KINETIC-THEORY OF MULTICOMPONENT DENSE MIXTURES OF SLIGHTLY INELASTICSPHERICAL-PARTICLES

A kinetic-type theoretical approach is developed for the transport pro cesses involved in flows of dense mixtures of solid particles with dis tribution in particle size. The particles are treated as being smooth, nearly elastic, and spherical. Starting from the reduced Liouville eq uation, a generalized Boltzmann equation that includes the effects of inelastic collisions is stated, assuming the condition of particle cha os. The nonequilibrium velocity distribution function is derived for p articles of each size using a generalized Grad moment method. The theo ry is applied to study the theology of multicomponent mixtures of gran ular materials undergoing steady shearing flows.