Mixing and condensation in a wet granular medium.
We have studied the effect of small amounts of added liquid on the dynamic behavior of a granular system consisting of a mixture of glass beads of two different sizes. Segregation of the large beads to the top of the sample is found to depend in a nontrivial way on the liquid content. A transition to viscoplastic behavior occurs at a critical liquid content, which depends upon the bead size. We show that this transition can be interpreted as a condensation due to the hysteretic liquid bridge forces connecting the beads, and we provide the corresponding phase diagram.
Applied Physics Laboratory, Ulm University, Ulm, D-89069, Germany. Dimitrios.Geromichalos@physik.uni-ulm.dr
Dimitrios
D
Geromichalos
Mika M
MM
Kohonen
Frieder
F
Mugele
Stephan
S
Herminghaus