ABSTRACT
DIMITRIOS GEROMICHALOS,* MIKA KOHONEN, FRIEDER MUGELE and STEPHAN HERMINGHAUS Department of Applied Physics Laboratory, Ulm University, D-89069 Ulm, Germany
1. INTRODUCTION
Even though much progress has been made in the last years in describing the dynamics of dry granular materials [1, 2], the dynamic properties of "wet" systems composed of a granular material and a liquid remain largely unknown. This is, on the one hand, due to the complexity of these systems which makes theoretical approaches diffcult. On the other hand, only a few experiments have yet been conducted on these systems. In this paper we describe some of the experiments we have performed on the dynamic aspects of wet granular materials. They comprise not only the mechanical properties of the wet granulate, but also the dynamics of the liquid/gas interface within the material. A thorough understanding of the latter is indispensable for modelling the properties of the whole system, since the deformation of a wet granular matter entails the motion of liquid interfaces in its interior.
