Granular Physics

by Anita Mehta

Overview

The field of granular physics has burgeoned since its development in the late 1980s, when physicists first began to use statistical mechanics to study granular media. They are prototypical of complex systems, manifesting metastability, hysteresis and bistability, and a range of other fascinating phenomena. This 2007 book is a wide-ranging account of developments in granular physics, and lays out the foundations of the statics and dynamics of granular physics. It covers a wide range of subfields, ranging from fluidisation to jamming, and these are modelled through a range of computer simulation and theoretical approaches. Written with an eye to pedagogy and completeness, this book will be valuable asset to any researcher in this field. The book also contains contributions from Professor Sir Sam Edwards, with Dr Raphael Blumenfeld, Professor Isaac Goldhirsch and Professor Philippe Claudin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521660785
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/28/2007
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.89(w) x 10.04(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Anita Mehta, a former Rhodes scholar, is currently a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University. She is well known as being one of the pioneers in granular physics, and is credited with the introduction of many new concepts in this field, in particular to do with the competition of slow and fast modes in granular dynamics.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Computer simulation approaches - an overview; 3. Structure of vibrated powders - numerical results; 4. Collective structures in sand - the phenomenon of bridging; 5. On angles of repose: bistability and collapse; 6. Compaction of disordered grains in the jamming limit: sand on random graphs; 7. Shaking a box of sand I - a simple lattice model; 8. Shaking a box of sand II - at the jamming limit, when shape matters!; 9. Avalanches with reorganising grains; 10. From earthquakes to sandpiles - stick-slip motion; 11. Coupled continuum equations: the dynamics of sand-pile surfaces; 12. Theory of rapid granular flows; 13. The thermodynamics of granular materials; 14. Static properties of granular materials; Author index; Subject index; Bibliography.