Related papers: Stability of a granular layer on an inclined "faki…
We investigate the effect of a forest of pillars on a granular layer steadily flowing over a rough inclined plane. We quantify experimentally how the steady flow rate of grains is affected by the inter-pillars distance for different layer…
Spiky coatings (also known as nanoforests or Fakir-like surfaces) have found many applications in chemical physics, material sciences and biotechnology, such as superhydrophobic materials, filtration and sensing systems, selective protein…
Anyone who has built a sandcastle recognizes that the addition of liquid to granular materials increases their stability. However, measurements of this increased stability often conflict with theory and with each other [1-7]. A…
Thermal stability of nanocrystalline multilayer thin film is of paramount importance as the applications often involve high temperature. Here we report on the layer instability phenomenon in binary polycrystalline thin film initiating from…
When particles settle through a stable temperature or salinity gradient they can drive an instability known as sedimentary fingering convection. This phenomenon is thought to occur beneath sediment-rich river plumes in lakes and oceans, in…
In two-dimensional rotating drum experiments, we find two separate influences of the packing fraction of a granular heap on its stability. For a fixed grain shape, the stability increases with packing fraction. However, in determining the…
We show that the patterns in the Abelian sandpile are stable. The proof combines the structure theory for the patterns with the regularity machinery for non-divergence form elliptic equations. The stability results allows one to improve…
The surface dynamics and thermodynamics of metal nanowires are investigated in a continuum model. Competition between surface tension and electron-shell effects leads to a rich stability diagram, with fingers of stability extending to…
We describe a series of experiments involving the creation of cylindrical packings of star-shaped particles, and an exploration of the stability of these packings. The stars cover a broad range of arm sizes and frictional properties. We…
Sandpiles have become paradigmatic systems for granular flow studies in statistical physics. New directions of investigations are discussed here. Rather than varying the nature of the pile (sand, salt, rice,..) we have investigated changes…
We study theoretically the complex network of forces that is responsible for the static structure and properties of granular materials. We present detailed calculations for a model in which the fluctuations in the force distribution arise…
Communities around the world are increasingly interested in nature-based solutions to mitigation of coastal risks like coastal forests, but it remains unclear how much protective benefits vegetation provides, particularly in the limit of…
The evolution of a pile of granular material is investigated by molecular dynamics using a new model including nonsphericity of the particles instead of introducing static friction terms. The angle of repose of the piles as well as the…
We investigate the effective friction encountered by a mass sliding on a granular layer as a function of bed thickness and boundary roughness conditions. The observed friction has minima for a small number of layers before it increases and…
Model experiments are reported on the build-up of granular piles in two dimensions. These show that as the initial density of falling grains is increased, the resulting pile has decreasing final density and its coordination number…
It was recently reported that segregation of Zr to grain boundaries (GB) in nanocrystalline Cu can lead to the formation of disordered intergranular films [1,2]. In this study we employ atomistic computer simulations to study how the…
We investigate the effects of lateral walls on the angle of movement and on the angle of repose of a granular pile. Our experimental results for beads immersed in water are similar to previous results obtained in air and to recent numerical…
Soft or weakly-consolidated sand refers to porous materials composed of particles (or grains) weakly held together to form a solid but that can be easily broken when subjected to stress. These materials do not behave as conventional…
Several mechanisms cause a granular material to strengthen over time at low applied stress. The strength is determined from the maximum frictional force F_max experienced by a shearing plate in contact with wet or dry granular material…
Capillary forces significantly affect the stability of sandpiles. We analyze the stability of sandpiles with such forces, and find that the critical angle is unchanged in the limit of an infinitely large system; however, this angle is…