Effects of Air on the Segregation of Particles in a Shaken Granular Bed.pdfVIP

P H Y S I C A L R E V I E W L E T T E R S week ending VOLUME 91, NUMBER 1 4 JULY 2003 Effects of Air on the Segregation of Particles in a Shaken Granular Bed X. Yan,1,2 Q. Shi,1,2 M. Hou,1 and K. Lu1,* 1Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080 2Department of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081 C. K. Chan Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, NanKang Taipei 115 (Received 31 December 2002; published 3 July 2003) Effects of interstitial air on the motions of a large intruder in a shaken granular bed are studied experimentally as a function of ambient air pressure, particle size of the bed, and the density of the intruder. It is found that the intruder always rises from the granular bed in the absence of air. However, the intruder can acquire both positive and negative buoyancy in the presence of air. Negative buoyancy can be observed only when both the density of the intruder and the particle size of the bed are small enough. This negative buoyancy can be explained by the unusual air pressure distribution found in the bed. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.014302 PACS numbers: 45.70.Mg, 64.75.+g, 83.80.Fg Granular materials are ubiquitous and their dynamics the variations in shaking parameters, background media, are of central importance to many i