Granular temperature measurements of uniform granular flows

The investigation described here consists of a study aimed at validating a reliable and straightforward method to estimate granular temperature. Experiments on dry granular flows of sand and spherical beads were performed on a simple inclined chute geometry. Flow properties at the sidewall were obtained from images recorded at high frame rate using particle image velocimetry. Direct measurements of granular temperature were estimated by means of statistical analysis. Low values of granular temperature were measured indicating that a collisional state was not fully achieved. Hence, we deemed the flows to fall into the dense flow regime. In spite of this, the dynamics of the flow exhibited a highly inhomogeneous behaviour evidenced by our results, which showed the variable nature of velocity fields and granular temperature observed.