Packing, alignment and flow of shape-anisotropic grains in a 3D silo experiment

Granular material flowing through bottlenecks, like the openings of silos, tend to clog and thus inhibit further flow. We study this phenomenon in a three-dimensional hopper for spherical and shape-anisotropic particles by means of x-ray tomography. The x-ray tomograms provide information on the bulk of the granular filling, and allows us to determine the particle positions and orientations inside the silo. In addition, it allows us to calculate local packing densities in different parts of the container. We find that in the flowing zone of the silo particles show a preferred orientation and thereby a higher order. Similarly to simple shear flows, the average orientation of the particles is not parallel to the streamlines but encloses a certain angle with it. In most parts of the hopper, the angular distribution of the particles did not reach the one corresponding to stationary shear flow, thus the average orientation angle in the hopper deviates more from the streamlines than in stationary shear flows. In the flowing parts of the silo, shear induced dilation is observed, which is more pronounced for elongated grains than for nearly spherical particles. The clogged state is characterized by a dome, i.e. the geometry of the layer of grains blocking the outflow. The shape of the dome depends on the particle shape.