Kinematic segregation of granular mixtures in sandpiles

We study the segregation of granular mixtures in two-dimensional silos using a recently proposed set of coupled equations for surface flows of grains. We study the thick flow regime, where the grains are segregated in the rolling phase. We incorporate this dynamical segregation process, called kinematic sieving, free-surface segregation or percolation, into the theoretical formalism and calculate the profiles of the rolling species and the concentration of grains in the bulk in the steady state. Our solution shows the segregation of the mixture with the large grains being found at the bottom of the pile in qualitative agreement with experiments. Received: 6 July 1998 / Revised and Accepted: 13 August 1998