Hopper flows of deformable particles

TL;DR

This study investigates how deformable particle properties and fluid interactions influence hopper flow rates and scaling laws, revealing continuous variation in flow behavior and structural changes linked to particle stiffness and dissipation mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a computational framework showing how the flow exponent varies with viscous drag and friction, connecting particle deformability to flow scaling and structure.

Findings

Flow exponent $eta$ varies with $ ext{drag}/ ext{friction}$ ratio

Flow structure changes correlate with $eta$ variations

Simulations replicate experimental oil droplet hopper flows

Abstract

Numerous experimental and computational studies show that continuous hopper flows of granular materials obey the Beverloo equation that relates the volume flow rate $Q$ and the orifice width $w$: $Q \sim (w/\sigma_{\rm avg}-k)^{\beta}$, where $\sigma_{\rm avg}$ is the average particle diameter, $k\sigma_{\rm avg}$ is an offset where $Q\sim 0$, the power-law scaling exponent $\beta=d-1/2$, and $d$ is the spatial dimension. Recent studies of hopper flows of deformable particles in different background fluids suggest that the particle stiffness and dissipation mechanism can also strongly affect the power-law scaling exponent $\beta$. We carry out computational studies of hopper flows of deformable particles with both kinetic friction and background fluid dissipation in two and three dimensions. We show that the exponent $\beta$ varies continuously with the ratio of the viscous drag to the kinetic friction coefficient, $\lambda=\zeta/\mu$. $\beta = d-1/2$ in the $\lambda \rightarrow 0$ limit and $d-3/2$ in the $\lambda \rightarrow \infty$ limit, with a midpoint $\lambda_c$ that depends on the hopper opening angle $\theta_w$. We also characterize the spatial structure of the flows and associate changes in spatial structure of the hopper flows to changes in the exponent $\beta$. The offset $k$ increases with particle stiffness until $k \sim k_{\rm max}$ in the hard-particle limit, where $k_{\rm max} \sim 3.5$ is larger for $\lambda \rightarrow \infty$ compared to that for $\lambda \rightarrow 0$. Finally, we show that the simulations of hopper flows of deformable particles in the $\lambda \rightarrow \infty$ limit recapitulate the experimental results for quasi-2D hopper flows of oil droplets in water.