New origin of a convective motion: Elastically induced convection in granular materials

Abstract

Convection and fluidization in a vibrated bed of powder are reproduced in a numerical simulation. In the simulation, each particle of the powder, during a collision, has a viscoelastic interaction with the other colliding particle. Because of the discreteness of the particles, this elasticity causes convection. The critical values of fluidization and convection agree with experiments.