Devaraj van der Meer

Phase diagram of vertically shaken granular matter

A shallow, vertically shaken granular bed in a quasi-two-dimensional container is explored experimentally yielding a wider variety of phenomena than in any previous study: (1) bouncing bed, (2) undulations, (3) granular Leidenfrost effect, (4) convection rolls, and (5) granular gas. These phenomena and the transitions among them are characterized by dimensionless control parameters and combined in a full experimental phase diagram.

Creating a dry variety of quicksand

Sand can normally support a weight by relying on internal force chains. Here we weaken this force-chain structure in very fine sand by allowing air to flow through it: we find that the sand can then no longer support weight, even when the air is turned off and the bed has settled — a ball sinks into the sand to a depth of about five diameters. The final depth of the ball scales linearly with its mass and, above a threshold mass, a jet is formed that shoots sand violently into the air.

Sudden collapse of a granular cluster

Single clusters in a vibro-fluidized granular gas in N connected compartments become unstable at strong shaking. They are experimentally shown to collapse very abruptly. The observed cluster lifetime (as a function of the driving intensity) is analytically calculated within a flux model, making use of the self-similarity of the process. After collapse, the cluster diffuses out into the uniform distribution in a self-similar way, with an anomalous diffusion exponent 1/3.

Spontaneous ratchet effect in a granular gas.

The spontaneous clustering of a vibrofluidized granular gas is employed to generate directed transport in two different compartmentalized systems: a granular fountain in which the transport takes the form of convection rolls, and a granular ratchet with a spontaneous particle current perpendicular to the direction of energy input. In both instances, transport is not due to any system-intrinsic anisotropy, but arises as a spontaneous collective symmetry breaking effect of many interacting granular particles. The experimental and numerical results are quantitatively accounted for within a flux model.

Growing bubbles in a slightly supersaturated liquid solution

We have designed and constructed an experimental system to study gas bubble growth in slightly supersaturated liquids. This is achieved by working with carbon dioxide dissolved in water, pressurized at a maximum of 1 MPa and applying a small pressure drop from saturation conditions. Bubbles grow from hydrophobic cavities etched on silicon wafers, which allows us to control their number and position. Hence, the experiment can be used to investigate the interaction among bubbles growing in close proximity when the main mass transfer mechanism is diffusion and there is a limited availability of the dissolved species.

Highly focused supersonic microjets: numerical simulations

By focusing a laser pulse inside a capillary partially filled with liquid, a vapour bubble is created that emits a pressure wave. This pressure wave travels through the liquid and creates a fast, focused axisymmetric microjet when it is reflected at the meniscus. We numerically investigate the formation of this microjet using axisymmetric boundary integral simulations, where we model the pressure wave as a pressure pulse applied on the bubble. We find a good agreement between the simulations and experimental results in terms of the time evolution of the jet and on all parameters that can be compared directly. We present a simple analytical model that accurately predicts the velocity of the jet after the pressure pulse and its maximum velocity

Competitive clustering in a bidisperse granular gas.

A bidisperse granular gas in a compartmentalized system is experimentally found to cluster competitively: Depending on the shaking strength, the clustering can be directed either towards the compartment initially containing mainly small particles or to the one containing mainly large particles. The experimental observations are quantitatively explained within a flux model.

Collapse and pinch-off of a non-axisymmetric impact-created air cavity in water

The axisymmetric collapse of a cylindrical air cavity in water follows a universal power law with logarithmic corrections. Nonetheless, it has been suggested that the introduction of a small azimuthal disturbance induces a long-term memory effect, reflecting in oscillations which are no longer universal but remember the initial condition. In this work, we create non-axisymmetric air cavities by driving a metal disc through an initially quiescent water surface and observe their subsequent gravity-induced collapse. The cavities are characterized by azimuthal harmonic disturbances with a single mode number and amplitude . For small initial distortion amplitude (1 or 2 % of the mean disc radius), the cavity walls oscillate linearly during collapse, with nearly constant amplitude and increasing frequency. As the amplitude is increased, higher harmonics are triggered in the oscillations and we observe more complex pinch-off modes. For small-amplitude disturbances we compare our experimental results with the model for the amplitude of the oscillations by Schmidt et al. (Nature Phys., vol. 5, 2009, pp. 343?346) and the model for the collapse of an axisymmetric impact-created cavity previously proposed by Bergmann et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 633, 2009b, pp. 381?409). By combining these two models we can reconstruct the three-dimensional shape of the cavity at any time before pinch-off.

Compartmentalized granular gases: flux model results

A review is given of our previous work on the clustering phenomenon for vibrofluidized granular matter in an array of connected compartments, being a prime example of spontaneous pattern formation in a many-body system far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Experiments show that when the shaking strength is reduced below a certain critical level, the grains cluster together: first into a subset of the compartments and ultimately, on a much longer timescale, into a single compartment. These experimental observations are explained qualitatively and quantitatively by a dynamical flux model. We discuss several variations on the original system, altering the openings between the compartments, in such a way that the clustering induces convective patterns and directed transport. Here the bifurcational structure becomes more intricate, but is again fully explained by the corresponding flux model.

Collapse of nonaxisymmetric cavities

A round disk with a harmonic disturbance impacts on a water surface and creates a non-axisymmetric cavity which collapses under the influence of hydrostatic pressure. We use disks deformed with mode m=2 to m=6. For all mode numbers we find clear evidence for a phase inversion of the cavity wall during the collapse. We present a fluid dynamics video showing high speed imaging of different modes, pointing out the characteristic features during collapse.