title: Modeling a washboard road: from experimental measurements to linear stability analysis.
abstract: When submitted to the repeated passages of vehicles unpaved roads made of sand or gravel can develop a ripply pattern known as washboard or corrugated road. We propose a stability analysis based on experimental measurements of the force acting on a blade (or plow) dragged on a circular sand track and show that a linear model is sufficient to describe the instability near onset. The relation between the trajectory of the plow and the profile of the sand bed left after its passage is studied experimentally. The various terms in the expression of the lift force created by the flow of granular material on the plow are determined up to first order by imposing a sinusoidal trajectory to the blade on an initially flat sand bed, as well as by imposing a horizontal trajectory on an initially rippled sand bed. Our model recovers all the previously observed features of washboard road and accurately predicts the most unstable wavelength near onset as well as the critical velocity for the instability.
authors: Université de Lyon, Laboratoire de Physique, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR 5672, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France.
authors: Baptiste
authors: B
authors: Percier
authors: Sébastien
authors: S
authors: Manneville
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Taberlet
mesh_terms: D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016014:Linear Models; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D012212:Rheology / Q000379:methods*; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D014186:Transportation
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids; D012822:Silicon Dioxide