Shock attenuation of dense granular media

Attenuation of shock waves through dense granular media with varying macro-scale and micro-scale parameters has been numerically studied in this work by a coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian approach. The results elucidate the correlation between the attenuation mechanism and the nature of shock-induced unsteady flows inside the granular media. As the shock transmission becomes trivial relative to the establishment of unsteady interpore flows, giving way to the gas filtration, the shock attenuation mechanism transitions from the shock dynamics and deduction of propagation area associated with the shock transmission, to the drag-related friction dissipation alongside the gas filtration. The ratio between the maximum shock transmission length and the thickness of the particle layer is found to be a proper indicator of the nature of shock-induced flows. More importantly, it is this ratio that successfully collapses the upstream and downstream pressures of shock impacted particle layers with widely ranging thickness and volume fraction, leading to a universal scaling law for the shock attenuation effect. We further propose a correlation between the structure of particle layer and the corresponding maximum shock transmission length, guaranteeing adequate theoretical predictions of the upstream and downstream pressures. These predictions are also necessary for an accurate estimation of the spread rate of shock dispersed particle bed through a pressure-gradient-based scaling method.