English

Shear zone refraction and deflection in layered granular materials

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-12-09 v2

Abstract

Refraction and deflection of shear zones in layered granular materials was studied experimentally and numerically. We show, that (i) according to a recent theoretical prediction [T. Unger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 018301 (2007)] shear zones refract in layered systems in analogy with light refraction, (ii) zone refraction obeys Snell's law known from geometric optics and (iii) under natural pressure conditions (i.e. in the presence of gravity) the zone can also be deflected by the interface so that the deformation of the high friction material is avoided.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.2090,
  title  = {Shear zone refraction and deflection in layered granular materials},
  author = {Tamas Borzsonyi and Tamas Unger and Balazs Szabo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.2090},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

5 pages, 5 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. E (Rap. Comm.)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:12:18.701Z