We study experimentally gravity-driven granular discharges of laboratory scale silos, during the initial instants of the discharge. We investigate deformable wall silos around their critical collapse height, as well as rigid wall silos. We propose a criterion to determine a maximum time for the...

This paper presents the analysis of the performance of a solar cooling facility along one summer season using a commercial single-effect water-lithium bromide absorption chiller aiming at domestic applications. The facility works only with solar energy using flat plate collectors and it is...

We describe a quantitative model for air-driven fluidization in a vertically vibrated granular system and use experimental results and simulations to evaluate it. The model involves a mechanism for vibrationally induced interstitial gas flow [L.I. Reyes, I. Sánchez, G. Gutiérrez, Physica A,...

Air-induced fluidization in vibrated granular beds can be responsible of the phenomenon of reverse buoyancy. We show that the air flow induced across the bed, as the gap in the bottom of the cell evolves, can fluidize the bed in a similar way as in gas-fluidized static beds and consequently a...

We investigate functions of type Xn=P(θzn), where P(t) is a periodic function, θ and z are real parameters. We show that these functions produce truly random sequences. We prove that a class of autonomous dynamical systems, containing nonlinear terms described by periodic functions of the...