Flux of Wet Natural Pozzolana

MEDICI, M.E.; BENEGAS, O.A.; AGUIRRE, F.; BAUDINO, M.R.; UÑAC, R.O.; VIDALES, A M; IPPOLITO, I.

Santa Fe, Argentina

Congreso; X Reunión Internacional sobre Recientes Avances en Física y Mecánica de Fluidos; 2008

INTEC, CONICET, AGENCIA

We present here experimental results on the flux and stability conditions for a real granular system, that is pozzolana, a natural volcanic sand widely used in concret production. We measured different angles involved in equilibrium conditions for sand piles and then related them to the flux parameters necessary to produce a silo evacuation. We vary some of the geometrical parameters in the silo to inspect the different flux responses of the system. Results are presented as a function of humidity present in the system. Different wetting degrees are obtained by adding a controlled amount of water to a known weight of dry volcanic sand. Thus, humidity degree is refered as the percentage of weithed water to weighted dry sand. The humidity range studied was from 0 to 6% for the case of stability angles and from 0 to 1.2% for flux through a silo. In this way, we related stability angles with flux conditions through a silo under different geometric setups and different humidity degrees, thus seting up a basic phase diagram for flux.