Fluid-particle interaction in the presence of an intruder

• Grant number: 24/13981-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 29, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering - Transport Phenomena
• Principal Investigator: Erick de Moraes Franklin
• Grantee: Douglas Daniel de Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/14981-7 - Modeling of dense granular flows: experiments, numerical simulations and stability analyses, AP.JP2

Abstract

The motion of solid objects (intruders) within wet granular materials is frequently found in nature and human activities. As examples, we can mention the growth of plants in waterlogged soils, animals that bury themselves at the bottom of the oceans, and drilling activities (for various purposes) in these environments. The physics behind these movements remains poorly understood and fundamental issues, which significantly affect human activities, still need to be better explained and investigated, such as the modeling of solid-solid friction (Amontons-Coulomb law): an old problem, apparently simple and ordinary, but which still lacks physical consensus. This research proposal consists of numerical and experimental investigations of the rheological response of wet granular materials when an intruder is set in motion. This study has a high degree of originality and is carried out through a multiscale analysis: i) scale of the system itself (macroscale); ii) grains scale (mesoscale) and iii) scale of particle-particle contacts (microscale). In specific terms, we will analyze the interaction between sets of intruders when moved within these environments, investigating the individual displacements of the grains and the kinematic fields of the liquid; the possible formation and evolution of zones of blockage and stagnation; the physical interactions between the particles; and how all these aspects affect the dynamics of the intruders' movement, in order to propose models to describe the results obtained. In a more fundamental approach, the contact dynamics of individual particles will be investigated, with X-ray tomography carried out at the Sirius accelerator. This is a multiscale, important and challenging problem that will be investigated with international (FAST Laboratory - Université Paris-Saclay, France) and national (Sirius) collaborations.