Abstract
We report on the dynamical and statistical behavior of flowing collections of granular chains confined two-dimensionally (2D) within a rotating tumbler. Experiments are conducted with systems of chains of fixed length, but various lengths are considered. The dynamics are punctuated by cascades of chains along a free-surface cascades, which drive the development of mixed porous/laminar packing arrangements in bulk. We investigate the conformation of the system, as characterized by the porosity of the flow region occupied by the chains and the mean-square end-to-end distance of the chains during flow. Both of these measures show crossover transitions from a 2D self-avoiding walk to a 2D random walk when the chain length becomes long enough to allow self-contact.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Article number | 030301 |
Journal | Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics |
Volume | 80 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 14 2009 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
- Statistics and Probability
- Condensed Matter Physics