Experimental study on the kinetics of granular gases under microgravity

Tatsumi, Soichi; Murayama, Y.; Hayakawa, Hisao; Sano, Masaki

doi:10.1017/s002211200999231x

Cited by 77 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…The latter phenomenon has been studied in microgravity since the nineties and was observed experimentally for the first time during a sounding rocket mission. 3 Since then, many numerical and experimental studies in low gravity [4][5][6][7] were realised mainly with mono-disperse systems. However, recent numerical studies 8 indicate that the poly-dispersity of the granular media impacts strongly on its behaviour and may lead to segregation in zero g even though the usual mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon rely on the presence of gravity.…”

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confidence: 99%

Segregation and pattern formation in dilute granular media under microgravity conditions

et al. 2017

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Space exploration and exploitation face a major challenge: the handling of granular materials in low-gravity environments. Indeed, grains behave quite differently in space than on Earth, and the dissipative nature of the collisions between solid particles leads to clustering. Within poly-disperse materials, the question of segregation is highly relevant but has not been addressed so far in microgravity. From parabolic flight experiments on dilute binary granular media, we show that clustering can trigger a segregation mechanism, and we observe, for the first time, the formation of layered structures in the bulk. During the past decades space exploration and exploitation has remained in the spotlight of the scientific community and industry. Indeed, landing probes on distant planetoids, extracting rare earth elements on asteroids and 3D printing infrastructures on the Moon is as exciting as it could be lucrative.1 However, difficulties arise when it comes to the handling of regolith, the granular materials present on the surface of dusty celestial bodies.2 The physical ingredients of granular physics in space are straightforward: dissipative collisions, cohesion and electrostatic interactions for fine grains. For inelastic particles, i.e. with only dissipative collisions, a clustering of the granular material can occur. The latter phenomenon has been studied in microgravity since the nineties and was observed experimentally for the first time during a sounding rocket mission.3 Since then, many numerical and experimental studies in low gravity 4-7 were realised mainly with mono-disperse systems. However, recent numerical studies 8 indicate that the poly-dispersity of the granular media impacts strongly on its behaviour and may lead to segregation in zero g even though the usual mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon rely on the presence of gravity.Here, we present novel experimental results from the European Space Agency's parabolic flight campaign PFC64 exhibiting spectacular pattern formation within a binary granular system under microgravity conditions. Our experiments were performed within the framework of the VIP-Gran instrument, whose setup consists in a 45 × 30 × 5 mm 3 rectangular box in which two opposing walls (30 × 5 mm 2 ) act as pistons. They oscillate sinusoidally in anti phase along the longitudinal axis (45 mm) of the box with a typical amplitude of 3 mm and a typical frequency of 20 Hz. We studied four different granular loadings composed of N s small and N l large bronze beads with respective diameters d s = 1 mm and d l = 2 mm. Both species have respective masses m s = 4.8 mg and m l = 38.4 mg. The restitution coefficient for the different types of collisions were not measured experimentally. However, given the low grain velocities encountered in our experiment, a value of ε = 0.9 can be assumed for bronze-bronze interaction 9

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Segregation and pattern formation in dilute granular media under microgravity conditions

et al. 2017

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“…Due to the irreversible nature of the dissipative collisions, granular gases are out of equilibrium. Indeed, non-Maxwellian velocity distributions are observed in a wide range of experiments in driven granular matter including in particular shaken grains [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. In such experiments, energy is injected over a wide range of scales and the measured velocity distribution has a stretched exponential form.…”

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Granular gases under extreme driving

Kang¹,

Machta²,

Ben‐Naim³

2010

EPL

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We study inelastic gases in two dimensions using event-driven molecular dynamics simulations. Our focus is the nature of the stationary state attained by rare injection of large amounts of energy to balance the dissipation due to collisions. We find that under such extreme driving, with the injection rate much smaller than the collision rate, the velocity distribution has a power-law high energy tail. The numerically measured exponent characterizing this tail is in excellent agreement with predictions of kinetic theory over a wide range of system parameters. We conclude that driving by rare but powerful energy injection leads to a well-mixed gas and constitutes an alternative mechanism for agitating granular matter. In this distinct nonequilibrium steady-state, energy cascades from large to small scales. Our simulations also show that when the injection rate is comparable with the collision rate, the velocity distribution has a stretched exponential tail. Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature, but nevertheless, fundamental understanding of the properties of granular materials presents many challenges [1][2][3][4][5]. Underlying these challenges are structural inhomogeneities, macroscopic particle size, and energy dissipation, all of which are defining features of granular matter.Equilibrium gases have Maxwellian velocity distributions. Due to the irreversible nature of the dissipative collisions, granular gases are out of equilibrium. Indeed, non-Maxwellian velocity distributions are observed in a wide range of experiments in driven granular matter including in particular shaken grains [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. In such experiments, energy is injected over a wide range of scales and the measured velocity distribution has a stretched exponential form. To a large extent, a kinetic theory where energy injection through the system boundary is modeled by a thermostat successfully describes these nonequilibrium steady-states [18][19][20][21].Furthermore, theoretical studies suggest that the steady-state is controlled primarily by the ratio between the energy injection rate and the collision rate [22,23]. When the injection rate is much larger than the collision rate, the velocity distribution is Maxwellian. However, when the injection rate is smaller than the collision rate, the velocity distribution is non-Maxwellian, and has a stretched-exponential tail.In this study, we focus on the limiting case where the injection rate is vanishingly small and energy is injected at extremely large velocity scales [24,25]. Under such extreme driving, the injected energy cascades down from large velocity scales to small scales and thereby counters the dissipation by collisions. Kinetic theory shows that in the stationary state, the velocity distribution has * Electronic address: wfkang@gmail.com † Electronic address: machta@physics.umass.edu ‡ Electronic address: ebn@lanl.gov a power-law high energy tail. These theoretical predictions were supplemented by Monte-Carlo simulations of the homogeneous Boltzmann...

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“…) and for experiments at large excitation amplitudes (Sack et al, 2013; Kollmer et al, 2013). Some experiments have also been performed with 2D gases (Yanpei et al, 2011;Tatsumi et al, 2009;Grasselli et al, 2009), where low gravity reduces friction with the container walls.…”

Section: Parabolic Flightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Special care has to be taken during the preparation of the experiment and the data analysis. Most of the previous experiments in reduced gravitation dealt with spherical grains, and often with small ensembles and/or two-dimensional (2D) geometries (Falcon et al, 1999;Falcon et al, 2006;Hou et al, 2008;Yanpei et al, 2011;Tatsumi et al, 2009;Grasselli et al, 2009;Kollmer et al, 2013;Heißelmann et al, 2010). In the latter case, the interactions with walls or confining potentials may dominate over the intrinsic particle-particle effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%