Fine structures in sheared granular flows.

Computer simulations were used to investigate shear flows of large numbers of viscoelastic, monosized, spherical particles in unbounded and bounded systems with solid fractions ranging from 0.16 to 0.59. A modified hard-sphere model with inelastic, instantaneous particle interactions was found to replicate some results predicted by kinetic theory in an unbounded shear flow at low and moderate solids fractions. This model was found to predict features such as particle lateral diffusive motion even for systems at solid fractions as high as 0.56. However, for higher solid fractions where phenomena such as jamming could occur, a particle dynamics model accounting for particle contacts of finite duration has been developed, in which the viscoelastic behavior of the particles was represented using a nonlinear Hertzian model. The nonlinear viscoelastic model was found to give more reasonable predictions for cluster formation than previously reported linear models, especially when accounting for surface friction in the model. However, neither frictionless nor frictional particle models could predict particle ordering in unbounded flows. As such, simulations were performed for bounded systems using both the modified hard-sphere model and the nonlinear particle dynamic model. For a bounded shear flow, particle ordering could be predicted by the hard-sphere model even in the absence of both particle friction and gravity, with the local solid fraction and wall separation distance governing the flow stability. For these conditions chain formation was found to be quite likely in the disordered layers for frictional particles. The interesting stick-slip dynamics could be clearly observed in the normal stress signal at the bottom wall. Interpretations were proposed for the complex processes observed, which could lay the foundation for further investigations in sheared dense granular systems.