Spontaneous stratification in granular mixtures

Hernán A. Makse, Shlomo Havlin, Peter R. King and H. Eugene Stanley
Additional contact information
Hernán A. Makse: Boston University
Shlomo Havlin: Boston University
Peter R. King: BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd
H. Eugene Stanley: Boston University

Nature, 1997, vol. 386, issue 6623, 379-382

Abstract: Abstract Granular materials1–5 segregate according to grain size when exposed to periodic perturbations such as vibrations6–12. Moreover, mixtures of grains of different sizes can also spontaneously segregate in the absence of external perturbations: when such a mixture is simply poured onto a pile, the large grains are more likely to be found near the base, while the small grains are more likely to be near the top13–20. Here we report another size-separation effect, which arises when we pour a granular mixture between two vertical plates: the mixture spontaneously stratifies into alternating layers of small and large grains whenever the large grains have larger angle of repose than the small grains. We find only spontaneous segregation, without stratification, when the large grains have smaller angle of repose than the small grains. The stratification is related to the occurrence of avalanches: during each avalanche, the grains separate into a pair of static layers, with the small grains forming a sublayer underneath the layer of large grains.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/386379a0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:386:y:1997:i:6623:d:10.1038_386379a0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/386379a0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().