AlexaErmino, BeetcheMoncay, RemigraceSalido

4- Fr. BenignoDagani

Making a Candy Waterfall: Can Solids Flow Like

Liquids?
Introduction
You may have learned that there are three types of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. For instance,
rocks are solid, water is a liquid, and air is a gas. What about something like sand? You can stand on
sand like a solid, but if you are making a sand castle, you can pour it out of a bucket like a liquid. Solid
matter (like sand) that is made up of many individual small particles is called a granular material, and
the individual particles are called grains. Granular materials can range in size from very small
powders like sugar and flour that you use in your kitchen, to very large objects like rocks and
boulders. Note that the word "grain" does not just refer to things you would traditionally call grains, like
sand or rice; it can be any object or particle in a granular material. In order for a granular material to
behave like a liquid, there must be many, many grains close together. For example, a single boulder
rolling down a hill is not acting like a liquid; but thousands of rocks, boulders, and dirt particles flowing
down a hill during a landslide do behave like a liquid. Similarly, a single piece of cereal does not act
like a liquid, but your cereal flows like a liquid when you pour a bunch of it out of the box and into a
bowl. Most of the granular materials you encounter in everyday life are food products and not big
things like boulders. When granular materials flow like a liquid, it is called granular flow.
Understanding granular flow is very important, especially for many industries that need to put things
like candy, cereal, or pills into bottles or bags. In these factories, granular materials are usually stored
in a large container called a hopper. At the bottom of the hopper there is a funnel. Engineers need to
know exactly how fast material flows out of the funnel so they can put the right amount in each
container (imagine how upset you would be if you opened a new box of cereal and it was only halffull!). To determine the exact amount of material that flows out of the funnel, engineers need to
determine the mass flow rate. Mass flow rate measures how much material leaves the funnel per unit
time, and is usually measured in kilograms per second (kg/s). It can also be measured in grams per
second (g/s). Note: In some factories, there is a step in the middle; instead of flowing directly into a
container, the material (such as cereal) first falls onto a scale. When the scale reaches a certain
weight, the material is then dumped into the box. Engineers still need to know the mass flow rate in
this case, so they know approximately how long to open the funnel each time.
Many different things can affect the mass flow rate of a granular material. For example, a spherical
candy might flow at a different speed than an irregularly shaped cereal, and both of these things might
flow at different speeds than rough pieces of pasta. In this physics science project, you will do an
experiment to test the mass flow rate of different sized granular materials through a funnel. You will
then analyze your results to see if there is a correlation between the size of the granular materials and
their mass flow rate. To come up with a hypothesis, think about how small grains can pack together in
the hopper compared to much larger grains (in other words, the density of the grains as a group,
including air spaces), and how smaller grains roll through the funnel compared to larger grains. How
quickly do you think the different granular materials will flow through a funnel?

Review of Related Literature

This study focuses on how the sizes of different granular materials affect their mass flow rate through
a funnel. The facts are gathered from books and Internet as reference to get the needed information
we need to comply for our study.
A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a
loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when
grains collide).[1] The constituents that compose granular material must be large enough such that

AlexaErmino, BeetcheMoncay, RemigraceSalido

4- Fr. BenignoDagani
they are not subject to thermal motion fluctuations. Some examples of granular materials are nuts,
coal, sand, rice, coffee, corn flakes, fertilizer and ball bearings. Powdersare a special class of granular
material due to their small particle size, which makes them more cohesive and more easily suspended
in a gas.
It was stated by, http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~complex/research/granular.html, That the evolution of
the particles follows Newton's equations, with repulsive forces between particles that are non-zero
only when there is a contact between particles. Although granular materials are very simple to
describe they exhibit a tremendous amount of complex behavior, much of which has not yet been
satisfactorily explained. They behave differently than solids, liquids, and gases which has led many to
characterize granular materials as a new form of matter.
Density is a measure of mass per unit of volume. The higher an object's density, the higher its mass
per volume. The average density of an object equals its total mass divided by its total volume. A
denser object (such as iron) will have less volume; than an an equal mass of some less dense
substance (such as water).

Abstract
What do sand, Skittles, and cereal have in common? They are all granular materials, which means
they are made up of solid particles, but they can actually flow like liquid! Imagine pouring the sand out
of a bucket or pouring the cereal out of a box a lot like pouring water, right? In this physics science
project, you will investigate how the size of granular materials affect how they flow.

Objective
Determine how the size of different granular materials affects their mass flow rate through a funnel.

Credits
Ben Finio, Ph.D., Science Buddies
This science project idea is based on a project submitted to Science Buddies by Natalia Alvarez of
Northwestern University.

LEGO is a registered trademark of The LEGO Group.

M&M's is a registered trademark of Mars, Incorporated.

SOURCE: Science Buddies Staff. (2014, November 13). Making A Candy Waterfall: Can Solids Flow
Like Liquids?. Retrieved August 7, 2015 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fairprojects/project_ideas/Phys_p091.shtml
http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~complex/research/granular.html