Experimental determination of spatial distribution of granular fractions in flow of bimodal mixture

Abstract

The contribution deals with the determination of the ratio of volumes of particles of individual fractions in flows transporting bimodal granular mixtures. The spatial distribution of the ratio is obtained by analyzing images collected by video recording. The measuring method and post-processing analysis are demonstrated on experiments in our new recirculating fluidization cell. The tested bimodal mixture is composed of two granular fractions of different colors – black and white. The analysis is based on a local identification of particles and their background in the collected images. More precisely, the identification of individual particles is based on the grayscale screening of the images. The method allows to identify both the instantaneous and time-averaged spacious distribution of the grain volume ratio. The experimental results reveal that the measuring method is successful if constant light condition is secured and the medium carrying particles is sufficiently transparent. The method is applicable to laboratory flows with sediment transport no matter whether sediment particles are transported as bed load or as suspended load.