Related papers: Granular media: some ideas from statistical physic…
Formulating a statistical mechanics for granular matter remains a significant challenge, in part, due to the difficulty associated with a complete characterization of the systems under study. We present a fully characterized model of a…
We investigate the role of entropic concepts for the relaxation dynamics in granular systems. In these systems the existence of a geometrical frustration induces a drastic modification of the allowed phase space, which in its turn induces a…
We develop a theoretical model to investigate wave propagation in media with random time-varying properties, where temporal fluctuations lead to complex scattering dynamics. Focusing on the ensemble-averaged field, we derive an exact…
This thesis is about the study of complex systems through simple models. Our work evidences the relevance of this kind of modeling in science, which provides us with a better understanding of nature at minimum cost. The fundamentals tools…
A basic problem in the science of realistic granular matter is the plethora of heuristic models of the stress field in the absence of a first-principles theory. Such a theory is formulated here, based on the idea that static granular…
We develop an analytic framework to understand fragmentation in turbulent, self-gravitating media. Previously, we showed some properties of turbulence can be predicted with the excursion-set formalism. Here, we generalize to fully…
In nature, granular materials fail in abrupt avalanches, earthquakes, and other hazardous events, and also creep over time. Proposed failure mechanisms for these systems are broadly framed as friction-limited. However, mechanical…
A two-dimensional lattice model for the formation and evolution of shear bands in granular media is proposed. Each lattice site is assigned a random variable which reflects the local density. At every time step, the strain is localized…
Experimental results and their interpretations are presented on the nonlinear acoustic effects of multiple scattered elastic waves in unconsolidated granular media. Short wave packets with a central frequency higher than the so-called…
We attribute similarities in the rheology of many soft materials (foams, emulsions, slurries, etc.) to the shared features of structural disorder and metastability. A generic model for the mesoscopic dynamics of ``soft glassy matter'' is…
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…
Granular systems confined in a shallow box and driven by vertical vibration provide a simple geometry to study fluidized granular media. Grains gain kinetic energy vertically through collisions with the walls and redistribute it…
We present a molecular dynamics and kinetic theory study of granular material, modeled by inelastic hard disks, fluidized by a random driving force. The focus is on collisional averages and short distance correlations in the non-equilibrium…
The transition from a flowing to a static state in a granular material is studied using large-scale, 3D particle simulations. Similar to glasses, this transition is manifested in the development of a plateau in the contact normal force…
A vertically shaken granular medium hosts a blade rotating around a fixed vertical axis, which acts as a mesorheological probe. At high densities, independently from the shaking intensity, the blade's dynamics show strong caging effects,…
It has been claimed that quasistatic granular materials, as well as nanoscale materials, exhibit departures from elasticity even at small loadings. It is demonstrated, using 2D and 3D models with interparticle harmonic interactions, that…
We endow a system of interacting particles with two distinct, local, Markovian and reversible microscopic dynamics. Using common field-theoretic techniques used to investigate the presence of a glass transition, we find that while the…
We propose a statistical mechanics for a general class of stationary and metastable equilibrium states. For this purpose, the Gibbs extremal conditions are slightly modified in order to be applied to a wide class of non-equilibrium states.…
Here we numerically study a model of excitable media, namely, a network with occasionally quiet nodes and connection weights that vary with activity on a short-time scale. Even in the absence of stimuli, this exhibits unstable dynamics,…
We carry out a direct comparison of experimental and numerical realizations of the exact same granular system as it undergoes shear jamming. We adjust the numerical methods used to optimally represent the experimental settings and outcomes…