We present a detailed analysis of a free surface-saturated liquid-granular mixture flowing over a static loose bed of grains, where the coexistence of layers dominated by collisional and frictional interactions among particles was observed. Kinetic theory was applied to the flow described above and it proved suitable for describing a realistic behavior of the collisional layers, although it failed to interpret the regions of the flow domain dominated by the frictional contacts. The paper provides a conceptual scheme with which to overcome this problem by focusing on the mechanisms governing the transition from the frictional to the collisional regime. In particular we observed that in highly concentrated flows the transition layer exhibits a typical intermittency of the dominating rheological regime, switching alternately from the frictional to the collisional one. By filtering the velocity signal, we introduced an intermittency function that made it possible to extend the validity of the equations derived from dense gas analogy, typical of the collisional regimes, also in the intermittent phase of the flow. Owing to the small values of the Stokes number, in the application of the kinetic theory we accounted for the possible variation of the elastic restitution coefficient along the flow depth.

• Received 2 February 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.79.051306