Issue 34, 2020

Intermittent flow and transient congestions of soft spheres passing narrow orifices

Abstract

Soft, low-friction particles in silos show peculiar features during their discharge. The outflow velocity and the clogging probability both depend upon the momentary silo fill height, in sharp contrast to silos filled with hard particles. The reason is the fill-height dependence of the pressure at the orifice. We study the statistics of silo discharge of soft hydrogel spheres. The outflow is found to become increasingly fluctuating and even intermittent with decreasing orifice size, and with decreasing fill height. In orifices narrower than two particle diameters, outflow can stop completely, but in contrast to clogs formed by rigid particles, these congestions may dissolve spontaneously. We analyze such non-permanent congestions and attribute them to slow reorganization processes in the container, caused by viscoelasticity of the material.

Graphical abstract: Intermittent flow and transient congestions of soft spheres passing narrow orifices

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 May 2020
Accepted
06 Aug 2020
First published
06 Aug 2020

Soft Matter, 2020,16, 8013-8023

Intermittent flow and transient congestions of soft spheres passing narrow orifices

K. Harth, J. Wang, T. Börzsönyi and R. Stannarius, Soft Matter, 2020, 16, 8013 DOI: 10.1039/D0SM00938E

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