The angle of repose of spherical grains in granular Hele–Shaw cells: a molecular dynamics study

Abstract

We report the results of three-dimensional molecular dynamic simulations on the angle of repose of a sandpile formed by pouring mono-sized cohesionless spherical grains into a granular Hele–Shaw cell. In particular, we are interested in investigating the effects of those variables which may have a significant impact on the pattern formation of granular mixtures in Hele–Shaw cells. The results indicate that the frictional forces influence the formation of piles on the grain level remarkably. Furthermore, we see that increasing grain insertion rate decreases the angle of repose slightly. We also find that the cell thickness is a significant factor and the angle of repose decays when the size of the gap between the lateral walls increases. In addition to agreeing with the experimental exponential decay law, our results are in accordance with a recently proposed model which takes into account the arching effects. Using grains with different sizes reveals that the behaviour of the angle of repose when both size and cell thickness are varied is controlled by a scaled function of the ratio of these two variables.