title: Characterization of the stationary states of a dilute vibrofluidized granular bed.
abstract: This paper reports two phenomena in an event driven simulation of a dilute vibrofluidized granular material in two dimensions. Both phenomena show inhomogeneity in the horizontal direction. They are convection rolls similar to the Rayleigh-Bénard thermal convection in fluids, and a clustering instability, where the bed spontaneously phase separates into coexisting dense and dilute regions. Detailed investigations show that these are different from the known instabilities in a vibrated granular medium. Characterization of these instabilities is carried out with a phase diagram using suitable parameters from the kinetic theory of vibrofluidized beds.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sunthar
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumaran