Lift and drag forces on a moving intruder in granular shear flow

Abstract

Lift and drag forces on moving intruders in flowing granular materials are of fundamental interest but have not yet been fully characterized. Drag on an intruder in granular shear flow has been studied almost exclusively for the intruder moving across flow streamlines, and the few studies of the lift explore a relatively limited range of parameters. Here, we use discrete element method simulations to measure the lift force, and the drag force on a spherical intruder in a uniformly sheared bed of smaller spheres for a range of streamwise intruder slip velocities,. The streamwise drag matches the previously characterized Stokes-like cross-flow drag. However, in granular shear flow acts in the opposite direction to the Saffman lift in a sheared fluid at low, reaches a maximum value and then decreases with increasing, eventually reversing direction. This non-monotonic response holds over a range of flow conditions, and the versus data collapse when both quantities are scaled using the particle size, shear rate and overburden pressure. Analogous fluid simulations demonstrate that the flow around the intruder particle is similar in the granular and fluid cases. However, the shear stress on the granular intruder is notably less than that in a fluid shear flow. This difference, combined with a void behind the intruder in granular flow in which the stresses are zero, significantly changes the lift-force-inducing stresses acting on the intruder between the granular and fluid cases.