Evolution of percolating force chains in compressed granular media.
The evolution of effective force chains percolating through a compressed granular system is investigated. We compressed an ensemble of spherical particles monitoring the macroscopic constitutive behavior and the acoustic signals emitted by microscopic rearrangements of particles. We applied the continuous damage model of fiber bundles to describe the evolution of the array of force chains. The model provides a nonlinear constitutive behavior in good quantitative agreement with the experimental results. The amplitude distribution of acoustic signals was found experimentally to follow a power law of an exponent delta=1.15+/-0.05, which is in good agreement with the analytic solution of the model.
Hidalgo
Raúl Cruz
RC
ICA1, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Grosse
Christian U
CU
Kun
Ferenc
F
Reinhardt
Hans W
HW
Herrmann
Hans J
HJ