Related papers: Structure of plastically compacting granular packi…
The quasistatic behavior of a simple 2D model of a cohesive powder under isotropic loads is investigated by Discrete Element simulations. The loose packing states, as studied in a previous paper, undergo important structural changes under…
We measure experimentally the rearrangements due to a small localized cyclic displacement applied to a packing of rigid grains under gravity in a 2D geometry. We analyze the evolution of the response to this perturbation by considering the…
Protein structures in nature often exhibit a high degree of regularity (secondary structures, tertiary symmetries, etc.) absent in random compact conformations. We demonstrate in a simple lattice model of protein folding that structural…
We investigate equal spheres packings generated from several experiments and from a large number of different numerical simulations. The structural organization of these disordered packings is studied in terms of the network of common…
We study numerically the influence of confinement on the solid fraction and on the structure of three-dimensional random close packed (RCP) granular materials subject to gravity. The effects of grain shape (spherical or polyhedral),…
The mechanical strength and flow of granular materials can depend strongly on the shapes of individual grains. We report quantitative results obtained from photoelasticimetry experiments on locally loaded, quasi-two-dimensional granular…
Confined thin structures are ubiquitous in nature. Spatial and length constraints have led to a number of novel packing strategies at both the micro-scale, as when DNA packages inside a capsid, and the macro-scale, seen in plant root…
The topological structure resulting from the network of contacts between grains (\emph{contact network}) is studied for large samples of monosized spheres with densities (fraction of volume occupied by the spheres) ranging from 0.59 to…
Insight in the crumpling or compaction of one-dimensional objects is of great importance for understanding biopolymer packaging and designing innovative technological devices. By compacting various types of wires in rigid confinements and…
Cohesive powders form agglomerates that can be very porous. Hence they are also very fragile. Consider a process of complete fragmentation on a characteristic length scale $\ell$, where the fragments are subsequently allowed to settle under…
We study the fragment size distributions after crushing of single and many particles under uniaxial compression inside a cylindrical container by means of numerical simulations. Under the assumption that breaking goes through the bulk of…
Using a previously developed experimental method to reduce friction in mechanically stable packings of disks, we find that frictional packings form tree-like structures of geometrical families that lie on reduced dimensional manifolds in…
Mixing grains with different properties is a remarkably challenging process, relevant to many industrial applications. Rotating drums have been used extensively as model systems to study granular media flow and mixing and segregation.…
Twisted and rope-like assemblies of filamentous molecules are common and vital structural elements in cells and tissue of living organisms. We study the intrinsic frustration occurring in these materials between the two-dimensional…
The structural evolution of a nano-powder by repeated dispersion and settling can lead to characteristic fractal substructures. This is shown by numerical simulations of a two-dimensional model agglomerate of adhesive rigid particles. The…
A general theory is developed for the evolution of the cell order (CO) distribution in planar granular systems. Dynamic equations are constructed and solved in closed form for several examples: systems under compression; dilation of very…
We study the packing fraction of clusters in free-falling streams of spherical and irregularly shaped particles using flash X-ray radiography. The estimated packing fraction of clusters is low enough to correspond to coordination numbers…
We investigate ordering properties of two-dimensional granular materials using several shapes created by welding ball bearings together. Ordered domains form much more easily in two than in three dimensions, even when configurations lack…
Three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of dissipative particles (~ 10^6) are carried out for studying the clustering kinetics of granular media during cooling. The inter-connected high particle density regions are identified,…
The high-pressure compaction of three dimensional granular packings is simulated using a bonded particle model (BPM) to capture linear elastic deformation. In the model, grains are represented by a collection of point particles connected by…