Tribology Transactions

ISSN: 1040-2004 (Print) 1547-397X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utrb20

Force Chain Evolution and Force Characteristics

of Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette
Geometry by DEM

Wei Wang, Wei Gu & Kun Liu

To cite this article: Wei Wang, Wei Gu & Kun Liu (2015) Force Chain Evolution and Force
Characteristics of Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry by DEM, Tribology
Transactions, 58:2, 197-206, DOI: 10.1080/10402004.2014.943829

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10402004.2014.943829

Accepted author version posted online: 13

Oct 2014.

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 Tribology Transactions, 58: 197-206, 2015
Copyright C Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers

ISSN: 1040-2004 print / 1547-397X online

DOI: 10.1080/10402004.2014.943829

Force Chain Evolution and Force Characteristics

of Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry
by DEM
WEI WANG, WEI GU, and KUN LIU
Institute of Tribology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, Anhui, China

This article simulates the Taylor-Couette shear model by (15) performed measurements to extract the velocity, granular
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 17:40 30 March 2016

using the discrete element method to study mechanical prop-
erties and force chain changes in the granular flow in fric-
tion pair clearance. The mechanical properties and force chain
structures of a granular system can be studied by changing the
granular friction coefficient, granule size, fractional area, in-
ner rotational speed, and other causes. Shear, normal, and un-
balanced forces increase with increasing friction coefficient. A
higher friction coefficient corresponds to a higher average con-
tact forces. When the surface of the inner ring is rougher, the
normal and unbalanced forces are smaller and the shear force
is higher. This condition greatly influences the internal force
chain structure of the granular media.
KEY WORDS
Granular Flow; Force Chain; Taylor–Couette; Discrete Ele-
ment Method
INTRODUCTION
Dry friction and oil lubrication have been extensively studied
by physicists and tribologists (Dowson (1)). Under these circum-
stances, the existing medium in the frictional interface is either
air or liquid, which could normally be ignored or treated by New-
ton and non-Newton fluid laws. The shearing granular interface
behavior is different, which has drawn attention in the last two
decades (Campbell (2); Jaeger and Nagel (3)). The shearing inter-
face with granular media widely affects many natural events and
engineering applications, such as crustal movement, mud–rock
flow, ore–rock crushing, grain processing, and three-body friction
(Taboada, et al. (4); Zou, et al. (5); Zhou, et al. (6); De Blasio
and Saeter (7); Sawyer, et al. (8); Heshmat (9); Fillot, et al. (10);
Wang, et al. (11), (12); Tian, et al. (13)).
Ovarlez, et al. (14) studied the rheology of a granular material
slowly driven in a confined geometry. For lower driving veloci-
ties, a transition to stick–slip motion occurs, thereby exhibiting a
blocking enhancement with decreasing velocity. McCarthy, et al.
Manuscript received January 13, 2014
Manuscript accepted July 7, 2014
Review led by Michael Khonsari
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be
found online at www.tandfonline.com/utrb.
197
temperature, and solids fraction profiles by using digital granule
tracking velocimetry in a horizontally aligned annular shear cell.
Elkholy and Khonsari (16) performed experiments to demon-
strate the vertical displacement (lift) observed in an annular shear
cell apparatus. The experiments provide evidence for the for-
mation of granular lift between two disks that undergo sliding
motion. Khonsari’s group used continuum theory and constitu-
tive relations to study the flow characteristics of powder lubrica-
tion and predict the hydrodynamic pressure profiles (Zhou and
Khonsari (17); Iordanoff and Khonsari (18); Jang and Khonsari
(19), (20)). In Kabir, et al. (21), (22), the explicit finite element
method (using LS-DYNA software) was applied to modeling par-
allel (Couette) shear cells where the top wall remained stationary
while the rough bottom wall moved at a fixed velocity. Lun (23)
developed a numerical program to simulate an assembly of inelas-
tic, frictional hard spheres inside a control volume: this assembly
undergoes a steady-state, rapid Couette flow induced by the top
and bottom bumpy walls. Wang, et al. (24) designed and devel-
oped a Taylor-Couette geometry tester to study granule behav-
ior under shearing. Surface structure, granularity, granular ma-
terial, filling amount, gap eccentricity, and granular distribution
were considered in their experiments. The results also showed
that force transmission path in the granule assembly is closely de-
pendent on the formation or breakage of the arch.
Granular matter is a complicated system (Sun, et al. (25)). Far
from being simple materials with simple properties, granular mat-
ter displays a wide range of complex behavior that is contrary
to their categorization as a solid, liquid, or gas. Accurate mod-
eling of such materials remains a pressing challenge to both en-
gineers and scientists who study natural or industrial flow phe-
nomena, such as landslides, segregation in industrial processing,
and clogging in silo flows. The majority of granules in a granu-
lar material carries less than the average load, and the number
of granules that carries more than the average load decreases ex-
ponentially with increasing contact force. The granules that carry
above-average loads appear to form a strong network of forces,
whereas the majority of granules belong to a weak network. The
strong network of forces appear to have a spatial characteris-
tic, whereby the stronger forces are carried through chain-like
granule groups called force chains (Peters, et al. (26)). Torde-
sillas, et al. (27) examined their evolution around force chains
in a discrete element simulation of a dense granular material
 198 W. WANG ET AL.

NOMENCLATURE FU = Unbalanced force (N)

fG = Granular friction coefficient
dG = Granule size (mm) gi = Gravitational acceleration (m/s2)
dI = Inner diameter of granules (mm) I = Rotational inertia
dO = Outer ring of granule size (mm) kG = Granular contact stiffness (N/m)
EF = Frictional energy (J) kn = Normal stiffness (N/m)
ES = Strain energy (J) krot = Rotational stiffnesses (N/m)
F = Force (N) ks = Tangential stiffness (N/m)
F AC = Average contact force (N) Mi (t) = Resultant moment (N·M)
Fc = Contact force (N) N = Granule number
Fnc = Normal contact force (N) S = Fractional area
Fi (t) = Resultant force T = Time (ms)
F MC = Maximum contact force (N) t = Time step
FN = Normal force (N) Un = Relative contact displacement (m)
FS = Shear force (N) ωi = Inner speed (rpm)
FT = Tangential force (N) ωr = Rotation speed (rpm)
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under quasistatic biaxial loading. Three force cycles were shown lubricated bearing induced by granular media. Iordanoff, et al.
to be stabilizing structures that inhibit relative granule rotations (45), (46) presented the development of 3D computer simula-
and provide strong lateral support to force chains. Majumdar and tions using DEM to study solid third-body flows and found that
Behringer (28) reported measurements of normal and tangen- the friction coefficient measured when two pieces were in contact
tial grain-scale forces in a 2D system of photoelastic disks that may greatly depend on the behavior of this particle layer. In this
are subject to pure shear and isotropic compression. Various sta- article, we attempt to investigate the force chain evolution and
tistical measures show the underlying differences between these force transmission characteristics of shearing granular media in
two stress states. Sun, et al. (29) proposed three dimensionless Taylor-Couette geometry by using DEM to help understand the
numbers for measuring the relative importance of force chains. granular behavior in the shearing interface.
Although these results were obtained from partially crystallized
jammed packings, they provide new insights into the physical pro- MODEL
cesses and structure of force chains, which can help to interpret
A 2D numerical model of the shearing granular media in
force chains in other dense granular systems. Cates, et al. (30)
Taylor-Couette geometry is established using DEM (Fig. 1). This
considered materials whose mechanical integrity is the result of
model consists of inner and outer rings as well as granular media.
a jamming process and argued that such media are generically
The outer ring is fixed, whereas the inner ring rotates around its
“fragile” and are unable to support certain types of incremental
axis at a constant speed. The bonded body of the granules serves
loading without plastic rearrangement.
as the inner and outer ring surface structures. The required size
When a load is applied to a dense granular material in shear-
can be derived through the radius expansion method. Limited by
ing interfaces (Khonsari (31); Renouf, et al. (32); Wornyoh, et al.
the DEM software, simulating a rough surface is difficult. There-
(33); Iordanoff, et al. (34); Temizer and Wriggers (35)), the stress
fore, round-shaped granules are utilized to compose a rough sur-
is largely transmitted by relatively rigid, heavily stressed chains
face of the outer and inner ring. A relatively real surface can
of granules that form a sparse network of larger contact forces.
Force chains act as the key determinant of mechanical proper-
ties such as stability, elasticity, and flowability (Bouchaud, et al.
(36); Voivret, et al. (37)). Taylor-Couette geometry is the annulus
between differentially rotating concentric cylinders, most often
with the inner cylinder rotating and the outer cylinder being fixed
(Higgs and Tichy (38); Zheng and Hill (39)). Some experimental
studies (Lun (23); Wang, et al. (24); Higgs and Tichy (38); Zheng
and Hill (39)) were conducted by using Taylor-Couette geometry
without force chain analysis because of its experimental difficul-
ties. The discrete element method (DEM) provides solutions to
achieve this research target. DEM is a numerical method used to
compute stresses and displacements in a volume that contains a
large number of granules, such as grains of sand, and has been
verified by many previous studies (Cundall and Strack (40); Fil-
lot, et al. (41); Andre, et al. (42); Iliescu, et al. (43)).Wang, et al.
(44) used DEM to simulate the startup dynamic process of a plain
journal bearing lubricated by granular media, which provided a
deeper understanding of the unique behavior of the granular- Fig. 1—Taylor-Couette geometry with granular media.
 Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry 199

TABLE 1—PARAMETER SETTING DURING THE SIMULATION PROCESS

Parameter Variable Value Default Value

Granular friction coefficient, f G 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 0.1

Granule size dG (mm) 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 1.5
Tangential stiffness ks (N/m) 1E7, 1E8, 1E9, 1E10, 1E11 5E10
Normal stiffness kn (N/m) 1E7, 1E8, 1E9, 1E10, 1E11 1E11
Fractional area, S 0.81, 0.795, 0.78, 0.765, 0.75 0.795
Inner diameter of granules dI (number) (mm) 0 (0), 5 (44), 7 (30), 9 (22) 5 (44)
Outer ring of granule size (number) dO (mm) none 3.3105 (100)
Inner speed ω (rpm) 200, 300, 500, 800, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 1,000
Granule number (N) None 1,800

be simulated by defining the material and radius of the granules The time step is relatively small during the discrete ele-
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(Iordanoff, et al. (45)). With the outer and inner ring diame- ment simulation. In one time step, the movement of any gran-
ters defined as 110 and 64 mm, respectively, the granules arrayed ule cell affects only the adjacent unit, whereas the granule ve-
along the diameters are initially set to 3 mm. If the correct num- locity and acceleration are assumed to be constant. The time
ber of granules could compose the diameter, the granules would step length dynamically changes during the simulation process.
be bonded. If not, the granules’ radius is adjusted to fit the sur- A small time step slows the calculation and lowers operational
face of outer and inner rings. Therefore, the outer ring consists of efficiency, whereas a large time step ignores information details,
100 inner granules(3.35 mm in diameter), whereas the inner ring which leads to computational collapse. Therefore, a reasonable
consists of 44 outer granules (4.93 mm in diameter). Finally, the time step is important for maintaining the accuracy of the simu-
flow medium consists of 1,800 smaller granules. Without consid- lation process. The final time step is taken to be the minimum of
ering the influence of gravity, the small granules are evenly dis- all critical time steps computed for all degrees of freedom of all
tributed in the annular gap. The variable parameters of the model particles.
are shown in Table 1. Other parameters refer to the steel bear- Suppose the interaction force between granulars remains the
ing material. The related variables include the granular friction same in time step t. Based on Newton’s laws of motion, the kine-
coefficient, fractional area, granule size, surface structure of the matic equation of particles at time t is as follows:
inner and outer rings, and rotation speed. The primary measur-
vi − vi (t − t)
ing data are the shear and normal forces of the granule system on Fi (t) + mgi = m [1]
t
the external circle and the unbalanced force that result from axis
ωi (t) − ωi (t − t)
rotation. After measuring the primary data, the mechanical prop- Mi (t) = I , [2]
t
erties, motion characteristics of the granule system, and dynamic
changes in the force chain network are studied. During the simu- where Fi (t) (Mi (t)) is the resultant force (resultant moment) of
lation, the average value of the force on the granular wall is mea- particle i at time t, gi is the component of gravitational accelera-
sured by 16 granules that are evenly distributed in the four sides tion, and I is the rotational inertia of the granule.
of the outer ring. The average force refers to the resultant force The iterative formula of speed is as follows:
of four granulars together on each side. The average force is also Fi (t) + mgi
vi (t) = vi (t − t) + t [3]
the resultant force of normal and shear force. The same method m
is used to measure the external force on the granular wall and Mi (t)
monitor the normal, shear, and resultant forces.The unbalanced ωi (t) = ωi (t − t) + t. [4]
I
force is the force vector sum of the inner ring worked by granu-
The translational and rotational displacement are as follows:
lars in every time step. The specific circumstances are shown in
Fig. 2. ui (t) = ui (t − t) + vi (t) t [5]

θi (t) = θi (t − t) + ωi (t) t. [6]

The model is a linear contact model. The contact force for the
ball-to-ball contact is calculated by using the following:

Fnc = kn Un n, [7]

where Fnc is the normal contact force, kn is the normal contact

Fig. 2—Schematic of the measured granulars on the outer ring.
stiffness, Un is the relative contact displacement in the normal
direction, andn is the unit normal vector.
Shear contact force is calculated in increments. When new
contact occurs, the magnitude of the tangential contact force is
set to zero. Thereafter, each shear contact displacement produces
 200 W. WANG ET AL.

a shear elastic force increment. The new shear contact force is ob-
tained by adding the old shear force at the start of the time step
and the shear elastic force increment. The new shear contact force
can be expressed as follows:

Fsc = −ks Us [8a]

Fsc = Fos
c
+ Fsc , [8b]
Fig. 3—Flowchart of the calculation procedure: (a) 0.05; (b) 0.1; (c) 0.2;
(d) 0.3; and (e) 0.4.
where ks is the shear contact stiffness, Us is the relative displace-
ment increment in the shear direction, Fsc is the shear force in-
crement, Fsc is the new shear contact force at the end of the time Influence of Various Parameters in the Model
c
step, and Fos is the old shear contact force at the start of the time
Influence of the Granular Friction Coefficient
step.
The granular friction coefficient clearly influences the rheo-
The kinematic equation of the particles is as follows:
logical properties and expansion characteristics of a granular flow
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Fi (t) + mg = ma. [9] system. This coefficient is also closely related to the evolution of
the internal force chains of the granule system. This section dis-
If —a—f 0 , then an unbalanced force exists. Thus, the unbal- cusses the forces on the external ring under different friction coef-
anced force of particle i at time t is as follows: ficients and the force chain changes inside the granules by setting
five different friction coefficients. In this simulation, the number
Fiu (t) = Fi (t) + mg, [10] of granules in the annular gap is 1,800, the fractional area is 0.795,
the granule diameter is 1.5 mm, the normal stiffness of the gran-
where Fi (t) is the external force vector of particle i at time t.
ules is 1E11 N/m, the shear stiffness is 5E10 N/m, the granule size
In the linear contact model, the stiffness of two contacting en-
for the characterization of the inner structure is 5 mm, and the
tities is assumed to act in series. The contact normal secant stiff-
rotating speed is 1,000 rpm.
ness and contact shear tangent stiffness are defined as follows:
When the granular friction coefficient is low, the force chains
[A] [B] in the annular gap are evenly distributed and fewer in number
kn kn
kn = [A] [B]
[11a] (Fig. 4). The force chain corresponds to the blue region. An in-
kn + kn
creasing friction coefficient increases the strong force chains and
[A] [B]
ks ks force chain strength. The granules form a strong frame arch, thus
ks = [A] [B]
, [11b]
ks + ks varying the distribution of the strong chains. Strong and weak
force chains are distributed in the mixture of the annular gap.
[A] [B]
where kn and kn are the normal stiffness of balls A and B, re- The force chains are constantly ruptured and reconstructed along
[A] [B]
spectively, andks and ks are the shear stiffness of balls A and with the rotation of the inner ring.
B, respectively. The shear and normal forces are components of the force
The critical time step for the rotational motion can be ex- chains in the shear and normal directions, which occur when the
pressed as follows: inside of the granule system is sheared. Figure 5 shows that the

I
tcrit = , [12]
krot

where krot is the rotational stiffness, and I is the moment of inertia

of the particle.
The void fraction is defined as
A − Ap
n= , [13]
A
where A is the area of the sample model and Ap is the area of all

particles, Ap = π R2 .
The frictional energy, EF , dissipated by frictional sliding at all
contacts:
 
EF = Fis Uis , [14]
Nc

where Nc is the number of contacts and Fis and Uis are the av-
erage shear force and the increment of slip displacement of slip
displacement, respectively. Fig. 4—Force chain structure under different friction coefficients in a
A flowchart of the calculation procedure is shown in Fig. 3. time step.
 Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry
Fig. 5—Changes in the shear and expansion forces along the time step: (a) tangential force and (b) normal force.
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shear and normal forces change with the changing time steps.
The shear force fluctuates smoothly with the increasing time step,
whereas the amplitude is insignificant. The tangential forces are
small when the friction coefficients are 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4, whereas
the tangential force is large when the friction coefficient is 0.4.
The strong force chain network is formed in the granular assem-
bly, which may exert higher resistance torque on the rotating
shaft. The situation on the normal force is clearly different. The
trend and amplitude of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 are similar. The tan-
gential and normal forces are quite small when the granular coef-
ficient is 0.05, which is caused by very low friction between gran-
ules. Given that the change in the normal force is more apparent,
random events are observed more clearly in granule movements
than in fluid media.
The main transmission is the normal force during the forma-
tion of a strong force chain. Thus, the normal force changes no-
tably when the inner ring rotates. The shear force on the outer
ring and the unbalanced force during the rotation of the inner ring
increase with the increasing granular friction coefficient (Fig. 6).
The normal force increases rapidly when the granular friction
coefficient is less than 0.2 and then decreases slowly. The overall
trend is similar among the three forces, and regional differences
also exist. The internal force chains of the granule system are per-
Fig. 6—Influence of the granular friction coefficient on the outer ring.
201
plexing. The shear force formed by partial force chains exists in
the opposite direction. Thus, the shear forces cancel each other
out, whereas the overall force direction is consistent with the
shearing direction of the inner axis rotation. An increasing fric-
tion coefficient enhances the contact interaction between gran-
ules. Thus, a stable and strong chain can be formed, and the shear
and normal forces transferred to the outer ring through the force
chain gradually increase. Fluctuations occur due to the granules’
motion, randomization, and complexity.
Figure 7 shows the variations in the average and maximum
contact forces among granules under different granular friction
coefficients. An increasing friction coefficient steadily increases
the average contact force between granules. The relation between
friction coefficient and average contact force is approximately lin-
ear. The maximum contact force between granules increases with
the increasing friction coefficient. However, the maximum con-
tact force between granules stabilizes and then decreases slightly
when the friction coefficient reaches 0.3. The maximum contact
force between granules results from the extrusion interaction be-
tween granules. Therefore, when the plate distance is invariable,
the squeezing degree is enhanced with the increasing friction co-
efficient. Forming a stable, strong force chain within the granule
Fig. 7—Influence of the granular friction coefficient on the contact force
of the granules.
 202 W. WANG ET AL.

Fig. 8—Influence of the friction coefficient on frictional and strain energies: (a) frictional energy and (b) strain energy.
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system is easier at this point, thus enlarging the contact force be-
tween granules.
Figure 8 shows the variation curve of the strain and
frictional energies of the granule system under different granular
friction coefficients. An increasing granular friction coefficient in-
creases the frictional energy of the granule system. However, the
growth rate becomes smoothed when the granular friction coeffi-
cient increases to 0.3. An increasing granular friction coefficient
increases the friction force between granules and the frictional
energy. Thus, the friction energy consumption of the granule sys-
tem increases. A higher friction coefficient enables the granule
system to form a stable, strong chain easily. The contact force be-
tween granules becomes higher, and the deformation in the con-
tact point increases, which in turn increases the strain energy. The
strain energy between granules shows a linear increase with the
increasing granular friction coefficient.

Influence of Granule Size

When the Taylor-Couette geometry is filled with differently
sized granules, the number of granules and layers greatly differs.
Granules with sizes that are nearly equal to the size of the sur-
face structure size (i.e., 1, 1.5, 2, and 3 mm) are selected for the
simulation. Minute granules have higher calculation and hard-
ware needs, whereas oversized granules randomly increase gran-
ule movement. The granular friction coefficient is 0.1, and other
parameters are the same as in the Influence of the Granular Fric-
tion Coefficient section. Figure 9 shows the dynamic force chain
distribution with different granule sizes. An increasing granule
size gradually increases the normal, shear, and inner unbalanced
forces (Fig. 10). The shear and unbalanced forces slightly increase
and then stabilize, whereas the normal force of the granule system
on the external cylinder is much larger than the shear force. As
shown in Figs. 9 and 10, strong force chains are mainly distributed
in the annular gap. Larger granules correspond to a less layer
number. Therefore, the rotation of the inner ring passes the force
to the outer ring, although few granules exist when the granules
are large. Thus, the expansion force produced by large particles
is significantly large. For example, force chains in granules with
a diameter of 3 mm are the fewest. The increase in shear force
is also insignificant, whereas the normal force increases signifi-
cantly. During the simulation process, a smaller granule size cor-
Fig. 9—Changes in the force chain within granules of different granule
sizes: (a) 1 mm; (b) 1.5 mm; (c) 2 mm; and (d) 3 mm.
responds to perplexing internal force chain structures, decreases
strong chains, and increases weak force chains.
Influence of Fractional Area
Volume fraction is the ratio of the granule system volume to
the entire clearance. Volume fraction is an important feature of
the granule system. In a 2D space, granule volume fraction is
equivalent to the fractional area, which is the ratio of the to-
tal disk area to the total area. The granular friction coefficient
is 0.1, and other parameters are as the same as in the Influence
of the Granular Friction Coefficient section. Figure 11 shows the
dynamic variation process of the force chain under different frac-
tional areas. An increasing fractional area significantly increases
the normal, shear, and unbalanced forces. Given that the granule
fractional areas and granule numbers are different, the granule
 Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry
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Fig. 10—Influence of granule outer diameter on the outer ring force.
system will have a greater influence on the force chain structure
by increasing the number of granules even with lower density.
Figure 12 shows the change trend of the force between the gran-
ules with increasing fractional area. The number of force chains
increases significantly with increasing fractional area in the annu-
lar gap. In the model with a 0.81 fractional area, the internal force
chain is adjacent to more strong force chains. In the model with
a 0.75 fractional area, the force chain distribution is not uniform;
sparse and strong force chains also occur in the local area only.
When the gap of the granule system is larger, the volume fraction
Fig. 11—Changes in the force chain within different fractional areas with
the rotating inner ring: (a) 0.75; (b) 0.765; (c) 0.78; and (d) 0.81.
203
Fig. 12—Influence of fractional area on the outer ring force.
is smaller and the granules exist mainly in the form of collisions.
Thus, forming a stable force chain is difficult. When the gap of
the granule system is smaller and the volume fraction is larger,
the granules mainly exist in the form of friction and press. The
frame arch is also easily formed, which leads to the formation of
a strong force chain.
Influence of Granule Contact Stiffness
Granule contact stiffness is the ability to resist deformation
under the action of external force among granules. Granule con-
tact stiffness is an important indicator of material granularity.
From the contact model, contact stiffness plays an important role
in the calculation of shear and normal forces, and the stiffness
difference significantly influences the computation time. A gran-
ule is considered a rigid body in a discrete element calculation. A
considerably small stiffness distorts simulation results; thus, five
magnitudes from 1E7 to 1E11 are chosen for this study. The gran-
ular friction coefficient is 0.1, and other parameters are the same
as in the Influence of the Granular Friction Coefficient section.
When the stiffness is less than 1E9, the outer force is slightly af-
fected (Fig. 13). When the stiffness is 1E10 N/m or 1E11 N/m,
the shear, unbalanced, and normal forces clearly increase. Under
the same displacement and deformation, the contact force among
granules increases with increasing granule stiffness. Therefore,
the friction force and force chains inside the granule system in-
crease, which increases the normal and shear forces of the granule
system in the external ring.
Influence of the Rotating Speed
The rotating speed of the inner ring of the model mainly in-
fluences the rupture and reconstruction of the force chain within
the granule system. The rotating speed also has an effect on gran-
ule packing. The granular friction coefficient is 0.1, and other pa-
rameters are the same as in the Influence of the Granular Fric-
tion Coefficient section. Under low-speed conditions, the fluctu-
ation of mechanical characteristics in the granule system is larger
(Fig. 14). In high-speed conditions, the fluctuation is relatively
 204 W. WANG ET AL.
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Fig. 13——Influence of granule stiffness on the force bearing of the outer

ring.

stable. The variations in mechanical characteristics remain on the

same order of magnitude throughout the entire speed range. Un-
der low-speed conditions, the force on the outer ring initially de- Fig. 15——Fourdifferent surface structures.
creases and then increases with increasing speed. The low point of
the unbalanced force also appears relatively late. When the speed
is higher than 2,000 rpm, the force on the outer ring maintains a fluence of the Granular Friction Coefficient section. Surface (d) is
stable state with increasing rotating speed. a smooth surface (Fig. 15). A decreasing outer granule diameter
decreases the depth of the grooves of adjacent granules.
Influence of Inner Surface Structure During the simulation, the force chains are unstable when the
groove on the surface is deep. On the (a) surface, the ratio of
The surface structures of the inner and outer rings signifi-
the groove to the granule size in the annular gap is larger. The
cantly influence the mechanical characteristics of the granule sys-
granules in the grooves rotate with the inner ring, thus main-
tem, particularly the inner ring surface, which is the source of
taining contact and separating from other granules in motion.
the driving force. In this research, granules with different diam-
Thus, a strong chain cannot exist smoothly. The grooves on the
eters on the inner and outer rings are used for characterizing of
(c) and (d) surfaces are shallow with almost no granules in the
different surface structures. The granule size in Figs. 15a, 15b, and
grooves. Thus, the internal force chains of the granules are stable.
15c surfaces are 9, 7, and 5 mm, respectively. The granular friction
A strong chain is destroyed only with considerable rupture and
coefficient is 0.1, and other parameters are the same as in the In-

Fig. 14——Influence of rotating speed on the outer ring force. Fig. 16——Influence of surface structure on the outer ring force.
 Shearing Granular Media in Taylor-Couette Geometry
reconstruction in the weak force chains. The internal force chains
of the smooth surface do not change, whereas the overall force
chains reflect the properties of the interface slip. Therefore, the
groove depth and the size between the granules significantly influ-
ence the movement of the internal layer granules. The shear, nor-
mal, and unbalanced forces on the outer ring are different under
different surface structures. The larger grooves rotate the gran-
ules in the groove, whereas smaller grooves shear and squeeze
the granules outwards, thus generating normal and unbalanced
forces. Normal and unbalanced forces show an upward trend for
the grooves on the reducted surface. In the rotating process, rela-
tive sliding occurs when the deep grooves strengthen the gran-
ular shearing, thus increasing the shear force. The shear force
is smaller, and the surface of the shallow grooves is relatively
smooth (Fig. 16).
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 17:40 30 March 2016
CONCLUSIONS
1. The force chain network of the Taylor-Couette shear flow
clearly changes under the influence of different factors that
become the embodiment of force characteristics on the outer
cylinder. The DEM built in this study exhibits good perfor-
mance for force chain structure evolution within the granu-
lar material in the Taylor-Couette shear process. Force chain
strength is analyzed through quantitative monitoring of the
shear, unbalanced, and normal forces.
2. In the shearing process, constant rupture and reconstruction
occur within the force chains. Strong force chains have the
greatest influence on overall mechanical characteristics. How-
ever, the number of strong force chains is small. Any in-
crease in the granular friction coefficient, granule size, frac-
tional area, or contact stiffness increases the number of strong
force chains. A rougher surface structure corresponds to more
intense granule motion, and weaker force chain strength.
Throughout the entire speed range, changes are in the same
order of magnitude. This feature causes the particle flow to act
as lubrication under different rotational speeds of movement.
FUNDING
The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant Nos. 51175136 and 51275144) for their finan-
cial support. This work was also partly supported by the Anhui
Provincial Natural Science Foundation (1408085ME93) and the
Tribology Science Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Tribol-
ogy (SKLTKF13A02).
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