Head-on collisions of dense granular jets.

Abstract

We study head-on impacts of equal-speed but unequal-width incompressible jets in two dimensions with a focus on dense granular jets. We use discrete particle simulations to show that head-on impact of granular jets produces a quasi-steady-state where a fraction of the excess incident momentum from the larger jet is captured by an impact center that drifts steadily over time. By varying the dissipation in our discrete particle simulations and through additional analogous continuum jet impacts of different rheologies, we show that this central drift speed is remarkably dependent primarily on the total dissipation rate to the power 1.5, and largely independent of the dissipation mechanism. We finish by presenting a simple control volume analysis that qualitatively captures the emergence of the drift speed but not the scaling.