Interaction of a granular stream with an obstacle

Abstract

We investigate numerically the interaction of a stream of granular particles with a resting obstacle in two dimensions. For the case of high stream velocity we find that the force acting on the obstacle is proportional to the square of the stream velocity, the density and the obstacle size. This behaviour is equivalent to that of non-interacting hard spheres. For low stream velocity a gap between the obstacle and the incoming stream particles appears which is filled with granular gas of high temperature and low density. As soon as the gap appears the force does not depend on the square of velocity of the stream but the dependency obeys another law.