A model of granular egress in a region with varying spatial constraint

Abstract

There are different reasons why fluid and granular materials fails to flow through a region. This issue is important in many real-world problems involving the flow of matter(e.g. blood flow, drainage system, river formations). In this study, we introduce a cellular automata (CA) model that would show how different barrier formations inhibit the flow of particles through it. We implemented basic rules on how the particles interact with the barriers and with other particles. We constructed the barrier based on three parameters: the barrier density, the tendency of the barriers to move from its initial position, and the tendency of the barriers to cluster. The results of this study show that the rate of which particles move out of the barriers, or the flux, decreases as the density of the barrier formation increases. We also observed that the flux of the system decreases when the tendency of the barriers to move increases. We obtained no significant result on how the flux of the system depends on the tendency of the barriers to cluster.