Related papers: Structural transitions in granular packs: statisti…
We perform experiments with a granular system that consists of a collection of identical hollow spheres (ping-pong balls). Particles rest on a horizontal metallic grid and are confined within a circular region. Fluidization is achieved by…
Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines. Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights into the structure…
We study numerically the influence of confinement on the solid fraction and on the structure of three-dimensional random close packed (RCP) granular materials subject to gravity. The effects of grain shape (spherical or polyhedral),…
Unconcatenated, unknotted polymer rings in the melt are subject to strong interactions with neighboring chains due to the presence of topological constraints. We study this by computer simulation using the bond-fluctuation algorithm for…
The topological structure resulting from the network of contacts between grains (contact network) is studied for very large samples of disorderly-packed monosized spheres with densities ranging from 0.58 to 0.64. The hierarchical…
We consider an infinite-dimensional stochastic clustering model on $\mathbb{R}$. In discrete time, each point of a unit-intensity simple point process moves halfway toward either of its left or right neighbors, chosen uniformly at random.…
We investigate dynamical heterogeneities in the collective relaxation of a concentrated microgel system, for which the packing fraction can be conveniently varied by changing the temperature. The packing fraction dependent mechanical…
Producing dense and homogeneous powder layers with smooth free surface is challenging in additive manufacturing, as interparticle cohesion can strongly affect the powder packing structure and therefore influence the quality of the end…
We study the local structural changes along the jamming transitions in asymmetric bidisperse granu\-lar packings. The local structure of the packing is assessed by the contact orientational order, $\tilde{Q}_{\ell}$, that quantifies the…
Sphere packings are essential to the development of physical models for powders, composite materials, and the atomic structure of the liquid state. There is a strong scientific need to be able to assess the fit of packing models to data,…
Unlike macroscopic multistable mechanical systems such as snap bracelets or elastic shells that must be physically manipulated into various conformations, microscopic systems can undergo spontaneous conformation switching between…
We study theoretically and numerically the microscopic cause of the mechanical stability of hard sphere glasses near their maximum packing. We show that, after coarse-graining over time, the hard sphere interaction can be described by an…
This pedagogical review addresses several issues related to statistical description of gravitating systems in both static and expanding backgrounds, focusing on the latter. After briefly reviewing the results for the static background, I…
The fluctuations in the particle size distribution for processes of fragmentation and aggregation are studied for stationary state regimes. The system is described in terms of a stochastic process over an adequate tree structure. The RMS…
Confined thin structures are ubiquitous in nature. Spatial and length constraints have led to a number of novel packing strategies at both the micro-scale, as when DNA packages inside a capsid, and the macro-scale, seen in plant root…
Force fluctuations in granular materials are investigated. A continuum equation is derived starting from a discrete model proposed in the literature. The influence of boundary conditions is investigated. For periodic boundary conditions the…
The large scale fluctuations of the ordered state in active matter systems are usually characterised by studying the "giant number fluctuations" of particles in any finite volume, as compared to the expectations from the central limit…
We developed a novel experimental technique to generate mechanically stable (MS) packings of frictionless granular disks. We performed a series of coordinated experiments and numerical simulations to enumerate the MS packings in small 2D…
We investigate the energetics of droplets sourced by the thermal fluctuations in a system undergoing a first-order transition. In particular, we confine our studies to two dimensions with explicit calulations in the plane and on the sphere.…
What particle shape will generate the highest packing fraction when randomly poured into a container? In order to explore and navigate the enormous search space efficiently, we pair molecular dynamics simulations with artificial evolution.…