Strongly vertically shaken granular matter can display a density inversion: A high-density cluster of beads is elevated by a dilute gaslike layer of fast beads underneath ("granular Leidenfrost effect"). For even stronger shaking the granular Leidenfrost state becomes unstable and granular convection rolls emerge. This transition resembles the classical onset of convection in fluid heated from below at some critical Rayleigh number. The same transition is seen in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the shaken granular material. The critical shaking strength for the onset of granular convection can be calculated from a linear stability analysis of a hydrodynamiclike model of the granular flow. Experiment, MD simulations, and theory quantitatively agree.

Buoyancy driven granular convection is studied for a shallow, vertically shaken granular bed in a quasi 2D container. Starting from the granular Leidenfrost state, in which a dense particle cluster floats on top of a dilute gaseous layer of fast particles (Meerson et al. in Phys Rev Lett 91:024301, 2003; Eshuis et al. in Phys Rev Lett 95:258001, 2005), we witness the emergence of counter-rotating convection rolls when the shaking strength is increased above a critical level. This resembles the classical onset of convection-at a critical value of the Rayleigh number-in a fluid heated from below. The same transition, even quantitatively, is seen in molecular dynamics simulations, and explained by a hydrodynamic-like model in which the granular material is treated as a continuum. The critical shaking strength for the onset of granular convection is accurately reproduced

Experiments and computational simulations are carried out to study the behavior of a granular column in a silo whose walls are able to vibrate horizontally. The column is brought to a steady fluidized state and it behaves similar to a hydrostatic system. We study the dynamics of the granular discharge through openings at the bottom of the silo in order to search for a Torricelli-like behavior. We show that the flow rate scales with the wall induced shear rate, and at high rates, the granular bed indeed discharges similar to a viscous fluid.

We report on numerical simulations of a vibrated granular bed including the effect of the ambient air, generating the famous Faraday heaps known from experiment. A detailed analysis of the forces shows that the heaps are formed and stabilized by the airflow through the bed while the gap between bed and vibrating bottom is growing, confirming the pressure gradient mechanism found experimentally by Thomas and Squires ͓Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 574 ͑1998͔͒, with the addition that the airflow is partly generated by isobars running parallel to the surface of the granular bed. Importantly, the simulations also explain the heaping instability of the initially flat surface and the experimentally observed coarsening of a number of small heaps into a larger one.

Inverse Chladni patterns, i.e., grains collecting at the antinodes of a resonating plate, are traditionally believed to occur only when the particles are small enough to be carried along by the ambient air. We now show-theoretically and numerically-that air currents are not the only mechanism leading to inverse patterns: When the acceleration of the resonating plate does not exceed g, particles will always roll to the antinodes, irrespective of their size, even in the absence of air. We also explain why this effect has hitherto escaped detection in standard Chladni experiments.