Granular transport in a horizontally vibrated sawtooth channel

TL;DR

This study introduces a novel transport mechanism for spherical particles in a horizontally vibrated sawtooth channel, demonstrating how boundary phase shifts and density influence particle velocity.

Contribution

It reveals how boundary phase shifts and particle density affect transport efficiency, combining experiments and simulations to uncover new transport dynamics.

Findings

Maximum particle velocity at 60% filling density

Order of magnitude increase in velocity with phase shift

Experimental and numerical agreement

Abstract

We present a new mode of transport of spherical particles in a horizontally vibrated channel with sawtooth shaped side walls. The underlying driving mechanism is based on an interplay of directional energy injection transformed by the sidewall collisions and density dependent interparticle collisions. Experiments and matching numerics show that the average particle velocity reaches a maximum at 60% of the maximal filling density. Introducing a spatial phase shift between the channel boundaries increases the transport velocity by an order of magnitude.