No Arabic abstract
When a rod is vertically withdrawn from a granular layer, oblique force chains can be developed by effective shearing. In this study, the force-chain structure in a rod-withdrawn granular layer was experimentally investigated using a photoelastic technique. The rod is vertically withdrawn from a two-dimensional granular layer consisting of bidisperse photoelastic disks. During the withdrawal, the development process of force chains is visualized by the photoelastic effect. By systematic analysis of photoelastic images, force chain structures newly developed by the rod withdrawing are identified and analyzed. In particular, the relation between the rod-withdrawing force $F_mathrm{w}$, total force-chains force $F_mathrm{t}$, and their average orientation $theta$ are discussed. We find that the oblique force chains are newly developed by withdrawing. The force-chain angle $theta$ is almost constant (approximately $20^{circ}$ from the horizontal), and the total force $F_mathrm{t}$ gradually increases by the withdrawal. In addition, $F_mathrm{t}sintheta$ shows a clear correlation with $F_mathrm{w}$.
We measure the drag encountered by a vertically oriented rod moving across a sedimented granular bed immersed in a fluid under steady-state conditions. At low rod speeds, the presence of the fluid leads to a lower drag because of buoyancy, whereas a significantly higher drag is observed with increasing speeds. The drag as a function of depth is observed to decrease from being quadratic at low speeds to appearing more linear at higher speeds. By scaling the drag with the average weight of the grains acting on the rod, we obtain the effective friction $mu_e$ encountered over six orders of magnitude of speeds. While a constant $mu_e$ is found when the grain size, rod depth and fluid viscosity are varied at low speeds, a systematic increase is observed as the speed is increased. We analyze $mu_e$ in terms of the inertial number $I$ and viscous number $J$ to understand the relative importance of inertia and viscous forces, respectively. For sufficiently large fluid viscosities, we find that the effect of varying the speed, depth, and viscosity can be described by the empirical function $mu_e = mu_o + k J^n$, where $mu_o$ is the effective friction measured in the quasi-static limit, and $k$ and $n$ are material constants. The drag is then analyzed in terms of the effective viscosity $eta_e$ and found to decrease systematically as a function of $J$. We further show that $eta_e$ as a function of $J$ is directly proportional to the fluid viscosity and the $mu_e$ encountered by the rod.
We report a peculiar dynamic phenomenon in granular gases, chain structures of head-on collisions caused by the boundary heated mechanism form a network in an Airbus micro-gravity experiment and horizontal vibrated one in the laboratory, which differ markedly from the grazing-collision-dominant in randomly driven granular fluid. This new order property is an orientation correlation between the relative position and the relative velocity of any particle pair, which weakens the collision frequency and leads a long range boundary effect. By the histogram of the relative position and the relative velocity, we find this position-velocity correlation is not only at limits of very small relative velocities but also large ones, which means the breakdown of molecular chaos assumption is not limited to a small portion of the phase space. Through a simple anisotropic angular distribution model of the relative position and the relative velocity, we could modify classical uniform angular integration results of mean field values taking the effect of the observed collision chain structure explicitly into account.
We investigate how forces spread through frictionless granular packs at the jamming transition. Previous work has indicated that such packs are isostatic, and thus obey a null stress law which, independent of the packing history, causes rays of stress to propagate away from a point force at oblique angles. Prior verifications of the null stress law have used a sequential packing method which yields packs with anisotropic packing histories. We create packs without this anisotropy, and then later break the symmetry by adding a boundary. Our isotropic packs are very sensitive, and their responses to point forces diverge wildly, indicating that they cannot be described by any continuum stress model. We stabilize the packs by supplying an additional boundary, which makes the response much more regular. The response of the stabilized packs resembles what one would expect in a hyperstatic pack, despite the isostatic bulk. The expected stress rays characteristic of null stress behavior are not present. This suggests that isostatic packs do not need to obey a null stress condition. We argue that the rays may arise instead from more simple geometric considerations, such as preferred contact angles between beads.
We have made experimental observations of the force networks within a two-dimensional granular silo similar to the classical system of Janssen. Models like that of Janssen predict that pressure within a silo saturates with depth as the result of vertical forces being redirected to the walls of the silo where they can then be carried by friction. By averaging ensembles of experimentally-obtained force networks in different ways, we compare the observed behavior with various predictions for granular silos. We identify several differences between the mean behavior in our system and that predicted by Janssen-like models: We find that the redirection parameter describing how the force network transfers vertical forces to the walls varies with depth. We find that changes in the preparation of the material can cause the pressure within the silo to either saturate or to continue building with depth. Most strikingly, we observe a non-linear response to overloads applied to the top of the material in the silo. For larger overloads we observe the previously reported giant overshoot effect where overload pressure decays only after an initial increase [G. Ovarlez et al., Phys. Rev. E 67, 060302(R) (2003)]. For smaller overloads we find that additional pressure propagates to great depth. This effect depends on the particle stiffness, as given for instance by the Youngs modulus, E, of the material from which the particles are made. Important measures include E, the unscreened hydrostatic pressure, and the applied load. These experiments suggest that when the load and the particle weight are comparable, particle elasticity acts to stabilize the force network, allowing non-linear network effects to be seen in the mean behavior.
The deformation of thin rods in a viscous liquid is central to the mechanics of motility in cells ranging from textit{Escherichia coli} to sperm. Here we use experiments and theory to study the shape transition of a flexible rod rotating in a viscous fluid driven either by constant torque or at constant speed. The rod is tilted relative to the rotation axis. At low applied torque, the rod bends gently and generates small propulsive force. At a critical torque, the rotation speed increases abruptly and the rod forms a helical shape with much greater propulsive force. We find good agreement between theory and experiment.