Open Access

REVIEW

Fluidization and Transport of Vibrated Granular Matter: A Review of Landmark and Recent Contributions

Peter Watson¹, Sebastien Vincent Bonnieu², Marcello Lappa^1,*

1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
2 European Space Agency, European Space Research and Technology Centre, Noordwijk, Netherland

* Corresponding Author: Marcello Lappa. Email:

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2024, 20(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2023.029280

Received 13 February 2023; Accepted 20 April 2023; Issue published 08 November 2023

Abstract

We present a short retrospective review of the existing literature about the dynamics of (dry) granular matter under the effect of vibrations. The main objective is the development of an integrated resource where vital information about past findings and recent discoveries is provided in a single treatment. Special attention is paid to those works where successful synthetic routes to as-yet unknown phenomena were identified. Such landmark results are analyzed, while smoothly blending them with a history of the field and introducing possible categorizations of the prevalent dynamics. Although no classification is perfect, and it is hard to distillate general properties out of specific observations or realizations, two possible ways to interpret the existing results are defined according to the type of forcing or the emerging (ensuing) regime of motion. In particular, first results concerning the case where vibrations and gravity are concurrent (vertical shaking) are examined, then the companion situation with vibrations perpendicular to gravity (horizontal shaking) is described. Universality classes are introduced as follows: (1) Regimes where sand self-organizes leading to highly regular geometrical “pulsating” patterns (thin layer case); (2) Regimes where the material undergoes “fluidization” and develops an internal multicellular convective state (tick layers case); (3) Regimes where the free interface separating the sand from the overlying gas changes inclination or develops a kind a patterned configuration consisting of stable valleys and mountains or travelling waves; (4) Regimes where segregation is produced, i.e., particles of a given size tend to be separated from the other grains (deep containers). Where possible, an analogy or parallelism is drawn with respect to the companion field of fluid-dynamics for which the assumption of “continuum” can be applied.

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Keywords

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