title: Shearing behavior of polydisperse media.
abstract: We study the shearing of polydisperse and bidisperse media with a size ratio of 10. Simulations are performed with a two-dimensional shear cell using contact dynamics. With a truncated power law for the polydisperse media we find that they show a stronger dilatancy and greater resistance to shearing than bidisperse mixtures. To model additives used to control viscosity we introduce so-called "point-like particles". Even changing the kinematic behavior very little, the point-like particles reduce the force necessary to maintain a fixed shearing velocity.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany. M.Wackenhut@ica1.uni-stuttgart.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wackenhut
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McNamara
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Herrmann