Related papers: Effect of inelasticity on the phase transitions of…
Recent experimental and computational studies of vibrated thin layers of identical spheres have shown transitions to ordered phases similar to those seen in equilibrium systems. Motivated by these results, we carry out simulations of hard…
We report an experimental investigation of the transition from a hexagonally ordered solid phase to a disordered liquid in a monolayer of vibrated spheres. The transition occurs as the intensity of the vibration amplitude is increased.…
Partially phase-separated liquid-crystal/polymer dispersions display highly fibrillar domain morphologies that are dramatically different from the typical structures found in isotropic mixtures. To explain this, we numerically explore the…
We describe a series of experiments and computer simulations on vibrated granular media in a geometry chosen to eliminate gravitationally induced settling. The system consists of a collection of identical spherical particles on a horizontal…
We show that phase transitions in Ising systems with planar defects, i.e., disorder perfectly correlated in two dimensions are destroyed by smearing. This is caused by effects similar to but stronger than the Griffiths phenomena:…
We report the observation of the homogenous nucleation of crystals in a dense layer of steel spheres confined between two horizontal plates vibrated vertically. Above a critical vibration amplitude, two-layer crystals with square symmetry…
We study an experimental system of hard granular squares in two dimensions, energized by vibration. The interplay of order in the orientations and positions of anisotropic particles allows for a rich set of phases. We measure the structure…
We describe the collective behavior of a system of many inelastic spherical particles inside a box which is being periodically vibrated. The box is shallow, with large horizontal dimensions, while the height is less than two particle…
What characterises a solid is its way to respond to external stresses. Ordered solids, such crystals, display an elastic regime followed by a plastic one, both well understood microscopically in terms of lattice distortion and dislocations.…
We consider the contribution to the density of vibrational states and the distribution of energy barrier heights of incipient instabilities in a glass modeled by a jammed packing of spheres. On approaching an instability, the frequency of a…
We investigate the effect of annealed disorder on the mechanical properties and plasticity of a modeled amorphous solid by introducing a small fraction of heavy impurities into the material which resembles real experimental systems. The…
The effect of periodic shear on strain localization in disordered solids is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. We consider a binary mixture of one million atoms annealed to a low temperature with different cooling rates and…
In this paper the amorphous/solid to disorder liquid structural phase transitions of an anomalous confined fluid is analyzed using their local fractal dimension. The model is a system of particles interacting through a two length scales…
Disordered solids exhibit unusual properties of their vibrational states and thermal conductivities. Recent progresses have well established the concept of "elastic heterogeneity", i.e., disordered materials show spatially inhomogeneous…
Amorphous materials of homogeneous structures usually suffer from nonuniform deformation under shear, which can develop into shear localization and eventually destructive shear band. One approach to tackle this issue is to introduce an…
Phase transitions in disordered systems can be smeared if rare spatial regions develop true static order while the bulk system is in the disordered phase. Here, we study the effects of spatial disorder correlations on such smeared phase…
We investigate the segregation of a dense binary mixture of granular particles that only differ in their restitution coefficient. The mixture is vertically vibrated in the presence of gravity. We find a partial segregation of the species,…
Motivated by experiments on sheared suspensions that show a transition between ordered and disordered phases, we here study the long-time behavior of a sheared and overdamped 2-d system of particles interacting by repulsive forces. As a…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…
Elastic interactions arising from a difference of lattice spacing between two coherent phases can have a strong influence on the phase separation (coarsening) of alloys. If the elastic moduli are different in the two phases, the elastic…