Numerical simulations of oscillation-driven regolith motion: Brazil-nut effect

Abstract

Many if not most small asteroids are rubble piles covered by regolith, and small perturbations may be enough to disturb their surfaces in complex ways due to microgravity. Experiments to study low-gravity regolith dynamics are challenging, and properly validated numerical simulations can provide valuable insights. In this paper, we investigate numerically size segregation among regolith grains, which is likely to occur after repeated shaking events. In particular, we are interested in the so-called Brazil-nut effect (BNE), i.e. the migration of a large intruder towards the top of a vertically shaken granular system. We go a step forward in simulating this effect by implementing horizontal periodic boundary conditions (PBC) in the N-body code PKDGRAV, with the aim of making the simulations more representative of the expected asteroid environment. We study the influence of PBC on the BNE in Earth gravity and compare them with a walled case. We also investigate the influence of static and rolling friction on the BNE. With walls, we observe the well-known convection mechanism driving the BNE. However, we find that a different mechanism, consisting of void filling, is responsible for the BNE with PBC, and we discuss its relevance in light of previous studies. By running simulations in 10−4g, we show that this void-filling mechanism remains relevant in a low-gravity environment. However, we find that depending on the gravity level, the void-filling mechanism is differently influenced by the friction properties of particles. We speculate that this is likely due to a change in the granular flow time-scales.