EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Mixing and Segregation of Granular Materials in Spherical and Cubical Tumblers
Speaker: Dr. James Gilchrist
Speaker Info: UIUC
Brief Description:
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Abstract:

Transport, mixing and segregation of powders are critical phenomena in many industrial processes. There is a direct competition between mixing and segregation in flowing granular materials. Like fluids, it has been shown that chaotic advection in a granular flow - interpreted in a continuum way - can enhance the rate of mixing. Conversely, flowing granular materials will constituent grains differing in physical properties, such as size and density, tend to segregate. Simple protocols and mixer geometries are used to examine this interplay in rotating tumblers. Novel experiments in rocking spherical tumblers examine the pattern formation when axial segregation and chaotic advection coexist. Likewise, a new discontinuous mixing protocol has been developed to shed light on the interplay between radial segregation and chaotic flow in sphere and cube shaped tumblers.