Sharif Digital Repository

Flow through the pores of granular materials has many instances in practice. Therefore, it is interesting to realize how some parameters, such as the shape of the particles affect the passing flow. Following the recent mathematical theory proposed by the authors, this paper deals with the issue of how tortuosity and permeability are influenced by the particle shape. Comparison of the results with the experimental data reveals the competency of the theory in predicting the impact of particle geometry  

The evolution of the microstructure of an assembly of cohesionless granular materials with associated pores, which carry the overall applied stresses through frictional contacts is a complex phenomenon. The macroscopic flow of such materials take place by the virtue of the relative rolling and sliding of the grains on the micro-scale. A new discrete element method for biaxial compression simulations of random assemblies of oval particles with mixed sizes is introduced. During the course of deformation, the new positions of the grains are determined by employing the static equilibrium equations. A key aspect of the method is that, it is formulated for ellipse cross-sectional particles, hence... 

Stress-induced anisotropy appears during the course of deformation in response to the applied stresses. The distribution of contact normals may be a dominant source of stress-induced anisotropy in granular assemblies. In the present study, stress-induced anisotropy in the fabric of granular materials is investigated through implication of several strain-controlled biaxial compression simulations on random assemblies of oval cross-sectional particles with mixed sizes. Based on a new formulation for distinct element method (DEM), which is referred to as static DEM (SDEM), an efficient computer program is developed to observe the evolution of the fabric in assemblies of oval granules under... 

We present sliding experiments of a sledge on wetted sand and describe that the frictional response is controlled by the penetration hardness of the granular medium. Adding a small amount of water to sand increases the hardness which results in a decrease of the sliding friction. Pouring even more water to sand results in a decrease of the hardness and a subsequent increase of the friction. This inverse correlation between hardness of a wetted granular material and its frictional response to sliding is found to be due to ploughing of the sledge. When the load of the sledge exceeds the penetration hardness of the water-sand mixture the granular material is irreversibly deformed, which is... 

The present study employs Discrete Element Method (DEM) to establish a rheological model that relates the apparent viscosity of a granular material to shear rate, normal stress, and water saturation. In addition, a theoretical model was developed to determine water distribution and water-induced forces between particles for different saturations. The resulting forces were embedded in a 3D shear cell as a numerical rheometer, and a wet specimen was sheared between two walls. A power law rheological model was then obtained as a function of inertia number and saturation. It was found that up to a critical saturation, the apparent viscosity increased with saturation that was higher than that of... 

In this paper, a three-invariant cap model is developed for the isotropic-kinematic hardening and associated plasticity of granular materials. The model is based on the concepts of elasticity and plasticity theories together with an associated flow rule and a work hardening law for plastic deformations of granulars. The hardening rule is defined by its decomposition into the isotropic and kinematic material functions. The constitutive elasto-plastic matrix and its components are derived by using the definition of yield surface, material functions and non-linear elastic behavior, as function of hardening parameters. The model assessment and procedure for determination of material parameters... 

In this paper, a three-invariant plasticity model is developed based on a single cap yield surface for the kinematic and anisotropic hardening behavior of powder and granular materials. The applicability of proposed plasticity model is demonstrated in numerical simulation of several triaxial and confining pressure tests on different powder and granular materials. © CIMNE, 2007  

A theoretical and experimental study was conducted to accurately determine the amount of adsorption and desorption of methane by various Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) under different physical conditions. To carry out the experiments, the volumetric method was used up to 500 psia at constant temperature of 25 °C. In these experiments, adsorption as well as desorption capacities of four different GAC in the adsorption of methane, the major constituent of natural gas, at various equilibrium pressures and a constant temperature were studied. Also, various adsorption isotherm models were used to model the experimental data collected from the experiments. The accuracy of the results obtained... 

Analytical solution of shock wave propagation in pure gas in a shock tube is usually addressed in gas dynamics. However, such a solution for granular media is complex due to the inclusion of parameters relating to particles configuration within the medium, which affect the balance equations. In this article, an analytical solution for isothermal shock wave propagation in an isotropic homogenous rigid granular material is presented, and a closed-form solution is obtained for the case of weak shock waves. Fluid mass and momentum equations are first written in wave and (mathematical) non-conservation forms. Afterwards by redefining the sound speed of the gas flowing inside the pores, an... 

This paper introduces a well-balanced second-order finite volume scheme, based on the Q-scheme of Roe, for simulating granular type flows. The proposed method is applied to solve the incompressible Euler equations under Savage-Hutter assumptions. The model is derived in a local coordinate system along a non-erodible bed to take its curvature into account. Moreover, simultaneous appearance of flowing/static regions is simulated by considering a basal friction resistance which keeps the granular flow from moving when the angle of granular flow is less than the angle of repose. The proposed scheme preserves stationary solutions up to second order and deals with different situations of wet/dry... 

Experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of adding fines on the tribo-charging of coarse glass beads. Four types of fines, i.e., copper, stainless steel, uncoated and silver-coated fine glass beads, mixed with 240–830 μm glass beads were conveyed by air through a stainless-steel spiral pipe acting as a tribo-charger. Regardless of the type or electrical conductivity of the fine particles tested, adding small amounts of fines (up to 10 wt%) to coarse glass beads resulted in a sharp increase in the mass and surface charge densities of the particles. In general, the profiles of the mass and surface charge densities of the fine–coarse particle mixtures as a function of the mixture... 

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings were deposited on commercially pure titanium plates using a hydrothermal-electrochemical deposition method in an electrolyte containing calcium and phosphate ions. The deposition conditions used in this study were the followings: electrolyte temperature (33-80 °C), current density (1-8 mA/cm2), and deposition time (10-120 min). Needle-like and granular crystals of apatite coating were created with different concentrations of calcium (0.0021-0.042 M) and phosphate (0.00125-0.025 M) salts. The size of HA crystals of the coating was considerably changed with different concentration of calcium and phosphate salts, temperature of the electrolyte, and deposition time.... 

This paper numerically studies the interaction of a flowing granular material with an entrainable granular bed, while materials are mixed at the interface of two materials. The rheological behavior of this granular mixture is characterized by a generalized viscoplastic model that includes local volume fraction of materials as well as their physical properties, i.e. size, density, and friction angle. Additionally, the effect of the dynamics of entrained bed-type particles on the rheology of the granular mixture is considered. The governing equations of the flow are discretized using the Incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method in which mixing of particles can be... 

Granular composite samples of GdBa2Cu3O 7-δ (Gd123), PrBa2Cu3O 7-δ (Pr123), and Pr0.5Ba0.5Ba 2Cu3O7-δ (PrBa123) have been prepared by the solid state reaction technique. The characterization of samples has been done by SEM and XRD measurements. We have investigated the effect of Pr123 and PrBa123 insulating grains on the superconductor-insulator transition and the normal state resistivity of the (1 - n)Gd123-nPr123 and (1 - m)Gd123-mPrBa123 systems. The dominant diffusion of Pr ions onto the neighboring Gd123 grains in (1 - n)Gd123-nPr123 causes high rate of suppression of superconductivity similar to the chemical-doped GdPr123 system. For (1 - m)Gd123-mPrBal23 system, the suppression rate... 

GAC has been modified by loading of potassium nickel hexacyanoferrate (KNiCF) as a new adsorbent for cesium adsorption. The potassium nickel hexacyanoferrate-loaded granular activated carbon (KNiCF-GAC) was characterized using powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm data, infrared spectroscopy, and its cesium adsorption performance in aqueous solution was investigated. The effect of the various parameters such as initial pH value of the solution, contact time, temperature, and initial concentration of the cesium ion on the adsorption efficiencies of KNiCF-GAC have been studied systematically by batch experiments. The adsorption isotherm of KNiCF-GAC was... 

In this article, 3D modeling and simulation of bubbling fluidized beds has been conducted using various drag models, and the model predictions were validated against reported experimental data and 2D simulation results. In this regard, different drag models reported in the literature including Gidaspow, Syamlal-O'Brien, Hill-Koch-Ladd, and Wen-Yu were applied. A standard Two-Fluid Model (TFM) closed by the Kinetic Theory of Granular Flows (KTGF) was used to simulate bubbling gas-solid fluidized beds. Excellent agreements between the simulation results and experimental data, concerning bed expansion ratio, gas volume fraction, and time-averaged particles velocity, were found over a wide range... 

Two sequencing batch reactors were operated to investigate the effect of influent alkalinity and reactor pH on aerobic granulation. In the first reactor R1 with high influent alkalinity the pH was adjusted in the neutral range, and in the second reactor R2 with low alkalinity the pH was held within the acidic range. The R1-dominating species were bacteria and the appearance time of granules was three weeks after reactor start-up. On the other hand, the acidic environment of R2 provided favorable conditions for fungal growth, and rapid granule formation occurred within the first week of operation. The varying microbial structure of granules resulted in different reactor performance in terms... 

In this work, a reliable dimensionless correlation is proposed for prediction of permeability reduction rate in porous media, which is verified by experimental data obtained in this work in glass bead and sand pack as well as the core data from the literature. Although this correlation is based on the data which were obtained in our work in glass bead and sand-packed media at low pressure, it shows considerable flexibility to match with the extracted data for sandstone cores at high pressure, various flow rates, different temperatures and concentrations of calcium, and sulfate ions in brine solutions. In addition, a novel relationship for predicting the rate of precipitation of CaSO4 in...