EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON SHAPE SEGREGATION OF 3D PRINTED PARTICLES
USING A FT4 FREEMAN RHEOMETER
Abstract
This study examines how granular mixtures of differently shaped
particles segregate in a Freeman (FT4) rheometer. The mixtures contained
two sets of particles with varying shapes and relative sizes. While our
main focus was on the effect of particle shape on segregation, we
recognized that even slight differences in size could lead to
segregation. We specifically investigated when particles of different
shapes have the same effective size, exploring three cases: 1) the
largest sphere within a cubic particle (inscribed sphere), 2) the
smallest sphere enclosing a cubic particle (circumscribed sphere), and
3) a sphere and cube with equal volume. Our findings reveal that binary
mixtures of cubical and spherical particles can significantly segregate
radially in the bed. We propose that the primary mechanism for this
radial segregation is percolation caused by radial centrifugal forces
pushing the particles outward.