Provisional title. Powder rheology through dynamic ball indentation methods.
Topic and Motivation. The presence of powders (or granular materials) is prevalent across many industrial sectors; powder rheology deals with characterizing and understanding under which stress conditions powders move within an industrial plant. This is a significant issue because poor flowability of a powder can cause many problems in an industrial process. Unfortunately, there is no universal method for measuring this property. Hence, this thesis aims to develop an innovative characterization method capable of overcoming many of the problems associated with currently used techniques. The work will mainly be conducted at the APTLab granular solids laboratory of the DII.
Activities. This thesis involves predominantly experimental work, with the possibility of theoretical-modeling integration. The plan is to determine the flow function of a granular material (similar to what a traditional shear cell would do) by studying the deceleration of a spherical indenter impacting the surface of a packed bed at various degrees of consolidation.
Supervision: prof. Santomaso
Period: to be determined