The drag force experienced by a horizontal cylinder rotating around the vertical axis in a granular medium under gravity is experimentally investigated. We show that, for deeply buried objects, the drag force dramatically drops after half a turn, as soon as the cylinder crosses its own wake. Whereas the drag during the first half turn increases linearly with the depth, the drag after several rotations appears to be independent of depth, in contradiction with the classical frictional picture stipulating that the drag is proportional to the hydrostatic pressure. We systematically study how the saturated drag force scales with the control parameters and show that this effect may be used to drill deeply in a granular medium without developing high torques.

• Received 24 October 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.138303