Microscopic description of the granular fluidity field in nonlocal flow modeling

A recent granular rheology based on an implicit 'granular fluidity' field has been shown to quantitatively predict many nonlocal phenomena. However, the physical nature of the field has not been identified. Here, the granular fluidity is found to be a kinematic variable given by the velocity fluctuation and packing fraction. This is verified with many discrete element simulations, which show the operational fluidity definition, solutions of the fluidity model, and the proposed microscopic formula all agree. Kinetic theoretical and Eyring-like explanations shed insight into the obtained form.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Zhang, Qiong, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kenneth Kamrin.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111899

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/111899