  In this paper we study the steady uniform flows that develop when granular
material is released from a hopper on top of a static pile in a channel. We
more specifically focus on the role of side walls by carrying out experiments
in setup of different widths, from narrow channels 20 particle diameters wide
to channels 600 particle diameters wide. Results show that steady flows on pile
are entirely controlled by side wall effects. A theoretical model, taking into
account the wall friction and based on a simple local constitutive law recently
proposed for other granular flow configurations (GDR MiDi 2004), gives
predictions in quantitative agreement with the measurements. This result gives
new insights in our understanding of free surface granular flows and strongly
supports the relevance of the constitutive law proposed.
