Related papers: Emergence of Structure in Columns of Grains and El…
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…
Unstable systems of fluidized grains in a very-narrow vertical tube can auto-defluidize after some time, the settling particles forming either a glass- or crystal-like structure. We carried out experiments using different polymer spheres,…
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…
The hyperstatic nature of granular packings of perfectly rigid disks is analyzed algebraically and through numerical simulation. The elementary loops of grains emerge as a fundamental element in addressing hyperstaticity. Loops consisting…
Granular materials, composed of discrete solid grains, can be modeled as simple mechanical systems. However, these materials can undergo spontaneous slow deformation, or creep, even under small forces and while in apparent mechanical…
Using a recently developed continuum theory of dislocation dynamics, we derive three new predictions about plasticity and grain boundary formation in crystals. (1) There will be a residual stress jump across grain boundaries and…
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…
Shear banding and stick-slip instabilities have been long observed in sheared granular materials. Yet, their microscopic underpinnings, interdependencies and variability under different loading conditions have not been fully explored. Here,…
We study the outflow dynamics and clogging phenomena of mixtures of soft, elastic low-friction spherical grains and hard frictional spheres of similar size in a quasi-two-dimensional (2D) silo with narrow orifice at the bottom. Previous…
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…
Grain growth fundamentally shapes the microstructure of crystalline materials upon annealing, affecting their overall mechanical and functional properties. Recently, it has been rationalized that grain growth in polycrystals does not result…
Granular materials are known to separate by size under a variety of circumstances. Experiments presented here and elucidated by modeling and MD simulation document a new segregation mechanism, namely segregation by friction. The experiments…
Some remarkable generic properties, related to isostaticity and potential energy minimization, of equilibrium configurations of assemblies of rigid, frictionless grains are studied. Isostaticity -the uniqueness of the forces, once the list…
Liquid may give strong cohesion properties to a granular medium, and confer a solid-like behavior. We study the erosion of a fixed circular aggregate of wet granular matter subjected to a flow of dry grains inside a half-filled rotating…
We investigate the role of friction in compaction and segregation of granular materials by combining Edwards' thermodynamic hypothesis with a simple mechanical model and mean-field based geometrical calculations. Systems of single species…
In light of the race towards macroscale superlubricity of graphitic contacts, the effect of grain boundaries on their frictional properties becomes of central importance. Here, we elucidate the unique frictional mechanisms characterizing…
The interlock drive system generates traction by inserting narrow articulated spikes into the ground and by leveraging the soil's strength to resist horizontal draft forces. The system promises high tractive performance in low gravity…
The kinetics of dislocations is studied with computer simulation at loadings of different intensity. It is established that the dislocations have a few different structural states. The dislocations "with the micropore" play important role…
Particles in granular flows are often modeled as frictionless (smooth) inelastic spheres; however, there exist no frictionless grains, just as there are no elastic grains. Our molecular dynamics simulations reveal that friction is essential…
It is shown that a compound elastic structure, which displays a dynamic instability, may be designed as the union (or 'fusion') of two structures which are stable when separately analyzed. The compound elastic structure has two degrees of…