(56d) Consolidation of Granular Material Subject to Thermal Cycling

Granular materials are ubiquitous, impacting a variety of industrial processing in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and construction industries, but also having implications in natural phenomena such as the formation of lunar regolith, dunes and beach sand. Recently, it has been found that cyclic variation of the temperature of a granular bed can cause the ostensibly static bead to consolidate (increase its packing fraction) over time due to thermo-mechanical coupling. In this work, we employ experimental techniques and numerical simulation -- using the thermal particle dynamics method (TPD) -- to study the origins and limits of this phenomenon, with an emphasis on particle/bed material properties, particle uniformity, bed geometry, and resultant "flow pattern", among other factors.