Granular Rayleigh-Taylor instability
- Department of Physics, University of Oslo, P.O.Box 1048, N-0316 Oslo (Norway)
- Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, CNRS, Universite Louis Pasteur, 5 rue Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex (France)
A granular instability driven by gravity is studied experimentally and numerically. The instability arises as grains fall in a closed Hele-Shaw cell where a layer of dense granular material is positioned above a layer of air. The initially flat front defined by the grains subsequently develops into a pattern of falling granular fingers separated by rising bubbles of air. A transient coarsening of the front is observed right from the start by a finger merging process. The coarsening is later stabilized by new fingers growing from the center of the rising bubbles. The structures are quantified by means of Fourier analysis and quantitative agreement between experiment and computation is shown. This analysis also reveals scale invariance of the flow structures under overall change of spatial scale.
- OSTI ID:
- 21316818
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1145, Issue 1; Conference: 6. International conference on micromechanics of granular media, Golden, CO (United States), 13-17 Jul 2009; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3179829; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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