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We study experimentally how the bouncing dynamics of a hollow ball on a vibrating plate is modified when it is partially filled with liquid or grains. Whereas empty and liquid-filled balls display a dominant chaotic dynamics, a ball with grains exhibits a rich variety of stationary states, determined by the grain size and filling volume. In the collisional regime, i.e., when the energy injected to the system is mainly dissipated by interparticle collisions, an unexpected period-1 orbit appears independently of the vibration conditions, over a wide range. This is a self-regulated state driven by the formation and collapse of a granular gas within the ball during one cycle. In the frictional regime (dissipation dominated by friction), the grains move collectively and generate different patterns and steady modes: oscillons, waves, period doubling, etc. From a phase diagram and a geometrical analysis, we deduce that these modes are the result of a coupling (synchronization) between the vibrating plate frequency and the trajectory followed by the particles inside the cavity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intruder penetrating into a granular column experiences a depth-dependent friction force F(z). Different regimes of F(z) have been measured depending on the experimental design: a nearly linear dependence for shallow penetrations, total saturation at large depths, and an exponential increase when the intruder approaches the bottom of the granular bed. We report here an experiment that allows us to measure the different regimes in a single run during the quasistatic descent of a sphere in a light granular medium. From the analysis of the resistance in the saturation zone, it was found that F(z) follows a cube-power-law dependence on the intruder diameter and an exponential increase with the packing fraction of the bed. Moreover, we determine the critical mass mc required to observe infinite penetration and its dependence on the above parameters. Finally, we use our results to estimate the final penetration depth reached by intruders of masses m

When rough grains in loose packing conditions are discharged from a silo, a conical depression with a single slope is formed at the surface. We observed that the increase of volume fraction generates a more complex depression, characterized by two angles of discharge: one at the bottom similar to the angle of repose and a considerably larger upper angle. The change in slope appears at the boundary between a dense stagnant region at the periphery and the central flowing channel formed over the aperture. Since the material in the latter zone is always fluidized, the flow rate is unaffected by the initial packing of the bed. On the other hand, the contrast between both angles is markedly smaller when smooth particles of the same size and density are used, which reveals that high packing fraction and friction must combine to produce the observed geometry. Our results show that the surface profile helps to identify by simple visual inspection the packing conditions of a granular bed, being useful to prevent undesirable collapses during silo discharge in industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]