Analysis and control of granular fluid dynamics

• Grant number: 04/11419-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2005
• End date: February 28, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Industrial Electronics, Electronic Systems and Controls
• Principal Investigator: Elbert Einstein Nehrer Macau
• Grantee: Aline Cristina Soterroni
• Host Institution: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Granular materials - sand or soybeans, for example - are collections of independently moving macroscopic particles that interact with each other through dissipative and conservative contact forces. The difficulty in understanding the dynamics of granular materials is directly associated with the extreme sensitivity of these systems to factors such as the characteristics of the container where they are deposited, the mechanisms of agitation and interaction between particles, the degree of grain homogeneity, the existence of restrictions on symmetry in the system, or the substance that fills the space in which the grains are immersed. The objectives of this work are as follows: i) to investigate the statistical and spectral characteristics of granular gases, and the role of correlations induced by collision inelasticity (r & lt; 1) in these characteristics, ii) to determine which aspects of the collective behavior of system are due to chaotic interactions between constituent particles, and (iii) to study how the chaos control techniques applicable to these particles can be used to act and control statistical and collective properties of the system, such as transport and diffusion coefficients. (AU)