| Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 70, Number 4, May 2005
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 478 - 484 | |
| Section | Electromagnetism, optics, acoustics, heat transfer, classical mechanics, and fluid dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2004-10507-8 | |
| Published online | 15 April 2005 | |
Towards a continuum theory of clustering in a freely cooling inelastic gas
1
Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Jerusalem 91904, Israel
2
Laboratoire de Physique Théorique (UMR 8627 du CNRS), Bâtiment 210 Université de Paris-Sud - 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
Received:
8
December
2004
Accepted:
24
March
2005
We performed molecular-dynamics simulations to investigate the clustering instability of a freely cooling dilute gas of inelastically colliding disks in a quasi–one-dimensional setting. We observe that, as the gas cools, the shear stress becomes negligibly small, and the gas flows by inertia only. Finite-time singularities, intrinsic in such a flow, are arrested only when close-packed clusters are formed. We observe that the late-time dynamics of this system are describable by the Burgers equation with vanishing viscosity, and predict the long-time coarsening behavior.
PACS: 45.70.-n – Granular systems / 45.70.Qj – Pattern formation
© EDP Sciences, 2005
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