Bidisperse granular avalanches on inclined planes: a rich variety of behaviors

Experiments were performed to provide insight into the flow behavior and structure of bimodal mixtures of grains in gravity-driven, free-surface flows. Unsteady unconfined flows were produced by releasing instantaneously a dry granular mass, composed of two particle sizes, over a rough inclined plane. As a result of size segregation, the small particles are found at the bottom of the flow and final deposit, the large particles are found at the free surface, but also on the lateral borders and at the front of the flow. The lateral and vertical inhomogeneous repartitions of particles lead to two main effects that are completely absent in monodispersed flows. The outline effect results from the accumulation of large beads on the periphery of the flow depending on the value of the relative friction of each particle species on the plane. This effect in turn causes a narrowing of the flow and/or an increase of length of the final deposit. The interface effect results of the interaction between layers of different size particles and causes the modification of the thickness of the deposit. These effects occur simultaneously and their combination leads to a great variety of behaviors. In this investigation, evidence of the diversity of behaviors is presented as the size ratio, relative friction and concentration of each particle species are varied.