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, the mechanical response of disordered solids to external perturbations is anomalous and can be accurately predicted by the theory of odd-dipole-screening. In this work, we investigate responsive granular matter, where grains change size in response to stimuli such as humidity, temperature, or other factors. We develop a geometric theory of odd dipole-screening, incorporating the growth field into the equilibrium equation. Our theory predicts an anomalous displacement field in response to non-uniform growth fields, confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations of granular matter. Although the screening parameters in our theory are phenomenological and not derived from microscopic physics, we identify a surprising relationship between the odd parameter and Poissons ratio. This theory has implications for various experimental protocols, including non-uniform heating or wetting, which lead to spatially varying expansion field.
Recent diffraction experiments on metallic glasses have unveiled an unexpected non-cubic scaling law between density and average interatomic distance, which lead to the speculations on the presence of fractal glass order. Using X-ray tomography we identify here a similar non-cubic scaling law in disordered granular packing of spherical particles. We find that the scaling law is directly related to the contact neighbors within first nearest neighbor shell, and therefore is closely connected to the phenomenon of jamming. The seemingly universal scaling exponent around 2.5 arises due to the isost…
The confining pressure $P$ is perhaps the most important parameter controlling the properties of granular matter. Strongly compressed granular media are, in many respects, simple solids in which elastic perturbations travel as ordinary phonons. However, the speed of sound in granular aggregates continuously decreases as the confining pressure decreases, completely vanishing at the jamming-unjamming transition. This anomalous behavior suggests that the transport of energy at low pressures should not be dominated by phonons. In this work we use simulations and theory to show how the response of …
For two decades now, the importance of microstructure in the mechanical behaviour of a large collection of grains has been a topic of intense research. Many approaches have been developed to study the microstructure in granular materials, based on local or mesoscopic measures or using ideas from diverse fields like percolation theory, complex networks and persistent homology. However, we do not fully understand the role of microstructure in the mechanical behaviour of simple and commonplace packings like a pile of sand or box of grains. Here, by characterizing the spatial variation of local mi…
Stress in dense granular materials and other athermal particle aggregates is transmitted through a visually striking subnetwork of interparticle contacts, the filamentary segments of which are referred to as force chains. The emergence of such preferred subnetwork in structurally disordered media with constituents interacting primarily by physical contact is not fully understood. In this work, we study locally correlated transport in Random Geometric Graphs (RGGs), and show the spontaneous emergence of preferred subnetwork. Our findings reveal that, despite structural disorder, system spanning…
Dense granular materials and other particle aggregates transmit stress in a manner that belies their microstructural disorder. A subset of the particle contact network is strikingly coherent, wherein contacts are aligned nearly linearly and transmit large forces. Important material properties are associated with these force chains, but their origin has remained a puzzle. We classify subnetworks by their linear connectivity, and show the emergence of a percolation transition at a critical linearity at which the network is sparse, coherent, and contains the force chains. The subnetwork at critic…
We have found a way to analyze Edwards' density of states for static granular packings in the special case of round, rigid, frictionless grains assuming constant coordination number. It obtains the most entropic density of single grain states, which predicts several observables including the distribution of contact forces. We compare these results against empirical data obtained in dynamic simulations of granular packings. The agreement is quite good, helping validate the use of statistical mechanics methods in granular physics. The differences between theory and empirics are mainly related to…
We report a transition from a disordered state to an ordered state in the flow of nearly mono-disperse granular matter flowing in an inclined channel with a bumpy base, in discrete element method simulations. For low particle-sidewall friction coefficients, the particles are disordered and the Bagnold velocity profile is obtained. However, for high sidewall friction, an ordered state is obtained, characterized by a layering of the particles and hexagonal packing of the particles in each layer. The extent of ordering, quantified by the local bond-orientational order parameter, varies in the cro…
Despite extensive theoretical \cite{GanterPRL1998, ElliotPRL2001,SchirmacherPRL2007, TanakaNatureM2008, MonacoPNAS2009, MarruzzoSCIRP2013} and experimental studies \cite{ChumakovPRL2011, ChumakovPRL2014, KayaScience2010,KChenPRL2010, LXuPRL2012, BonnPreprint2014}, a longstanding puzzle in condensed matter physics remains regarding the origin and nature of "Boson peak" (BP), where the vibrational density of states (DOS) in glasses possesses an excess of states compared with the crystalline counterpart. Here we show that BP is successfully observed in 2D hexagonal granular packing, where the dis…
Mechanical instability takes different forms in various ordered and disordered systems. We study the effect of thermal fluctuations in two disordered central-force lattice models near mechanical instability: randomly diluted triangular lattice and randomly braced square lattice. These two lattices exhibit different scalings for the emergence of rigidity at $T=0$ due to their different patterns of self stress at the transition. Using analytic theory we show that thermal fluctuations stabilize both lattices. In particular, the triangular lattice displays a critical regime in which the shear modu…
The transmission of forces through a disordered granular system is studied by means of a geometrical-topological approach that reduces the granular packing into a set of layers. This layered structure constitutes the skeleton through which the force chains set up. Given the granular packing, and the region where the force is applied, such a skeleton is uniquely defined. Within this framework, we write an equation for the transmission of the vertical forces that can be solved recursively layer by layer. We find that a special class of analytical solutions for this equation are Lévi-stable distr…
Contrary to the theoretical predictions that all waves in two-dimensional disordered materials are localized, Anderson localization is observed only for sufficiently high frequencies in an isotropically jammed two-dimensional disordered granular packing of photoelastic disks. More specifically, we have performed an experiment in analyzing the level statistics of normal mode vibrations. We observe delocalized modes in the low-frequency boson-peak regime and localized modes in the high frequency regime with the crossover frequency just below the Debye frequency. We find that the level-distance d…
We use an analogy with the statistical mechanics of gas to build the statistical mechanics of granular media. The case of an isotropic disordered packing of equal spheres submitted to an isotropic stress is considered. We use the assumption of a maximal disorder and the method of the Lagrange multipliers to demonstrate that the distribution of the force moduli decreases exponentially and obeys an exponential-decay statistics. This distribution results from the above hypotheses and from the existence of a mean stress, which acts as a constraint. This distribution is confirmed by experiments and…
In a granular solid, mechanical equilibrium requires a delicate balance of forces at the disordered grain scale. To understand how macroscopic rigidity can emerge in this amorphous solid, it is crucial that we understand how Newton's laws pass from the disordered grain scale to the laboratory scale. In this work, we introduce an exact discrete calculus, in which Newton's laws appear as differential relations at the scale of a single grain. Using this calculus, we introduce gauge variables which describe identically force- and torque-balanced configurations. In a first, intrinsic formulation, w…
We employ numerical simulations to understand the evolution of elastic standing waves in disordered frictional disk systems, where the dispersion relations of rotational sound modes are analyzed in detail. As in the case of frictional particles on a lattice, the rotational modes exhibit an "optical-like" dispersion relation in the high frequency regime, representing a shoulder of the vibrational density of states and fast oscillations of the autocorrelations of rotational velocities. A lattice-based model describes the dispersion relations of the rotational modes for small wave numbers. The ro…
Stress transmission in planar open-cell cellular solids is analysed using a recent theory developed for marginally rigid granular assemblies. This is made possible by constructing a one-to-one mapping between the two systems. General trivalent networks are mapped onto assemblies of rough grains, while networks where Plateau rules are observed, are mapped onto assemblies of smooth grains. The constitutive part of the stress transmission equations couples the stress directly to the local rotational disorder of the cellular structure via a new fabric tensor. An intriguing consequence of the analy…
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 individual particle displacement and the coarse grained displacement field, as well as the mean packing fraction and coordination number. We find that the displacement response is rather long ranged, and evolves considerably with the number of cycles. We show that a small difference in the preparation method (induced by tapping the container) leads to a sign…
Classical soil mechanics results are used to propose the equation of the jamming transition surface in the (stress, specific volume) space. Taking axis-ymmetric conditions, labelling q the deviatoric stress and p' the mean pressure applied on the granular skeleton, and considering normal range of pressure (10 kPa-10MPa) the equation of the surface of jamming transition is v = vo-m ln(p'/p'o)+ md ln(1+q q/(M' M' p' p')); M' is related to the friction angle, m and md are two constants which depend on soil characteristics; p'o is a "unit" pressure.
Granular segregation is ubiquitous in industrial, geological or daily-life context, but there is still no unifying theoretical approach. In this review, we examine two examples of granular segregation -- shallow rapid flows and rotating drums -- which suggest that the dynamics of systems at intermediate and high density might be amenable to a statistical mechanics approach.
We describe an experimental and computational investigation of the ordered and disordered phases of a vibrating thin, dense granular layer composed of identical metal spheres. We compare the results from spheres with different amounts of inelasticity and show that inelasticity has a strong effect on the phase diagram. We also report the melting of an ordered phase to a homogeneous disordered liquid phase at high vibration amplitude or at large inelasticities. Our results show that dissipation has a strong effect on ordering and that in this system ordered phases are absent entirely in highly i…
It is proposed a simple non linear incremental modelling of the axi-symmetric compression of granular materials and powders. It describes the main features of undrained compression and of oedometric compression using the results of compression tests at constant lateral stress . It generalises the concept of characteristic state. It shows that trajectories arriving at a given critical state shall pertain to a single surface in the (v,q,p) space, which confirms the recent result demonstrating that Hvorslev's and Roscoe's surfaces are part of the same surface. Effects of induced anisotropy are di…
Quantifying mechanical disorder in solids, either disordered crystals or glassy solids, and understanding its range of variability are of prime importance, e.g.~for discovering structure-properties relations. The bounds on the degree of mechanical fluctuations in disordered solids and how those depend on solids formation history remain unknown. Here, we study a broadly applicable quantifier of mesoscopic mechanical disorder $χ$, defined via the dimensionless fluctuations of the shear modulus, over a wide variety of disordered computer solids and upon varying different control parameters. $χ$ i…
Using the recent incremental modelling, it is shown that the trajectory of a sample in the phase space of soil mechanics in the vicinity of the critical state is not governed by the rigidity matrix, but by its variations. The characteristics are used to predict that pseudo Young modulus tends to 0 as B -M-1 tends to 0, i.e. near the critical point, where B is the vertical-to-lateral-stress ratio during an axi-symmetric test. An attempt to understand and predict unstable behaviours is done using the same modelling. Compatibility of this modelling with results on soil liquefaction is emphasised.
Shearing a disordered or amorphous solid for many cycles with a constant strain amplitude can anneal it, relaxing a sample to a steady state that encodes a memory of that amplitude. This steady state also features a remarkable stability to amplitude variations that allows one to read the memory. Here we shed new light on both annealing and memory, by considering how to mechanically anneal a sample to have as little memory content as possible. In experiments, we show that a "ring-down" protocol reaches a comparable steady state, but with no discernible memories and minimal structural anisotropy…
The {\em hydrodynamic} approach to a continuum mechanical description of granular behavior is reviewed and elucidated. By considering energy and momentum conservation simultaneously, the general formalism of {\em hydrodynamics} provides a systematic method to {derive} the structure of constitutive relations, including all gradient terms needed for nonuniform systems. An important input to arrive at different relations (say, for Newtonian fluid, solid and granular medium) is the energy, especially the number and types of its variables. Starting from a careful examination of the physics underlyi…
Processes of mixing and segregation in a packed bed of granular material stirred by a periodically moving rectangular bar are simulated by the discrete element method (DEM). Influence of mechanical properties of the particle material (dynamic friction coefficient, density, elastic modulus) on the segregation intensity is researched. Dynamic friction coefficient was found to have the most noticeable influence to the segregation intensity.
The formation of sandpiles is a subject if interest in the field of granular matter, but most experiments are unable to control the kinetic energy of the grains added to the apex of the growing pile. In this short article, we describe an opto-mechanical system to grow granular piles by adding sand from a fixed distance above the apex of the pile. To achieve that, we use a laser beam that detects the position of the apex and, as the pile grows, sends a feedback signal to a mechanical device able to control the height of the sand delivey system above the pile.
An understanding of homogeneous nucleation of crystalline structure from a disordered medium such as a liquid remains an important unsolved problem in condensed matter physics. Guided by the results from a number of experiments on granular and colloidal systems in the past two decades, including in particular observations of homogeneous nucleation in colloidal and granular systems, we suggest an alternative to the statistical mechanics approach to static granular matter initiated by Edwards and Oakeshott in 1989.
In glasses and other disordered materials, measurements of the vibrational density of states reveal that an excess number of long-wavelength (low-frequency) modes, as compared to the Debye scaling seen in crystalline materials, is associated with a loss of mechanical rigidity. In this paper, we present a novel technique for measuring the density of modes (DOM) in a real granular material, in which we mimic thermal excitations using white noise acoustic waves. The resulting vibrations are detected with piezoelectric sensors embedded inside a subset of the particles, from which we are able to co…
We present an orthotropic elastic analysis of frictional granular layers under gravity by studying their stress response to a localized overload at the layer surface for several substrate tilt angles. The distance to the unjamming transition is controlled by the tilt angle α with respect to the critical angle α_c. We find that the shear modulus of the system decreases with α, but reaches a finite value as αtends to α_c. We also analyze the vibration modes of the system and show that the soft modes play an increasing, though not crucial, role approaching the transition.
In the present letter a method to find a proper expression for the force distribution inside a granular sample in static equilibrium is proposed. The method is based in statistical mechanics and the force distribution is obtained by studying how the potential elastic energy is divided among the different contacts between grains. It is found with DEM simulations with spheres that the elastic potential energy distribution follows a Bose Einstein law from which the force distribution is deduced. The present letter open a way in which granular materials can be studied with the tools provided by st…
We numerically investigate the mechanical and geometrical properties of dense wet granular particles with irreversible attractive interaction. The shear modulus exhibits two inflection points as the packing fraction increases, and the bulk modulus shows a non-monotonic behavior. The coordination number also exhibits two inflection points. The peak position in the pair correlation function shifts to a lower value due to attractive interaction. The Voronoi tessellation of the particle configuration reveals that the probability density function for the volume of the Voronoi cell broadens as the p…
Nature provides examples of self-assemble lightweight disordered network structures with remarkable mechanical properties which are desirable for many applications purposes but challenging to reproduce artificially. Previous experimental and computational studies investigated the mechanical responses of random network structures focusing on topological and geometrical aspects in terms of variable connectivity or probability to place beam elements. However for practical purposes an ambitious challenge is to design new materials with the possibility to taylor their mechanical features such as st…
By detailed Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations %of a realistic model we show that granular materials at rest can be described as thermodynamics systems. First we show that granular packs can be characterized by few parameters, as much as fluids or solids. Then, in a second independent step, we demonstrate that these states can be described in terms of equilibrium distributions which coincide with the Statistical Mechanics of powders first proposed by Edwards. We also derive the system equation of state as a function of the ``configurational temperature'', its new intensive thermody…
We present an experiment on crystallization of packings of macroscopic granular spheres. This system is often considered to be a model for thermally driven atomic or colloidal systems. Cyclically shearing a packing of frictional spheres, we observe a first order phase transition from a disordered to an ordered state. The ordered state consists of crystallites of mixed FCC and HCP symmetry that coexist with the amorphous bulk. The transition, initiated by homogeneous nucleation, overcomes a barrier at 64.5% volume fraction. Nucleation consists predominantly of the dissolving of small nuclei and…
We observe non-monotonic aging and memory effects, two hallmarks of glassy dynamics, in two disordered mechanical systems: crumpled thin sheets and elastic foams. Under fixed compression, both systems exhibit monotonic non-exponential relaxation. However, when after a certain waiting time the compression is partially reduced, both systems exhibit a non-monotonic response: the normal force first increases over many minutes or even hours until reaching a peak value, and only then relaxation is resumed. The peak-time scales linearly with the waiting time, indicating that these systems retain long…
This paper models the increase of density of a virgin loose granular sample submitted to a progressive axisymmetric compression (either isotropic or anisotropic) as an irreversible process which destroys the larger voids; a statistical mechanics approach similar to the one proposed by Boutreux & de Gennes is performed which leads to the equation of the density of normally consolidated states as a function of pressure; this equation is in agreement with experimental data and the typical variation of e (void index) or v (specific volume) vs. ln(p) .
The mechanical yield of dense granular materials is a fascinating rheological phenomenon, beyond which stress no longer increases with strain at a sufficiently large deformation. Understanding the behavior of mechanical responses associated with yielding is a fundamental goal in granular physics, and other related fields including glassy physics, material sciences, geophysics, and active matter biophysics. However, despite nearly half a century of theoretical efforts, the nature of yielding in amorphous solids remains largely elusive compared to its crystalline counterpart. Here, we experiment…
The physical properties of granular materials have been extensively studied in recent years. So far, however, there exists no theoretical framework which can explain the observations in a unified manner beyond the phenomenological jamming diagram [1]. This work focuses on the case of static granular matter, where we have constructed a statistical ensemble [2] which mirrors equilibrium statistical mechanics. This ensemble, which is based on the conservation properties of the stress tensor, is distinct from the original Edwards ensemble and applies to packings of deformable grains. We combine it…
This paper aims to justify the use of statistical mechanics tools in situations where the system is out of equilibrium and jammed. Specifically, we derive a Boltzmann equation for a jammed granular system and show that the Boltzmann's analysis can be used to produce a ``Second Law'', $\dot{S}\ge 0$ for jammed systems. We highlight the fundamental questions in this area of physics and point to the key quantities in characterising a packing of particles, accessible through a novel experimentation method which we also present here.
Magic Sand, a hydrophobic toy granular material, is widely used in popular science instructions because of its non-intuitive mechanical properties. A detailed study of the failure of an underwater column of magic sand shows that these properties can be traced to a single phenomenon: the system self-generates a cohesive skin that encapsulates the material inside. The skin, consists of pinned air-water-grain interfaces, shows multi-scale mechanical properties: they range from contact-line dynamics in the intra-grain roughness scale, plastic flow at the grain scale, all the way to the sample-scal…
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 case of disordered systems composed of granular particles confined between two plates, as this is a simple model of seismic fault. Indeed, in the geophysical context frictional weakening could explain the unexpected weakness of some faults, as well as earthquake remote triggering. In this manuscript we review recent results concerning the response of confin…
Understanding the coupled thermo-mechanical behaviour of compacted granular beds can benefit various industrial applications, such as pebble bed design in fusion reactors. In this study, a thermo-mechanical discrete element method based on our previous work is improved and adapted to investigate the cyclic thermo-mechanical performance of gas-filled granular materials composed of elastoplastic grains. An interparticle contact model is developed considering the plastic deformation of grains. Through the simulation on a representative volume element of beryllium pebble beds, we provide grain-sca…
Recently, a new nonlocal granular rheology was successfully used to predict steady granular flows, including grain-size-dependent shear features, in a wide variety of flow configurations, including all variations of the split-bottom cell. A related problem in granular flow is that of mechanically-induced creep, in which shear deformation in one region of a granular medium fluidizes its entirety, including regions far from the sheared zone, effectively erasing the yield condition everywhere. This enables creep deformation when a force is applied in the nominally quiescent region through an intr…
The mechanical properties of a disordered heterogeneous medium depend, in general, on a complex interplay between multiple length scales. Connecting local interactions to macroscopic observables, such as stiffness or fracture, is thus challenging in this type of material. Here, we study the properties of a cohesive granular material composed of glass beads held together by soft polymer bridges. We characterise the mechanical response of single bridges under traction and shear, using a setup based on the deflection of flexible micropipettes. These measurements, along with information from X-ray…
We perform molecular dynamic (MD) simulations of frictional non-thermal particles driven by an externally applied shear stress. After the system jams following a transient flow, we probe its mechanical response in order to clarify whether the resulting solid is 'fragile'. We find the system to respond elastically and isotropically to small perturbations of the shear stress, suggesting absence of fragility. These results are interpreted in terms of the energy landscape of dissipative systems. For the same values of the control parameters, we check the behaviour of the system during a stress cyc…
We computationally investigate the wave propagation characteristics of nanoscopic granular crystals composed of one-dimensionally arrayed gold nanoparticles using molecular dynamics simulation. We examine two basic configurations, i.e. homogeneous lattices and diatomic lattices with mass-mismatch. We discover that homogeneous lattices of gold nanospheres support weakly dissipative and highly localized solitary wave at 300 K, while diatomic lattices have a good tuning ability of transmittance and wave speed. We establish a validated nonlinear spring contact model with the consideration of compl…
An ensemble approach for force distributions in static granular packings is developed. This framework is based on the separation of packing and force scales, together with an a-priori flat measure in the force phase space under the constraints that the contact forces are repulsive and balance on every particle. We show how the formalism yields realistic results, both for disordered and regular ``snooker ball'' configurations, and obtain a shear-induced unjamming transition of the type proposed recently for athermal media.
We propose an explanation for the onset of oscillations seen in numerical simulations of dense, inclined flows of inelastic, frictional spheres. It is based on a phase transition between disordered and ordered collisional states that may be interrupted by the formation of force chains. Low frequency oscillations between ordered and disordered states take place over weakly bumpy bases; higher-frequency oscillations over strongly bumpy bases involve the formation of particle chains that extend to the base and interrupt the phase change. The predicted frequency and amplitude of the oscillations i…
Changes in the mechanical properties of granular materials, induced by variations in the intrinsic compressibility of the particles, are investigated by means of numerical simulations based on the combination of the Finite Element and Contact Dynamics methods. Assemblies of athermal 2D particles are subjected to quasi-static uni-axial compactions up to packing fractions close to $1$. Inspired by the contact mechanics in the Hertz's limit, we show that the effect of the compressibility of the particles both on the global and the local stresses, can be described by considering only the packing f…
We introduce a deductive statistical mechanics approach for granular materials which is formally built from few realistic physical assumptions. The main finding is an universal behavior for the distribution of the density fluctuations. Such a distribution is the equivalent of the Maxwell-Boltzmann's distribution in the kinetic theory of gasses. The comparison with a very extensive set of experimental and simulation data for packings of monosized spherical grains, reveals a remarkably good quantitative agreement with the theoretical predictions for the density fluctuations both at the grain lev…
