Related papers: Why shape matters in granular compaction
Cell motility in dense cell collectives is pivotal in various diseases like cancer metastasis and asthma. A central aspect in these phenomena is the heterogeneity in cell motility, but identifying the motility of individual cells is…
Impact dynamics during collisions of spheres with granular media reveal a pronounced and non-trivial dependence on volume fraction \phi. Post impact crater morphology identifies the critical packing state \phi_{cps}, where sheared grains…
The critical dynamics of relaxational stochastic models with nonconserved $n$-component order parameter $\bm{\phi}$ and no coupling to other slow variables ("model A") is investigated in film geometries for the cases of periodic and free…
The dynamical properties of a dense horizontally vibrated bidisperse granular monolayer are experimentally investigated. The quench protocol produces states with a frozen structure of the assembly, but the remaining degrees of freedom…
A simple numerical model is used to simulate the effect of vertical taps on a packing of monodisperse hard spheres. Our results are in agreement with an experimantal work done in Chicago and with other previous models, especially concerning…
Upon mechanical loading, granular materials yield and undergo plastic deformation. The nature of plastic deformation is essential for the development of the macroscopic constitutive models and the understanding of shear band formation.…
Spontaneous stratification in granular mixtures has been recently reported by H. A. Makse et al. [Nature 386, 379 (1997)]. Here we study experimentally the dynamical processes leading to spontaneous stratification. Using a high-speed video…
Many biological systems can be described by finite Markov models. A general method for simplifying master equations is presented that is based on merging adjacent states. The approach preserves the steady-state probability distribution and…
We present here the preliminary results obtained for two experiments on randomly agitated granular assemblies using a novel way of shaking. First we discuss the transport properties of a 2D model system undergoing classical shaking that…
The oscillatory force F_b^ac on the bottom of a rigid, vertically vibrated, grain filled column, reveals rich granular dynamics, even when the peak acceleration of the vibrations is signicantly less than the gravitational acceleration at…
Flocculation is the process whereby particles (i.e., flocs) in suspension reversibly combine and separate. The process is widespread in soft matter and aerosol physics as well as environmental science and engineering. We consider a general…
The kinematic flow pattern in slow deformation of a model dense granular medium is studied at high resolution using \emph{in situ} imaging, coupled with particle tracking. The deformation configuration is indentation by a flat punch under…
We have investigated by rotating drum experiments the influence of a small amount of fine particles on the stability of a granular heap. The fine particles are shown to have a strong and ambivalent influence. For low fine particle content,…
In this paper we study the dynamics of stochastic microorganism flocculation models. Given the strong influence of environmental and seasonal fluctuations that are present in these models, we propose a stochastic model that includes…
We discuss two athermal types of dynamics suitable for spin-models designed to model repeated tapping of a granular assembly. These dynamics are applied to a range of models characterised by a 3-spin Hamiltonian aiming to capture the…
A one-dimensional Ising model with nearest neighbour interactions is applied to study compaction processes in granular media. An equivalent particle-hole picture is introduced, with the holes being associated to the domain walls of the…
The gravitational-radiation-induced inspiral of a binary system of compact objects is considered. A scheme is described to model the regime in which the gravitational interaction is too strong to use weak-field approximation methods, but…
We present results from an individual particle based model for the collision, coagulation and fragmentation of heavy drops moving in a turbulent flow. Such a model framework can help to bridge the gap between the full hydrodynamic…
Despite the ubiquitousness and technological and scientific importance of granular matter, our understanding is still very poor compared to molecular fluids and solids. Until today, there is no unified description, which indeed seems…
Granular media jam into a panoply of metastable states. The way in which these states are achieved depends on the nature of local and global constraints on grains; here we investigate this issue by means of a non-equilibrium stochastic…