English

Packing grains by thermally cycling

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-11-11 v1

Abstract

One of the oldest and most intriguing problems in the handling of materials is how a collection of solid grains packs together. While granular packing is normally determined by how grains are poured or shaken, we find that a systematic and controllable increase in packing is induced by simply raising and lowering the temperature, e.g., without the input of mechanical energy. The results demonstrate that thermal processing provides a largely unexplored mechanism of grain dynamics, as well as an important practical consideration in the handling and storage of granular materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0608124,
  title  = {Packing grains by thermally cycling},
  author = {K. Chen and J. Cole and C. Conger and J. Draskovic and M. Lohr and K. Klein and T. Scheidemantel and P. Schiffer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0608124},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure