreased, conrming that this resonance was a function of the depth of the grains. The low frequency data shows a resonance dip at approximately 1.7 Hz, likely a harmonic of the natural frequency. Finally, since the particle diameter d p divided by the collision time is the speed of a wave propagating through the particulate, we can estimate the fundamental resonance frequencies. This yields resonances of 12.2 and 2 Hz, corresponding to the cell height (8.18 particle diameters), and the cell length (50 particle diameters) for the lowest modes. These numbers correspond surprisingly well with the structure of the plot of decreases in mean uidization shear (Fig. 6), and with data measured below 3 Hz that showed a decrease in m centered around 1.9 Hz For the purposes of comparison with the results of our previous study [30], we chose to focus on frequencies between 3 and 8 Hz. This range is above the effects system resonance at 1.82.5 Hz, and are below the range where m increases

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with frequency. Further, these frequencies exhibit excellent collapse of m as a function of , as shown in Figs. 4 and 6.

4 Comparison of vibration with random noise To compare the results of vibration with random noise, we need to properly normalize the standard deviation of the applied noise a and that of the applied vibration acceleration a to r ms values. For the case of periodic vibration where the applied force is a sin(2 f t), the vibration r ms value is (r ms) = a / 2, i.e it requires the factor of 1/ 2. Random noise used in [30] was isotropic in angle and uniformly distributed between 0 and a . The variance of such a noise is a 2 /3, yielding standard deviation (r ms) = a / 3. Additionally, for the comparison we have to take into account that the random noise acts equally in two directions, while the vibration acts in only one (vertical) direction, effectively halving the power and requiring a factor of 2, so the nal normalizing factor is 2/3. Comparing the properly normalized random noise and vibration amplitude ( 2/3a against a / 2) in the range of frequencies 3 < f < 9 Hz results in excellent agreement, as shown in Fig. 4. The two sets of results exhibit the same shape and magnitude and essentially fall within the error bars. For frequencies f > 15 Hz the the deviations from the noise data increase with increasing frequency.

iments are much stiffer than those used in simulations, this threshold frequency should be correspondingly much higher. [22] suggests elastic constants k on the order of 105 to 1010 for real particles, which implies a threshold frequency k of several kHz. However, according to simulations reported in Ref. [34], increasing grains stiffness does not result in qualitative change of the overall behavior.
Acknowledgments This work was inspired by Isaacs Goldhirsch ground-breaking works on the mechanical properties of dense granular materials [35,36], who both authors had the privilege of knowing over a number of years. The research was supported by the U.S. DOE, Ofce of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science and Engineering, under the Contract No. DE AC02-06CH11357.

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5 Conclusions In conclusion, we performed numerical studies of the effect of coherent vertical vibration on the uidization transition of small systems under shear. Our results revealed a twofold effect of the uidization on the system. First, the vibration decreases the mean value of the uidization transition shear. Second, the vibration decreases the width of the distribution of the uidization transition shear. These results are in agreement with previous ndings for applied random noise forces, and show that the overall power applied, whether in random noise or coherent vibration, is the key parameter that determines the decrease in mean uidization shear. However, there are also fundamental differences. For lower vibration frequencies we observed that the behavior is dominated by resonances of the entire granular assembly, leading to a significant reduction of the average uidization shear. In contrast, for higher vibrational frequencies, when the vibrational displacements are less than the typical particle deformations, the behavior is determined by the dissipative responses of the individual particles. In our simulations we used very soft particles, so the threshold frequency was relatively low, about 15 Hz. Since the particles used in exper-

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