Granular discharge of a hopper: characterization of velocity profiles by PIV method

ULISSI F, IPPOLITO I, CALVO A.

SANTA FE, SANTA FE

Workshop; Reunión sobre Recientes Avances en Física de Fluidos y sus Aplicaciones; 2008

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times-Roman; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:auto; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:ES;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> A study of granular materials flow during the discharge of a quasi-two-dimensional silo with inclined lateral walls is reported. The particle flow inside the silo is recorded for river sand, glass beads and quartz grains with irregular geometry. Particle image velocimetry method (PIV), usually used in fluid dynamics, was adapted to obtain the grains velocity profile at different heights of the hopper. It is shown that these profiles are well fitted by Gaussian functions with characteristic parameters depending on the grains size and geometry. This dependence is exhaustively analyzed as well as the parameters variation with the rugosity and the inclination angle of the hopper lateral walls.