Partial regularisation of the incompressible 𝜇(I)-rheology for granular flow

Abstract

In recent years considerable progress has been made in the continuum modelling of granular flows, in particular the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$-rheology, which links the local viscosity in a flow to the strain rate and pressure through the non-dimensional inertial number $I$. This formulation greatly benefits from its similarity to the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations as it allows many existing numerical methods to be used. Unfortunately, this system of equations is ill posed when the inertial number is too high or too low. The consequence of ill posedness is that the growth rate of small perturbations tends to infinity in the high wavenumber limit. Due to this, numerical solutions are grid dependent and cannot be taken as being physically realistic. In this paper changes to the functional form of the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ curve are considered, in order to maximise the range of well-posed inertial numbers, while preserving the overall structure of the equations. It is found that when the inertial number is low there exist curves for which the equations are guaranteed to be well posed. However when the inertial number is very large the equations are found to be ill posed regardless of the functional dependence of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$ on $I$. A new $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ curve, which is inspired by the analysis of the governing equations and by experimental data, is proposed here. In order to test this regularised rheology, transient granular flows on inclined planes are studied. It is found that simulations of flows, which show signs of ill posedness with unregularised models, are numerically stable and match key experimental observations when the regularised model is used. This paper details two-dimensional transient computations of decelerating flows where the inertial number tends to zero, high-speed flows that have large inertial numbers, and flows which develop into granular rollwaves. This is the first time that granular rollwaves have been simulated in two dimensions, which represents a major step towards the simulation of other complex granular flows.