Internal and surface waves in vibrofluidized granular materials: Role of cohesion

Abstract

Wave phenomena in vibrofluidized dry and partially wet granular materials confined in a quasi-two-dimensional geometry are investigated with numerical simulations considering individual particles as hard spheres. Short ranged cohesive interactions arising from the formation of liquid bridges between adjacent particles are modeled by changing the velocity dependent coefficient of restitution. Such a change effectively suppresses the formation of surface waves, in agreement with previous experimental observations. The difference in pattern creation arises from the suppressed momentum transfer due to wetting and it can be quantitatively understood from an analysis of binary impacts.