Instability in Shocked Granular Gases

Abstract

Shocks in granular media, such as vertically oscillated beds, have been shown to develop instabilities. Similar jet formation has been observed in explosively dispersed granular media. Our previous work addressed this instability by performing discrete-particle simulations of inelastic media undergoing shock compression. By allowing finite dissipation within the shock wave, instability manifests itself as distinctive high density non-uniformities and convective rolls within the shock structure. In the present study we have extended this work to investigate this instability at the continuum level. We modeled the Euler equations for granular gases with a modified cooling rate to include an impact velocity threshold necessary for inelastic collisions. Our results showed a fair agreement between the continuum and discrete-particle models. Discrepancies, such as higher frequency instabilities in our continuum results may be attributed to the absence of higher order effects.