The effect of the packing fraction on the jamming of granular flow through small apertures

Abstract

We investigate the flow through and jamming of small apertures for a column of granular disks via a pseudo-dynamic model. We focus on the effect that the preparation of the granular assembly has on the size of the avalanches obtained. Ensembles of packings with different mean packing fractions are created by tapping the system at different intensities. Surprisingly, the packing fraction is not a good indicator of the ability of the deposit to jam a given orifice. Different mean avalanche sizes are obtained for deposits with the same mean packing fraction that were prepared with very different tap intensities. It has been speculated that the number and size of arches in the bulk of the granular column should be correlated with the ability of the system to jam a small opening. We show that this correlation, if it exists, is rather poor. A comparison between bulk arches and jamming arches (i.e., arches that block the opening) reveals that the aperture imposes a lower cutoff on the horizontal span of the arches which is greater than the actual size of the opening. This is related to the fact that blocking arches have to have the appropriate orientation to fit the gap between two piles of grains resting on each side of the aperture.