Falling jet of dry granular material in water

Guillaume Saingier (1) , Alban Sauret (2) , Pierre Jop (1)

1 SVI - Surface du Verre et Interfaces
2 UC Santa Barbara - University of California [Santa Barbara]

Modeling the flow of dry granular materials entering water is crucial to optimize blending processes in the industry or for natural hazard assessment when describing the tsunami waves induced by landslides. In this study, we experimentally investigate the case of a jet of grains entering from the air into a water bath. After an initial transient state, a stationary impregnation front appears between the dry and the wet grains. The wet grains are then dispersed in the liquid. To describe this dry to wet transition, we focus on the first step of the process when the liquid invades the dense granular medium. In this regime, the granular jet is modeled as a translating porous material, and we systematically characterize the impregnation process using a combination of experiments, analytical modeling, and numerical tools. We then compare this approach to the situation of a confined granular jet entering into a water bath. Our approach is a first step toward describing the interplay between dry grains and a liquid and the resulting dispersion of particles.

Mots clés: porous media; granular media; particle/fluid flow

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Guillaume Saingier, Alban Sauret, Pierre Jop. Falling jet of dry granular material in water. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2021, ⟨10.1017/jfm.2021.131⟩. ⟨hal-03166692v2⟩