Granular clustering in a hydrodynamic simulation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through hydrodynamic simulations that granular materials naturally form clusters due to inelastic collisions, mirroring experimental and molecular dynamics observations.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamic approach to simulate granular clustering, highlighting the role of inelasticity in phase separation.

Findings

Clustering depends on collision inelasticity.

System phase-separates into high and low density regions.

Results align with experimental and molecular dynamics data.

Abstract

We present a numerical simulation of a granular material using hydrodynamic equations. We show that, in the absence of external forces, such a system phase-separates into high density and low density regions. We show that this separation is dependent on the inelasticity of collisions, and comment on the mechanism for this clustering behavior. Our results are compatible with the granular clustering seen in experiments and molecular dynamic simulations of inelastic hard disks.