Related papers: Structure of plastically compacting granular packi…
We report on experiments to measure the temporal and spatial evolution of packing arrangements of anisotropic, cylindrical granular material, using high-resolution capacitive monitoring. In these experiments, the particle configurations…
By means of two-dimensional contact dynamics simulations, we analyze the vibrational dynamics of a confined granular layer in response to harmonic forcing. We use irregular polygonal grains allowing for strong variability of solid fraction.…
Two models are presented to study the influence of slow dynamics on granular compaction. It is found in both cases that high values of packing fraction are achieved only by the slow relaxation of cooperative structures. Ongoing work to…
We have investigated experimentally the influence of a magnetic interaction between the grains on the compaction dynamics of a granular pile submitted to a series of taps. The granular material used to perform this study is a mixture of…
Studies of random close packing of spheres have advanced our knowledge about the structure of systems such as liquids, glasses, emulsions, granular media, and amorphous solids. When these systems are confined their structural properties…
In this article, we review some of our approaches to granular dynamics, now well known to consist of both fast and slow relaxational processes. In the first case, grains typically compete with each other, while in the second, they…
In protoplanetary discs, the coagulation of dust grains into large aggregates still remains poorly understood. Grain porosity appears to be a promising solution to allow the grains to survive and form planetesimals. Furthermore, dust…
Hierarchical granular piles composed of aggregates are key structural features in both geoscience and planetary science, from fault gouge in seismic zones to the internal structures of comets. Although experimental studies have suggested a…
Granular crystallisation is an important phenomenon whereby ordered packing structures form in granular matter under vibration. However, compared with the well-developed principles of crystallisation at the atomic scale, crystallisation in…
Granular materials undergo compaction under periodic temperature fluctuations, leading to various engineering and geological phenomena from landslides to silo compaction. Although thermal effects on granular materials have been extensively…
We report three-dimensional particle mechanics static calculations that predict the microstructure evolution during die-compaction of elastic spherical particles up to relative densities close to one. We employ a nonlocal contact…
Several acquisitions of X-ray microtomography have been performed on a beads packing while it compacts under vertical vibrations. An image analysis allows to study the evolution of the packing structure during its progressive densification.…
This paper considers the segregation of a granular mixture in a rotating drum. Extending a recent kinematic model for grain transport on sandpile surfaces to the case of rotating drums, an analysis is presented for radial segregation in the…
The morphological nature of structures that form under gravitational instability has been of central interest to cosmology for over two decades. A remarkable feature of large scale structures in the Universe is that they occupy a relatively…
Cohesive particles form agglomerates that are usually very porous. Their geometry, particularly their fractal dimension, depends on the agglomeration process (diffusion-limited or ballistic growth by adding single particles or…
Using a refractive index matching method, we investigate the trajectories of particles in a three dimensional granular packing submitted to cyclic shear deformation. The particle motion observed during compaction is not diffusive but…
We model two-dimensional systems of granular aggregates confined between two planes and demonstrate that at a critical grain volume fraction an abrupt rigidity transition occurs. This transition is observed both in static and shear tests.…
Molecular dynamics simulations were used to quantify mechanically-induced structural evolution in nanocrystalline Al with an average grain size of 5 nm. A polycrystalline sample was cyclically strained at different temperatures, while a…
For the binary discs packed in two dimensions, the packing fraction of disc assembly becomes lower than that of the monodisperse system when the size ratio is close to unity. We show that the suppressed packing fraction is caused by an…
A method is proposed for the characterisation of the entropy of cellular structures, based on the compactivity concept for granular packings. Hamiltonian-like volume functions are constructed both in two and in three dimensions, enabling…