Role of Continuous Particle Size Distributions on Gravity Driven Flow

The defining feature of granular gases is the gradual energy dissipation via particle-particle collisions. Fundamental understanding of granular hydrodynamics is vital in both industry (powder processing) and nature (sandstorms). Many numerical models of granular flows have investigated either single species or binary mixtures. However, true granular materials are often composed of a distribution of different particle sizes and masses. Due to species segregation in granular mixtures under external excitation such as gravity or vibrating walls. It remains unclear if homogeneous or binary granular mixtures can correctly capture the hydrodynamics of continuously distributed particle sizes and/or masses. To directly investigate more realistic granular mixtures, a modified direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method for continuous particle size distributions is employed. A Poiseuille granular flow is studied where particles are driven by isothermal walls and gravity. Here, we consider the case of normally distributed particle sizes with equal mass density. The hydrodynamic description for continuous particle size distributions is compared to the homogeneous and binary cases.