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Slow relaxation and compaction of granular systems

Nature Materials volume 4, pages 121–128 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Granular materials are of substantial importance in many industrial and natural processes, yet their complex behaviours, ranging from mechanical properties of static packing to their dynamics, rheology and instabilities, are still poorly understood. Here we focus on the dynamics of compaction and its 'jamming' phenomena, outlining recent statistical mechanics approaches to describe it and their deep correspondence with thermal systems such as glass formers. In fact, granular media are often presented as ideal systems for studying complex relaxation towards equilibrium. Granular compaction is defined as an increase of the bulk density of a granular medium submitted to mechanical perturbation. This phenomenon, relevant in many industrial processes and widely studied by the soil mechanics community, is simple enough to be fully investigated and yet reveals all the complex nature of granular dynamics, attracting considerable attention in a broad range of disciplines ranging from chemical to physical sciences.

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Figure 1: Experimental set-ups and density relaxation laws.
Figure 2: Annealing and aging during compaction.
Figure 3: Experimental measurement of an effective temperature.
Figure 4: Temperature determination in a numerical model.
Figure 5: Phase diagram for a numerical model of granular material.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Groupe Matière Condensée et Matériaux, UMR CNRS 6626, Université de Rennes I, Rennes, 35042, Cedex, France

    Patrick Richard, Renaud Delannay, Philippe Ribière & Daniel Bideau

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze Fisi che, Università di Napoli 'Federico II', INFN and INFM Coherentia, Via Cintia, Napoli, 80126, Italy

    Mario Nicodemi

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Correspondence to Patrick Richard.

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Richard, P., Nicodemi, M., Delannay, R. et al. Slow relaxation and compaction of granular systems. Nature Mater 4, 121–128 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1300

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