Related papers: Emergent Strain-Stiffening in Interlocked Granular…
In both nature and engineering, loosely packed granular materials are often compacted inside confined geometries. Here, we explore such behaviour in a quasi-two dimensional geometry, where parallel rigid walls provide the confinement. We…
We have recently developed some simple continuum models of static granular media which display "fragile" behaviour: they predict that the medium is unable to support certain types of infinitesimal load (which we call "incompatible" loads)…
We study the impact of a projectile onto a bed of 3 mm grains immersed in an index-matched fluid. Specifically, we vary the amount of prestrain on the sample, strengthening the force chains within the system. We find this affects only the…
Granular packings display the remarkable phenomenon of dilatancy [1], wherein their volume increases upon shear deformation. Conventional wisdom and previous results suggest that dilatancy, as also the related phenomenon of shear-induced…
It is nearly impossible to separate two interleaved phonebooks when held by their spines. A full understanding of this astonishing demonstration of solid friction in complex assemblies has remained elusive. In this Letter, we report on…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While stress-strain curves for a wide range of temperature can be fit to the functional form predicted by entropic network models, many other…
The macroscopic response of granular solids is determined by the microscopic fabric of force chains, which, in turn, is intimately linked to the history of the solid. To query the influence of gravity on powder flow-behavior, a granular…
We use Wang-Landau and replica exchange techniques to study the effect of an increasing stiffness on the formation of secondary structures in protein-like systems. Two possible models are considered. In both models, a polymer chain is…
We analyse the flow curves of a two-dimensional assembly of granular particles which are interacting via frictional contact forces. For packing fractions slightly below jamming, the fluid undergoes a large scale instability, implying a…
We measured experimentally the static friction force $F_s$ on the surface of a glass rod immersed in dry sand. We observed that $F_s$ is extremely sensitive to the closeness of packing of grains. A linear increase of the grain-density…
A load applied to a jammed frictional granular system will be localized into a network of force chains making inter-particle connections throughout the system. Because such systems are typically under-constrained, the observed force network…
A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…
The results obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of the friction at an interface between polymer melts and weakly attractive crystalline surfaces are reported. We consider a coarse-grained bead-spring model of linear chains with…
The elastic response is studied of a single flexible chain grafted on a rigid plane and an ensemble of non-interacting tethered chains. It is demonstrated that the entropic theory of rubber elasticity leads to conclusions that disagree with…
Dry granular materials such as sand, gravel, pills, or agricultural grains, can become rigid when compressed or sheared. At low density, one can distort the shape of a container of granular material without encountering any resistance.…
Strain stiffening of protein networks is explored by means of a finite strain analysis of a two-dimensional network model of cross-linked semiflexible filaments. The results show that stiffening is caused by non-affine network…
Polymeric single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) are soft nano-objects synthesized by purely intramolecular cross-linking of single polymer chains. By means of computer simulations, we investigate the conformational properties of SCNPs as a…
Macroscale chains have been proposed to give insight into the physics of molecular polymer systems. Nevertheless, understanding the rheological response of systems of quasi-one-dimensional semiflexible materials, such as bead-chain…
For fundamentally characterizing the effect of hierarchical structure in granular matter, a set of compression-relaxation tests for dust particles and glass beads confined in a cylindrical cell was performed. Typical diameter of both grains…
In granular media, the presence of even small amounts of interparticle cohesion manifests as an increase in the bulk strength and stiffness, effects that are typically associated with an increase in the average number of constraints per…