Granular convection driven by shearing inertial forces.

Convection velocity measurements in vertically vibrated granular materials are presented. The convection velocity close to the walls grows quadratically with the difference between the maximum and critical, or excess, amplitude (proposed as a dynamic parameter to describe related problems) and it is shown numerically that the average bed-bottom relative velocity during the distancing between them, grows linearly with the squared as well. This is interpreted as the signature of an inertial shearing force or momentum transfer proportional to the bed-container relative velocity, acting mainly during the bed-plate distancing part of each cycle which leads to the formation of the convective flux.