Related papers: Traction of Interlocking Spikes on a Granular Mate…

The way granular materials response to an applied shear stress is of the utmost relevance to both human activities and natural environment. One of the their most intriguing and less understood behavior, is the stick-instability, whose most…

When some granular material contained into a silo is pushed upwards with a piston, an irregular stick-slip motion of the system of grains is observed. We show how one can adapt the `Scalar Arching Model' -- proposed as a model for giant…

Preserving the superior mechanical properties of monolayer two-dimensional (2D) materials when transitioning to bilayer and layer-stacked structures poses a great challenge, primarily arising from the weak van der Waals (vdW) forces that…

Efficient manipulation of magnetic materials is essential for spintronics. In spin-current generator/magnet bilayers, the efficiency of spin-orbit torques per magnetic layer thickness scales inversely with the magnetic layer thickness,…

High-manganese twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) steels exhibit high strain hardening, high tensile strength, and high ductility, which make them attractive for structural applications. At low tensile strain rates, TWIP steels are prone to…

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…

Components manufactured via Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing are usually characterised by large columnar grains. This can be mitigated by introducing in-process cold-rolling; in fact, the associated local plastic deformation leads to a…

We combine experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the emergence of clogging in a system of interacting paramagnetic colloidal particles driven against a disordered landscape of larger obstacles. We consider a single aperture…

The ability of grains to rotate can play a crucial role on the collective behavior of granular media. It has been observed in computer simulations that imposing a torque at the contacts modifies the force chains, making support chains less…

We study the effect of viscoelastic dynamics on the frictional properties of a (mean field) spring-block system pulled on a rough surface by an external drive. When the drive moves at constant velocity V, two dynamical regimes are observed:…

Topological Interlocking Structures (TIS) are assemblies of interlocking building blocks that hold together solely through contact and friction at the blocks' interfaces, and thus do not require any connective elements. This salient feature…

Reduced traction limits the ability of mobile robotic systems to resist or apply large external loads, such as tugging a massive payload. One simple and versatile solution is to wrap a tether around naturally occurring objects to leverage…

Earlier studies of grain alignment dealt mostly with interstellar grains that have strong internal relaxation of energy which aligns grain axis of maximum moment of inertia with respect to grain's angular momentum. In this paper, we study…

In order to improve our understanding of landing on small bodies and of asteroid evolution, we use our novel drop tower facility to perform low-velocity (2-40 cm s^-1), shallow impact experiments of a 10 cm diameter aluminum sphere into…

With the rising threat of ballistic impacts, it is critical to devise a solution that is both efficient and economical. Recently, Polymer Matrix Sand Composites (PMSCs) have emerged as a viable cost-effective option. This ongoing research…

The sudden arrest of flow by formation of a stable arch over an outlet is a unique and characteristic feature of granular materials. Previous work suggests that grains near the outlet randomly sample configurational flow microstates until a…

Spin spirals form inside the magnetic layers of antiferromagnetic and noncollinearly-coupled magnetic multilayers in the presence of an external magnetic field. This spin structure can be modeled to extract the direct exchange stiffness of…

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 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…

A fundamental challenge in soft material design is the competition between rigidity and dynamicity, as stiffening mechanisms typically suppress energy dissipation. Here, we demonstrate that starch granules serve as instructive scaffolds…