Related papers: Simulating regoliths in microgravity
Particle-particle and particle-gas processes significantly impact planetary precursors such as dust aggregates and planetesimals. We investigate gas permeability ($\kappa$) in 12 granular samples, mimicking planetesimal dust regoliths.…
Knowledge of the mechanical properties of protoplanetary and cometary matter is of key importance to better understand the activity of comets and the early stages of planet formation. The tensile strength determines the required pressure to…
We present an experimental investigation on the rheological behavior of model granular media made of nearly elastic spherical particles. The experiments are performed in a cylindrical Couette geometry and the experimental device is placed…
Regolith simulants are essential for space research and technology development. Yet, their physical properties often differ from those of true planetary soil, particularly when compared to regolith properties in-situ, that experience…
The terminology granular matter refers to systems with a large number of hard objects (grains) of mesoscopic size ranging from millimeters to meters. Geological examples include desert sand and the rocks of a landslide. But the scope of…
Asteroids and other Small Solar System Bodies (SSSBs) are of high general and scientific interest in many aspects. The origin, formation, and evolution of our Solar System (and other planetary systems) can be better understood by analysing…
Microstructural evolution in structural materials is known to occur in response to mechanical loading and can often accommodate substantial plastic deformation through the coupled motion of grain boundaries (GBs). This can produce desirable…
Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature and industry; their mechanical behavior has been of academic and engineering interest for centuries. One of the reasons for their rather complex mechanical behavior is that stresses exerted on a…
Gravity-driven flows of granular matter are involved in a wide variety of situations, ranging from industrial processes to geophysical phenomena, such as avalanches or landslides. These flows are characterized by the coexistence of solid…
The rotational mass loss has been realized to be a prevalent mechanism to produce low-speed debris near the asteroid, and the size composition of the asteroid's surface regolith has been closely measured by in situ explorations. However,…
Granular materials such as sand, powders, and food grains are ubiquitous in civil engineering, geoscience, agriculture, and medicine. While the influence of friction between the grains on the static structure of these systems is well…
The steady shear rheology of granular materials is investigated in slow quasi-static states and inertial flows. The effect of the gravity field and contact stiffness, which are conventionally trivialized is the focus of this study. Series…
This work presents an experimental design for studying low-velocity collisions into granular surfaces in low-gravity. In the experiment apparatus, reduced-gravity is simulated by releasing a free-falling projectile into a surface container…
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for polymer networks. While molecular-scale theories predict no…
Surface charging phenomenon of asteroids, mainly resulting from solar wind plasma and solar radiation, has been studied extensively. However, the influence of asteroid's rotation on surface charging has yet to be fully understood. Here…
The composition of Solar System surfaces can be inferred through reflectance and emission spectroscopy, by comparing these observations to laboratory measurements and radiative transfer models. While several populations of objects appear to…
Context: Asteroids with a diameter of up to a few dozen meters may spin very fast and complete an entire rotation within a few minutes. These small and fast-rotating bodies are thought to be monolithic objects because the gravitational…
Meteorite craters on the asteroid surface obstruct the horizontal flow of solar wind, forming a plasma wake that modulates the particle fluxes and the electrostatic environment far downstream. In this study, surface charging properties of…
The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…
Manipulation of granular materials such as sand or rice remains an unsolved problem due to challenges such as the difficulty of defining their configuration or modeling the materials and their particles interactions. Current approaches tend…