Behavior and Possible Shape Arrangeme of Al₂O₃ Granule on Inclined Vibrating Plate

Abstract

In order to evaluate the surface roughness of spherical Al₂O₃ granules, we applied an inclined vibrating plate for the separation of granules according to the frictional properties. The behavior of granules on the inclined vibrating plate was of stochastic characteristics which may be caused by a small number of microscopic protrusions on the surface of the granules due to imperfect preparation.
The stochastic behavior was especially observed as a feature of less frictional particles. We obtained quite a good correlation between circularity of 2D image of granules and their frictional properties, which suggested a possibility of arranging desired shape. We have proposed an equation for estimating the separation kinetics for particles which display stochastic bahavior with steady transition probabilities.