https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201714003069
Homogenization of granular pipe flow by means of helical inner-wall texture
1 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
2 University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
* e-mail: verbuechelnf@googlemail.com
** e-mail: eric.parteli@uni-koeln.de
*** e-mail: thorsten.poeschel@fau.de
Published online: 30 June 2017
The homogenization of granular flows through narrow pipes is important for a broad range of technological and industrial applications. Here we show, by means of molecular dynamics simulations, that such homogenization can be achieved by adding a helical inner-wall texture to the pipe, without the need for energy input from any external source. By using such a texture, jamming is prevented and the granular flux can be predicted using a modified Beverloo equation that accounts for the wavelength of the helical texture.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
