Department of Physics Papers

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of this Version

4-28-2015

Publication Source

Physical Review Letters

Volume

114

Issue

17

Start Page

178001-1

Last Page

178001-5

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.178001

Abstract

We measure the fraction F of flowing grain configurations that precede a clog, based on the average mass discharged between clogging events for various aperture geometries. By tilting the hopper, we demonstrate that F is a function of the hole area projected in the direction of the exiting grain velocity. By varying the length of slits, we demonstrate that grains clog in the same manner as if they were flowing out of a set of smaller independent circular openings. The collapsed data for F can be fit to a decay that is exponential in hole width raised to the power of the system dimensionality. This is consistent with a simple model in which individual grains near the hole have a large but constant probability to precede a clog. Such a picture implies that there is no sharp clogging transition, and that all hoppers have a nonzero probability to clog.

Copyright/Permission Statement

© 2015 American Physical Society. You can view the original article at: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.178001

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Date Posted: 13 October 2017

This document has been peer reviewed.