Profiles of flow discharged from vertical rotating pipes: A contrast between inviscid liquid and granular jets

The stability of viscous rotating liquid columns and their application to rotating viscous liquid jets aligned under gravity is reviewed. Experiments on stable viscous fluid flow discharged from rotating vertical pipes exhibit very weak contraction. We present an elementary liquid jet analysis to understand this phenomenon. Indeed, our inviscid model of a slender rotating inviscid liquid jet shows that rotation suppresses contraction. Next we study the comparable problem for granular flow. Our model for noncohesive granular flow emanating from a vertical pipe rotating about its central axis, valid for sufficiently large rotation rate, shows that the granular profiles blossom rather than contract. The profiles of both the liquid and granular jets depend on the same dimensionless parameters - an exit Froude number Fr0 and an exit swirl parameter χ₀. The limitations of both models are discussed. Experimental data for granular jet profiles compare well with the collision-free granular flow model in its range of applicability. A criterion for the rotation rate at which particles adjacent to the inner wall of the rotating pipe cease to flow is also given and compared to experiment.