Aqib Khan

Dynamics of a granular heap

Grains form a heap when poured on a flat surface and is probably the simplest granular system that we encounter daily. Yet they exhibit behaviour that is not only difficult to understand but perplexing and counter-intuitive in some cases. For example, the presence of a stress dip at the centre of a heap where the heap height is maximum. One of the major challenges in studying granular heaps is their opaque nature which makes it difficult to see how grains are moving and rearranging within the bulk. In the talk, we will show some of our recent findings on granular heaps obtained by visualising granular heaps simultaneously on the free surface and the base. Our experiments demonstrate that the dynamics of a granular heap within the core is more complex than we had thought, and depends strongly on the properties of the grains used for making a heap.