Related papers: Facilitating a 3D granular flow with an obstructio…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
The capture of a soft spherical particle by a rectangular slit leads to a non-monotonic pressure-flow rate relation at low Reynolds number. In the presence of the trapped particle the flow-induced deformations focus the streamlines and…
We analyze the trajectory of suspended spherical particles moving through a square array of obstacles, in the deterministic limit and at zero Reynolds number. We show that, in the dilute approximation of widely separated obstacles, the…
Gravity driven flows such as in hoppers and silos are susceptible to clogging due to the formation of arches at the exit whose failure is the key to re-initiation of flow. In vibrated hoppers, clog durations exhibit a broad distribution,…
We conduct standard dimensional analysis (Vaschy--Buckingham $\Pi$-theorem) for the mean avalanche size $\langle s \rangle$ when particles flow through, and clog at, a small orifice on the base of a flat-bottomed silo. We consider the…
Instabilities and avalanches in granular flows represent hallmarks of failure: they can both disrupt industrial process flows and signal dangerous conditions, like those in grain silos and snowy mountaintops. We investigate intermittency…
Granular segregation is an important mechanism for industrial processes aiming at mixing grains. Additionally, it plays a pivotal role in determining the kinematics of geophysical flows. Because of segregation, the grainsize distribution…
In topology optimization of compliant mechanisms, the specific placement of boundary conditions strongly affects the resulting material distribution and performance of the design. At the same time, the most effective locations of the loads…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
Flows of particles through bottlenecks are ubiquitous in nature and industry, involving both dry granular materials and suspensions. However, practical limitations of conventional experimental setups hinder the full understanding of these…
Systematic deflection of microparticles off of initial streamlines is a fundamental task in microfluidics, aiming at applications including sorting, accumulation, or capture of the transported particles. In a large class of setups,…
It is well known that jammed soft materials will flow if sheared above their yield stress - think mayonnaise spread on bread - but a complete microscopic description of this seemingly sim- ple process has yet to emerge. What remains elusive…
Shallow flow or thin liquid film models are used for a wide range of physical and engineering problems. Shallow flow models allow capturing the free surface of the fluid with little effort and reducing the three-dimensional problem to a…
A system formed by a crowded environment of catalytic obstacles and complex oscillatory chemical reactions is inquired. The obstacles are static spheres of equal radius, which are placed in a random way. The chemical reactions are carried…
We numerically study confined channel foam flow around an obstacle using a two-dimensional bubble model, inspired by experiments performed in the same geometry. We systematically vary the polydispersity, the external driving force, and the…
Entangled granular systems exhibit mechanical rigidity and resistance to deformation, reminiscent of cohesive materials, due to their reduced degrees of freedom and contact friction. A quantitative understanding of how classical granular…
The flow of elliptical particles out of a 2-dimensional silo when extracted with a conveyor belt is analyzed experimentally. The conveyor belt - placed directly below the silo outlet - reduces the flow rate, increases the size of the…
We investigate the force of flowing granular material on an obstacle. A sphere suspended in a discharging silo experiences both the weight of the overlaying layers and drag of the surrounding moving grains. In experiments with frictional…
Flows of granular media down a rough inclined plane demonstrate a number of nonlocal phenomena. We apply the recently proposed nonlocal granular fluidity model to this geometry and find that the model captures many of these effects.…
The focus of this work is to present a novel methodology for optimal distribution of a swarm formation on either side of an obstacle, when evading the obstacle, to avoid overpopulation on the sides to reduce the agents' waiting delays,…