Ultrasonic tracking of a sinking ball in a vibrated dense granular suspension.

ABSTRACT: Observing and understanding the motion of an intruder through opaque dense suspensions such as quicksand remains a practical and conceptual challenge. Here we use an ultrasonic probe to monitor the sinking dynamics of a steel ball in a dense glass bead packing (3D) saturated by water. We show that the frictional model developed for dry granular media can be used to describe the ball motion induced by horizontal vibration. From this rheology, we infer the static friction coefficient and effective viscosity that decrease when increasing the vibration intensity. Our main finding is that the vibration-induced reduction of the yield stress and increase of the sinking depth are presumably due to micro-slips induced at the grain contacts but without visible plastic deformation due to macroscopic

SUBMITTER: van den Wildenberg S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6445074 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature