Long lasting instabilities in granular mixtures

We have performed experiments of axial segregation in the Oyama's drum. We have tested binary granular mixtures during very long times. The segregation patterns have been captured by a CCD camera and spatio-temporal graphs are created. We report the occurrence of instabilities which can last several hours! We stress that those instabilities originate from the competition between axial and radial segregations. We put into evidence the occurrence of giant fluctuations in the fraction of grain species along the surface during the unstable periods. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.