When we take a stroll on the beach, we walk on the sand without any trouble. The sand appears solid and is difficult to compress. When we put the same sand grains in an hourglass, they behave very ...

One way to reduce the damage caused by avalanches in the mountains is to place obstacles in their path. These obstacles can be artificial barriers or natural forests. Knowing how the avalanche ...

To model how sand jams in an hourglass, physicists combine two gridlike math models. Flowing sand is vulnerable to jamming, including a jamming transition that could be disrupted. Granules and the ...

Physicists have long known that the flow of sand through an hourglass is entirely different from the flow of liquid. In the case of a liquid, the rate of discharge depends on the pressure at the ...

Dense flows of grains driven by gravity down inclines occur in nature and in industrial processes. Natural examples include rock avalanches and dune slides. Applications are found in the chemical, ...

The latest version of COMSOL Multiphysics® introduced the Granular Flow Module, which enables engineers and researchers to simulate the motion and interaction of solid particles in bulk processes.