Related papers: Anomalous Creep as a Precursor to Failure in Granu…
Sloped terrains tend to creep downward over time, even when their slope is below the nominal angle of repose. This behavior can result from periodic variations in environmental conditions, such as daily or seasonal fluctuations in…
Spontaneous stratification of granular mixtures has been reported by Makse et al. [Nature 386, 379 (1997)] when a mixture of grains differing in size and shape is poured in a quasi-two-dimensional heap. We study this phenomenon using two…
The flow of granular material in a rotating cylinder was simulated by molecular dynamics in two dimensions using spherical as well as nonspherical grains. At very low but constant angular velocity we found that the flow varies irregularly…
We revisit the problem of the stress distribution in a frictional sandpile under gravity, equipped with a new numerical model of granular assemblies with both normal and tangential (frictional) inter-granular forces. Numerical simulations…
Motivated by recent experiments studying the creep and breakup of a protein gel under stress, we introduce a simple mesoscopic model for the irreversible failure of gels and fibrous materials, and demonstrate it to capture much of the…
Creep failure of hierarchical materials is investigated by simulation of beam network models. Such models are idealizations of hierarchical fibrous materials where bundles of load-carrying fibers are held together by multi-level…
Recent experimental results on the static or quasistatic response of granular materials have been interpreted to suggest the inapplicability of the traditional engineering approaches, which are based on elasto-plastic models (which are…
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…
Many technologically useful materials are polycrystals composed of a myriad of small monocrystalline grains separated by grain boundaries. Dynamics of grain boundaries play a crucial role in determining the grain structure and defining the…
The coupled mechanics of fluid-filled granular media controls the behavior of many natural systems such as saturated soils, fault gouge, and landslides. The grain motion and the fluid pressure influence each other: It is well established…
Frictional motion is harder to initiate than to sustain, as evident when pushing a heavy object. This disparity between static and kinetic friction drives instabilities and stick-slip dynamics in systems ranging from nanodevices and MEMS to…
This letter reports experimental and numerical results on particle dynamics in an out-of-equilibrium granular medium. We observed two distinct types of grain motion: the well known cage motion, during which a grain is always surrounded by…
We proposed a toy model of granular compaction which includes some resistance due to granular arches. In this model, the solid/solid friction of contacting grains is a key parameter and a slipping threshold Wc is defined. Realistic…
Despite their very low surface gravities, the surfaces of asteroids and comets are covered by granular materials - regolith - that can range from a fine dust to a gravel-like structure of varying depths. Understanding the dynamics of…
The frictional properties of disordered systems are affected by external perturbations. These perturbations usually weaken the system by reducing the macroscopic friction coefficient. This friction reduction is of particular interest in the…
Granular material in a swirled container exhibits a curious transition as the number of particles is increased: at low densities the particle cluster rotates in the same direction as the swirling motion of the container, while at high…
We investigate experimentally granular piles exhibiting steady surface flow. Below the surface flow, it has been believed exisitence of a `frozen' bulk region, but our results show absence of such a frozen bulk. We report here that even the…
The flowing, jamming and avalanche behavior of granular materials is satisfyingly universal and vexingly hard to tune: a granular flow is typically intermittent and will irremediably jam if too confined. Here, we show that granular…
Disordered granular matter exhibits mechanical responses that occupy the boundary between fluids and solids, lacking a complete description within a continuum theoretical framework. Recent studies have shown that, in the quasi-static limit,…
We extend the model of surface granular flow proposed in \cite{bcre} to account for the effect of an external `wind', which acts as to dislodge particles from the static bed, such that a stationary state of flowing grains is reached. We…