Influence of particle surface roughness on creeping granular motion

A core is formed at the center of a quasi-two-dimensional rotating drum filled more than half with granular material. The core rotates slightly faster than the drum (precession) and decreases in radius over time (erosion) due to the granular creeping motion that occurs below the freely flowing layer. This paper focuses on the effect of the surface roughness of particles on core dynamics, core precession, and core erosion. Two different surface roughness of glass particles having the same diameter were used in the experiments. The surface structures of the particles were quantitatively compared by measuring the coefficients of friction and using a simple image contrast method. The experiments were performed with five different filling levels in a 50-cm-diameter rotating drum. According to the results, core precession and core erosion are both dependent on the particle surface roughness. Core precession becomes weaker and erosion becomes stronger when using particles having a rough surface in the experiments. To explain the physics of core dynamics, the particles' surface roughness effect on the freely flowing layer and the creeping motion region were also investigated. The granular bed velocity field, maximum flowing layer depth δ, shear rate in the flowing layer γ, and the creeping region decay constant y0 were also calculated in this paper. The effect of the particles' surface roughness on these physical variables well illustrates the physics of core dynamics and creeping granular motion.