SLOW DENSE GRANULAR FLOWS AS A SELF-INDUCED PROCESS

Abstract

A simple model is presented for the description of steady uniform shear flow of granular material. The model is based on a stress fluctuation activated process. The basic idea is that shear between two particle layers induces fluctuations in the media that may trigger a shear at some other position. Based on this idea, a minimum model is derived and applied to different configurations of granular shear flow.Granular media, rheology, friction, fluctuations