Avalanche Mixing of Granular Solids

Abstract

Mixing of two fractions of a granular material in a slowly rotating two-dimensional drum is considered. The rotation is around the axis of the upright drum. The drum is filled partially, and mixing occurs only at a free surface of the material. We propose a simple theory of the mixing process which describes a real experiment surprisingly well. A geometrical approach without appealing to ideas of self-organized criticality is used. The dependence of the mixing time on the drum filling is calculated. The mixing time is infinite in the case of the half-filled drum. We describe singular behaviour of the mixing near this critical point.

9 pages (LaTeX) and 2 Postscript figures, to be published in Europhys. Lett