title: Force-chain distributions in granular systems.
abstract: We study experimentally the distributions of force chains in granular materials, which are slightly different in sheared systems compared to isotropically compressed systems, especially at the tails, reflecting the shear-induced anisotropy of the contact force network. Ignoring this anisotropy allows us to establish a relationship between the mean force-chain length Lm and the average contact number Z of particles for both systems, independent of the system size. We also demonstrate that force-chain distributions are not related to the exponential-like distributions of stresses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Yujie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China and Institute of Natural Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang