No Arabic abstract
We present a multiscale simulation algorithm for amorphous materials, which we illustrate and validate in a canonical case of dense granular flow. Our algorithm is based on the recently proposed Spot Model, where particles in a dense random packing undergo chain-like collective displacements in response to diffusing spots of influence, carrying a slight excess of interstitial free volume. We reconstruct the microscopic dynamics of particles from the coarse grained dynamics of spots by introducing a localized particle relaxation step after each spot-induced block displacement, simply to enforce packing constraints with a (fairly arbitrary) soft-core repulsion. To test the model, we study to what extent it can describe the dynamics of up to 135,000 frictional, viscoelastic spheres in granular drainage simulated by the discrete-element method (DEM). With only five fitting parameters (the radius, volume, diffusivity, drift velocity, and injection rate of spots), we find that the spot simulations are able to largely reproduce not only the mean flow and diffusion, but also some subtle statistics of the flowing packings, such as spatial velocity correlations and many-body structural correlations. The spot simulations run over 100 times faster than DEM and demonstrate the possibility of multiscale modeling for amorphous materials, whenever a suitable model can be devised for the coarse-grained spot dynamics.
We report numerical results of effective attractive forces on the packing properties of two-dimensional elongated grains. In deposits of non-cohesive rods in 2D, the topology of the packing is mainly dominated by the formation of ordered structures of aligned rods. Elongated particles tend to align horizontally and the stress is mainly transmitted from top to bottom, revealing an asymmetric distribution of local stress. However, for deposits of cohesive particles, the preferred horizontal orientation disappears. Very elongated particles with strong attractive forces form extremely loose structures, characterized by an orientation distribution, which tends to a uniform behavior when increasing the Bond number. As a result of these changes, the pressure distribution in the deposits changes qualitatively. The isotropic part of the local stress is notably enhanced with respect to the deviatoric part, which is related to the gravity direction. Consequently, the lateral stress transmission is dominated by the enhanced disorder and leads to a faster pressure saturation with depth.
The wall shear rate distribution P(gamma) is investigated for pressure-driven Stokes flow through random arrangements of spheres at packing fractions 0.1 <= phi <= 0.64. For dense packings, P(gamma) is monotonic and approximately exponential. As phi --> 0.1, P(gamma) picks up additional structure which corresponds to the flow around isolated spheres, for which an exact result can be obtained. A simple expression for the mean wall shear rate is presented, based on a force-balance argument.
We study the localization of vibrational modes of frictionless granular media. We introduce a new method, motivated by earlier work on non-Hermitian quantum problems, which works well both in the localized regime where the localization length $xi$ is much less than the linear size $L$ and in the regime $xi$ grater or of order $L$ when modes are extended throughout our finite system. Our very lowest frequency modes show quasi-localized resonances away from the jamming point; the spatial extent of these regions increases as the jamming point is approached, as expected theoretically. Throughout the remaining frequency range, our data show no signature of the nearness of the jamming point and collapse well when properly rescaled with the system size. Using Random Matrix Theory we derive the scaling relation $xi$ ~ $L^{d/2}$ for the regime $xi$ >> $L$ in $d$ dimensions.
The effects of movement of the side walls of a confined granular packing are studied by discrete element, molecular dynamics simulations. The dynamical evolution of the stress is studied as a function of wall movement both in the direction of gravity as well as opposite to it. For all wall velocities explored, the stress in the final state of the system after wall movement is fundamentally different from the original state obtained by pouring particles into the container and letting them settle under the influence of gravity. The original packing possesses a hydrostatic-like region at the top of the container which crosses over to a depth-independent stress. As the walls are moved in the direction opposite to gravity, the saturation stress first reaches a minimum value independent of the wall velocity, then increases to a steady-state value dependent on the wall-velocity. After wall movement ceases and the packing reaches equilibrium, the stress profile fits the classic Janssen form for high wall velocities, while it has some deviations for low wall velocities. The wall movement greatly increases the number of particle-wall and particle-particle forces at the Coulomb criterion. Varying the wall velocity has only small effects on the particle structure of the final packing so long as the walls travel a similar distance.
Experimental measurements of particle dynamics on the lower surface of a 3D Couette cell containing monodisperse spheres are reported. The average radial density and velocity profiles are similar to those previously measured within the bulk and on the lower surface of the 3D cell filled with mustard seeds. Observations of the evolution of particle velocities over time reveal distinct motion events, intervals where previously stationary particles move for a short duration before jamming again. The cross-correlation between the velocities of two particles at a given distance $r$ from the moving wall reveals a characteristic lengthscale over which the particles are correlated. The autocorrelation of a single particles velocity reveals a characteristic timescale $tau$ which decreases with distance from the inner moving wall. This may be attributed to the increasing rarity at which the discrete motion events occur and the reduced duration of those events at large $r$. The relationship between the RMS azimuthal velocity fluctuations, $delta v_theta(r)$, and average shear rate, $dotgamma(r)$, was found to be $delta v_theta propto dotgamma^alpha$ with $alpha = 0.52 pm 0.04$. These observations are compared with other recent experiments and with the modified hydrodynamic model recently introduced by Bocquet et al.