A frictional Cosserat model for the flow of granular materials through a vertical channel

Abstract

A rigid-plastic Cosserat model has been used to study dense, fully developed flow of granular materials through a vertical channel. Frictional models based on the classical continuum do not predict the occurrence of shear layers, in contrast to experimental observations. This feature has been attributed to the absence of a material length scale in their constitutive equations. The present model incorporates such a material length scale by treating the granular material as a Cosserat continuum. Thus, localized couple stresses exist, and the stress tensor is asymmetric. The velocity profiles predicted by the model are in close agreement with available experimental data. The predicted dependence of the shear layer thickness on the width of the channel is in reasonable agreement with data. In the limit of small ε (ratio of the particle diameter to the half-width of the channel), the model predicts that the shear layer thickness scaled by the particle diameter grows as ε^-1/3.