Related papers: Geometrical families of mechanically stable granul…
We consider a system of granular particles, modeled by two dimensional frictional elastic disks, that is exposed to externally applied time-dependent shear stress in a planar Couette geometry. We concentrate on the external forcing that…
Packings of macroscopic granular chains capture some of the essential aspects of molecular polymer systems and have been suggested as a paradigm to understand the physics on a molecular scale. However, here we demonstrate that the…
High-multiplicity Kepler systems (referred to as Kepler multis) are often tightly packed and may be on the verge of instability. Many systems of this type could have experienced past instabilities, where the compact orbits and often low…
Current planet formation theories rely on initially compact orbital configurations undergoing a (possibly extended) phase of giant impacts following the dispersal of the dissipative protoplanetary disk. The orbital architectures of observed…
A systematic and mechanistic connection between granular materials' macroscopic and grain level behaviors is developed for monodisperse systems of spherical elastic particles under die compaction. The Granular Micromechanics Approach (GMA)…
Slow and dense granular flows often exhibit narrow shear bands, making them ill-suited for a continuum description. However, smooth granular flows have been shown to occur in specific geometries such as linear shear in the absence of…
Although jammed packings of soft spheres exist in potential energy landscapes with a vast number of minima, when subjected to cyclic shear they may revisit the same configurations repeatedly. Simple hysteretic spin models, in which particle…
Granular flows during a shear-induced mixing process are studied using Discrete Element Methods. The aim is to understand the underlying elementary mechanisms of transition from unmixed to mixed phases for a granular material featuring a…
Symmetry-breaking instability of a laterally uniform granular cluster (strip state) in a prototypical driven granular gas is investigated. The system consists of smooth hard disks in a two-dimensional box, colliding inelastically with each…
The mechanical response of packings of purely repulsive, spherical particles to athermal, quasistatic simple shear near jamming onset is highly nonlinear. Previous studies have shown that, at small pressure $p$, the ensemble-averaged static…
This paper proposes a phase space to compare the static packings of a granular system compatible to a macrostate that is set by the external stress. The nature of this phase space is analyzed, showing that the consideration of the allowed…
Granular hydrodynamics predicts symmetry-breaking instability in a two-dimensional (2D) ensemble of nearly elastically colliding smooth hard spheres driven, at zero gravity, by a rapidly vibrating sidewall. Super- and subcritical…
Understanding the structural evolution of granular systems is a long-standing problem. A recently proposed theory for such dynamics in two dimensions predicts that steady states of very dense systems satisfy detailed-balance. We analyse…
As a granular material is compressed, the particles and forces within the system arrange to form complex heterogeneous structures. Force chains are a prime example and are thought to constrain bulk properties such as mechanical stability…
When a granular mixture involving grains of different sizes is shaken, sheared, mixed, or left to flow, grains tend to separate by sizes in a process known as size segregation. In this study, we explore the size segregation mechanism in…
Seismogenic plate boundaries are presumed to behave in a similar manner to a densely packed granular medium, where fault and blocks systems rapidly rearrange the distribution of forces within themselves, as particles do in slowly sheared…
Granular systems are not always homogeneous and can be composed of grains with very different mechanical properties. To improve our understanding of the behavior of real granular systems, in this experimental study, we compress 2D…
This is the first paper of a series of three, reporting on numerical simulation studies of geometric and mechanical properties of static assemblies of spherical beads under an isotropic pressure. Frictionless systems assemble in the unique…
We describe the dynamics of a stream of equally spaced macroscopic particles in orbit around a central body (e.g. a planet or star). A co-orbital configuration of small bodies may be subject to gravitational instability, which takes the…
We study the appearance of large-scale dynamical heterogeneities in a simplified model of a driven, dissipative granular system. Simulations of steady-state gravity-driven flows of inelastically colliding hard disks show the formation of…