Professor Devang Khakhar - IIT, Bombay

Category: Lecture


5 November 2009
12pm - 1pm
Room E7, Building 72, Clayton campus

Dense Granular Flows: Rheology and Segregation - Chemical Engineering Guest Speaker

Granular materials (e.g., sand, gravel, cement, food grains, coal, fertilizer, catalyst pellets, pharmaceutical powders, etc.) may flow like a fluid uder some conditions. The flow behaviour is complex and an understanding of the flow would be useful for a better description of several industrial processes (e.g., pharmaceutical tablet making) and natural phenomena (e.g., landslides). Flowing mixtures tend to segregate altering the flow characteristics and introducing an additional level of complexity.

We have been using high speed video imaging to study the motion of individual particles in dense granular flows. Experimental results will be presented for free surface flows of monodisperse particles and binary mixtures of monodisperse particles. Simple models for flow and segregation will be discussed and compared to experimental results. The flowing material exhibits some charateristics similar to glassy materials and these will be highlighted.

D. V. Khakhar (khakhar@iitb.ac.in)
Department of Chemical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay
Powai, Mumbai 400076

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