title: Convection, heaping, and cracking in vertically vibrated granular slurries.
abstract: We address the situation in which vibration is applied to thin layers of granular material with water filling the pore space, but with air above. Beyond a critical drive parameter we observe heap-shaped convecting domains of nontrivial topology, which exhibit cracks as the forcing amplitude is further increased. We summarize these results in a phase diagram, understand the onset of the convecting heaps as a manifestation of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability for fluids, and measure the response of isolated convecting structures.
authors: Division of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
authors: J M
authors: JM
authors: Schleier-Smith
authors: H A
authors: HA
authors: Stone