On modelling shear layers in dense granular flows

Shear bands are common in dense quasi-static granular flows. They can appear in the interior of the flowing material or at confining boundaries and are typically of the order of ten particle diameters in thickness. Deformation tends to be localized in shear bands separating non-deforming or weakly deforming regions. Dilatancy and sharp velocity variation are typical in these shear layers. Much work has been reported in the literature concerning the development of non-local quasi-static rheological models to predict the flow behaviour in shear layers. In a recent article, Dsouza & Nott (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 888, 2020, R3) derive a non-local extension to a classical plasticity model by postulating that some local quantities appearing in the yield function, which stipulates the relationship between different components of the stress for the material to undergo sustained yielding, and the flow rule which provides information on the rate of deformation tensor to within an arbitrary multiplicative constant, should be replaced by their local averages. They then obtain an explicit non-local model which does not involve new microstructural variables and they show that the model captures velocity and volume fraction fields in simple shear flows, although some model parameters must be fitted to achieve quantitative agreement. This article discusses the work of Dsouza & Nott (2020) and comments on work ahead for further testing and developing the model.