Pattern formation in wet granular matter under vertical vibrations

Non-equilibrium coexistence between a fluid and a hotter or colder crystal of granular hard disks

Non-equilibrium phase coexistence is commonly observed in both biological and artificial systems, yet understanding it remains a significant challenge. Unlike equilibrium systems, where free energy provides a unifying framework, the absence of such a quantity in non-equilibrium settings complicates their theoretical understanding. Granular materials, driven out of equilibrium by energy dissipation during collisions, serve as an ideal platform to investigate these systems, offering insights into the parallels and distinctions between equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase behavior. For example, the coexisting dense phase is typically colder than the dilute phase, a result usually attributed to greater dissipation in denser regions. In this article, we demonstrate that this is not always the case. Using a simple numerical granular model, we show that a hot solid and a cold liquid can coexist in granular systems. This counterintuitive phenomenon arises because the collision frequency can be lower in the solid phase than in the liquid phase, consistent with equilibrium results for hard-disk systems. We further demonstrate that kinetic theory can be extended to accurately predict phase temperatures even at very high packing fractions, including within the solid phase. Our results highlight the importance of collisional dynamics and energy exchange in determining phase behavior in granular materials, offering new insights into non-equilibrium phase coexistence and the complex physics underlying granular systems.

Advances in Powder-Filled Mold Processes: A Comprehensive Review and Outlook

Powder molding technology is a versatile process widely used in the pharmaceutical, ceramic, chemical, food, and powder metallurgy industries. The powder-filling mold process is a key link in powder compression molding, and the uniformity and consistency of powder filling directly affect the final quality of powder products. Powder filling of molds is a more complex flow process. This paper first reviews the methods used to test powder flow characteristics and comments on their applicability to the mold-filling process, provides an in-depth discussion of four different filling techniques, focusing on the flow behavior of the powder during the filling process, and analyzes the effects of powder characteristics and process parameters on the filling effect. By reviewing the latest advances and identifying the key challenges, a valuable reference is provided for the mold-filling process.

Onsager variational principle for granular fluids

Granular fluids, as defined by a collection of moving solid particles, is a paradigm of a dissipative system out of equilibrium. Inelastic collisions between particles is the source of dissipation, and is the origin of a transition from a gas to a liquidlike state. This transition can be triggered by an increase of the solid fraction. Moreover, in compartmentalized systems, this condensation is driving the entire granular fluid into a Maxwell demon phenomenon, localizing most of the grains into a specific compartment. Classical approaches fail to capture these phenomena, thus motivating many experimental and numerical works. Herein, we demonstrate that the Onsager variational principle is able to predict accurately the coexistence of gas-liquid states in granular systems, opening ways to model other phenomena observed in such dissipative systems like segregation or the jamming transition.

Internal and surface waves in vibrofluidized granular materials: Role of cohesion

Wave phenomena in vibrofluidized dry and partially wet granular materials confined in a quasi-two-dimensional geometry are investigated with numerical simulations considering individual particles as hard spheres. Short-ranged cohesive interactions arising from the formation of liquid bridges between adjacent particles are modeled by changing the velocity-dependent coefficient of restitution. Such a change effectively suppresses the formation of surface waves, in agreement with previous experimental observations. The difference in pattern creation arises from the suppressed momentum transfer due to wetting and it can be quantitatively understood from an analysis of binary impacts.

Density-wave fronts on the brink of wet granular condensation

Density-wave fronts in a vibrofluidized wet granular layer undergoing a gas-liquid-like transition are investigated experimentally. The threshold of the instability is governed by the amplitude of the vertical vibrations. Fronts, which are curved into a spiral shape, propagate coherently along the circular rim of the container with leading edges. They are stable beyond a critical distance from the container center. Based on an analysis of the emerging time and length scales, we propose a model for the pattern formation by considering the competition between the time scale for the condensation of wet granular particles from a gas-like state and that of the energy injection resisting this process.

Influence of the liquid film thickness on the coefficient of restitution for wet particles

The normal coefficient of restitution (COR) for a spherical particle bouncing on a wet plane is investigated experimentally and compared with a model characterizing the energy loss at impact. For fixed ratios of liquid film thickness δ to particle diameter D, the wet COR is always found to decay linearly with St^{-1}, where St, the Stokes number, measures the particle inertia with respect to the viscous force of the liquid. Such a dependence suggests a convenient way of predicting the wet COR with two fit parameters: a critical COR at infinitely large St and a critical St at zero COR. We characterize the dependence of the two parameters on δ/D and compare it with a model considering the energy loss from the inertia and the viscosity of the wetting liquid. This investigation suggests an analytical prediction of the COR for wet particles.