Non-local rheology in dense granular flows: Revisiting the concept of fluidity

The aim of this article is to discuss the concepts of non-local rheology and fluidity, recently introduced to describe dense granular flows. We review and compare various approaches based on different constitutive relations and choices for the fluidity parameter, focusing on the kinetic elasto-plastic model introduced by Bocquet et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett 103, 036001 (2009)) for soft matter, and adapted for granular matter by Kamrin et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 178301 (2012)), and the gradient expansion of the local rheology μ(I) that we have proposed (Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 238301 (2013)). We emphasise that, to discriminate between these approaches, one has to go beyond the predictions derived from linearisation around a uniform stress profile, such as that obtained in a simple shear cell. We argue that future tests can be based on the nature of the chosen fluidity parameter, and the related boundary conditions, as well as the hypothesis made to derive the models and the dynamical mechanisms underlying their dynamics.