2025/09/04 by Pugnaloni, Luis. A., Madrid, Marcos A., Darias, J. R.
#FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.04368
We study, through discrete element simulations, the discharge of granular materials through a circular orifice on the base of a cylindrical silo forced by a surcharge. At the beginning of the discharge, for a high granular column, the flow rate Q\rm ini scales as in the Beverloo equation for free discharge. However, we find that the flow rate Q\rm end attained at the end of the forced discharge scales as √(ρb P)Do3/Ds, with ρb the bulk density, P the pressure applied by the overweight, Do the orifice diameter and Ds the silo diameter. We use the work-energy theorem to formulate an equation for the flow rate Q\rm end that predicts the scalings only in part. We discuss the new challenges offered by the phenomenology of strongly forced granular flows.