2014/12/22 by Raphaël Blumenfeld, Raphael Blumenfeld, Blumenfeld, Raphael
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Granular flow and fluidized beds #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1412.6933
4 pages, 3 figures, of which two with subfigures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett, minor editing in version 2
openalex publication_date 2014/12/22 · arxiv created 2015/05/01 · arxiv updated 2015/05/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A first-principles theory is developed for the general evolution of a key structural characteristic of planar granular systems - the cell order distribution. The dynamic equations are constructed and solved in closed form for a number of examples: dense systems undergoing progressive compaction; initial dilation of very dense systems; and the approach to steady state of general systems. It is shown that the convergence to steady state is exponential, except when contacts are only broken and no new contacts are made, in which case the approach is algebraic in time. Where no closed form solutions are possible, illustrative numerical solutions of the evolution are shown. These show that the dynamics are sensitive to the cell event rates, which are process dependent. The formalism can be extended to other structural characteristics, paving the way to a general theory of structural organisation of granular systems, parameterised by the contact event rates.